Well! It's Not So Weird To Me!

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I serendipitously stumbled upon a documentary about Gautama and the classical story of how he sought for, attained his enlightenment, and subsequently be-ca-me the Buddha. I would have planned to watch it if I'd been aware it was coming up, but I'm glad I fell into it anyway. I'd never seen a polished video on the topic of his life before. I'd only read about it in books.

There was a scene in the Gautama documentary about his life I wasn't aware of despite the fairly extensive reading and studying I'd done on his purported biography previously. He had returned from his initial travels to visit his wife who had recently delivered their new baby. Quite naturally, his wife wanted him to hold the newborn. He knew that if he took that baby in his arms that would be the end of his spiritual quest. He refused to hold the child and returned to his goal of acquiring enlightenment for good. 

Gautama and I were the same age of life when that happened. We were both approaching the first Saturn Return. It was during the last part of that 29 1/2 years cycle when we were both presented with our first child. This final phase of Saturn's orbit before it returns to the same place it was at first breath is represented by the last sign Pisces.

In astrology, Pisces is the sign of completion, and it represents the time of any cycle where the loose ends of the endeavor has to be cleaned up. Like getting a house ready for sale to fetch the highest price possible. In my natal astrology chart I have Venus and Jupiter conjoined in the last decan of Pisces, and my progressed Sun was passing by that specific configuration about the time my own first child was born. I too, ran for my spiritual life.

That is not the behavior of a person who has accepted the fate dictated by their family or tribe, in my ignominious and disgraceful opinion, but the deportment of a person who is chosen from childhood by mysterious forces to be tempted by that fate again and again whether they like it or not. Kismet.

Unlike Gautama, I tempted my fate once again. I married again and had two children with that woman, and instead of leaving them, pretty much forced them to leave me by another unforeseen explosion of physical violence. The first divorce almost destroyed my parent's child. I tried, but wasn't allowed to commit suicide. I meant for the second marriage to work and did a lotta stuff I wouldn't have done to keep it alive. It didn't matter.

For all kinds of reasons I never tried marriage again. Granted, I was tempted once by a real beauty, but the only way I can control my horrible temper is to live completely alone. At least, that's what I tell myself. I can't say I like living alone very much. I hate being an untouchable, because I do love touching and being touched very, very much. At least, I did once love it. No mas. The thrill is gone. Taking a good shit is more important in my dotage.

Being individuated is a piss-poor substitute for possessing relational exclusivity with a person who loves you back. Apparently loving me back can make a potential mate into a punching bag. Who wants that? Not me. I don't want it for them. I've lived alone since the end of my second marriage except for one brief encounter with a woman who sorta did wanna be a punching bag, sexually, and she was aggressively proactive in provoking my anger for her own ends. I ran for my life. I returned to here. It's to die for.

It's tradition for the farmers in this area of the coastal plains to not plant their produce crops until after Easter because of the chance of a late killing frost. It usually works out for them, but it hasn't always. They put a lotta money into plants and fertilizer and other overhead costs besides labor. Many of them borrow against a successful produce season. A killing frost can put them out of business and their families out on the street, so they're particular about planting too early.

They get the highest prices if they're the first-est with the most-est when it come to making money growing produce like bell peppers and squash and cucumbers. There is a window of opportunity as the Spring weather moves up from Florida.

Florida's produce ripens the earliest, but as sooner as the buyers and the truckers can buy produce closer to the NorthEastern markets like from D.C. north up to Boston, they stop paying the big money to the Florida crowd and move on up the Atlantic seaboard with the season to here, and then when the produce starts ripening in Virginia and Maryland, that's even closer and less expensive to haul to market than here, and the window of opportunity is gone.

What's I'm saying is that since Easter has come and gone, there's a pretty good chance we might not have a late killing frost, and my fig trees might have another bumper crop like they did last spring. To me, there's nothing quite so delicious as fresh, tree-ripened figs.

I'm especially happy about my new fig tree that I've been trying to keep alive for at least three years now. Each winter the live branches that barely stuck out of the ground died back, and each spring they had to grow up from the roots at square one. This past late fall I decided to rake a bunch of leaves over the top of the one branch that made up through the ground and lived through the summer to see if that would help it survive without having to start again from the root.

I uncovered it a week ago to see how it had done, and sure enough, there were a couple of tiny green buds on the tip of last summer's growth. With this commercial cutting sprouting out above ground from the first day of spring there's a chance it might grow enough to make it through next winter, and then live longer than me. The buds have gotten a little greener, but I'm afraid to trust my luck until they become green leaves. It's the best this plant has done so far, and I'm real happy about that.
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