Words from Cara - Blog | Stories by Cara Wilson-Granat

Homage to the Weed

“A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.”
Doug Larson

I have found that one of the most enduring Nature Teachers is not the most appreciated of the plant family. In fact, its Latin name is “Arundo Donax”, or cockroach of the plant kingdom. The Weed.

I’ve never known why it is so hated, so completely undermined. For what I appreciate the most of about weeds are their determination to grow outside the lines. Yes, they wreak havoc inside coiffed gardens of landscaped perfection. But they don’t seem to care. I imagine them laughing at their undesired presence as they immerge with their scruffy, “bedhead” looks, some rumpled and scraggly, others spiky and wild, and many with a beauty all their own. They stretch to the sky. They wear flowers and burrs and stickers. They spread and burst into places no one seems to want them to be—and, like the famous honey badger—they simply don’t give a shit.

You can pull them out. Poison the hell out of them. Swear at them. Find the perfect chemical solutions and fertilizers to deter them, but ultimately the weed wins. Once a garden is deserted, or a field left to its own resources untended by human attention, the weed takes over and makes its untamed presence known. It grows anywhere, adapting to any situation. It doesn’t seem to have any special requirements in order to do its thing or be who it is. It doesn’t apologize. It just appears without any need for ceremony—happy to be alive wherever it grows. Rocky, deserted paths? It’s thriving. Discarded hillsides? Trash-inundated ditches? Inside train tracks, cracks in the sidewalk, freeway embankments? There’s always a weed to be discovered, seemingly unaware of its marked “ugly duckling-ness.” It bobs and dances in the sunshine and breezes appearing more swan-like than not. I love what James Russell Lowell says about the weed, that it is truly, “…no more than a flower in disguise, which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes.”

Because I believe that the weed has within it something most of us long for but don’t have. Self-esteem. It’s comfortable with itself. It has a beauty, joy and resolve all its own no matter what the world says it is or names it to be. I love it and I strive to have all that it is and has—the fortitude of a cockroach and the elegance of a calla lily.

“I didn’t want to tell the tree or weed what it was.
I wanted it to tell me something and through me express its meaning in nature.”
Wynn Bullock

I invite you to enjoy this wonderful article by Richard Whittaker and Doug Burgess on the unique beauty and complexity of “Weeds.”

This Week’s Featured Interview: Greg Archer

When Greg Archer and I started talking about using his own garbage from which to grow abundantly, I had a preconceived idea of where the direction would be heading. Greg, a longtime Editor of The Good Times newspaper in Santa Cruz, California was from my vantage point a success. His interviews engage him in dialogue with the rich and famous. He attends star-studded events; travels in trendy circles everywhere; is already an accomplished writer co-authoring a popular book, Shut-Up, Skinny Bitches; was a health enthusiast—everything from yoga to meditation to rigorous workouts and more.

I thought we would talk about how he had grown such a triumphant life after years of fighting lack of self-esteem, an unhappy body image and his fight to maintain the course after roller-coaster bouts of yo-yo dieting. We talked about his desire to help men, especially gay men, find more meaningful ways to accept themselves and others seeing beyond the superficial look and preconception of body-beautiful. But as we talked, something profound began to reveal itself.

Greg told me that he has a restlessness within him. He has this almost mystical longing, a calling to go back in time and unearth his Polish family’s story. I asked him to tell me about it and he began to share a story that is not unlike Dr. Zhivago meets the Holocaust meets raw, surreal, unthinkable slave-driving cruelty under Stalin’s bloody grip during World War II, and a Catholic Polish family’s miraculous survival against years of horror. The saga of his relatives covered continents and your heart pounds, you can barely breathe reading Greg’s article about them. It is the foundation upon which he is planning to write in a novel; the garbage of despair upon which his own garden will finally take root and grow.

Greg’s true roots are alive in his Polish ancestry. Their tears and screams and struggles and survival and longings to find a place of their own, a place from which they could call home at last–those are the source of Greg’s own insecurity and feelings of entrapment that has barely anything to do with the present. He has inherited the pain of his astounding family’s past and he needs to unshackle their entrapment in order for him to be free. Only then will he be able to grow the garden of true abundance that is woven into all that he is today — a first generation Pole who is longing to embrace the power of his extraordinary heritage. I welcome you to read an article Greg wrote about his family and that will soon feed a wealth of imagery in a story that must be told – The Family Gift: http://goodtimessantacruz.com/index.php/good-times-cover-stories/667-the-family-gift.html

An Unfairwell…

I can’t stand it anymore. Deep down in the bowels of my apartment complex next to dumpsters and rows of cars I notice her. There she leans, tossed out, forgotten, the faint keen pine smell of her dry leaves barely discernible next to the wreak of trash. I could wax poetic about how unfair this final act feels to me; how once she was picked among many (after having been cut down, which I’ll never understand), chosen to carry radiance in her verdant branches, helping to illuminate “comfort and joy” somewhere beyond this dark dungeon of which she now has been pitched. But I won’t go on with this. It’s pointless pondering that goes nowhere except into deeper sadness.

I just need to look at her and remind her from my heart to hers that she still mattered. That hopefully very soon she’ll be lifted up and returned to mulch and compost and become part of the very earth that birthed her. And that maybe someday there will be a gentler, far more compassionate way of saying goodbye to others like her that once mattered. I do have hope for that…

Shoveling out a brand new perspective in 2012

Get your sh*t together in January! The book’s ready for shipment on the 17th!!!! Yayyyy!

Paperback – $14.95

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many
are strong in the broken places.”
Hemingway, A. Farewell to Arms

“I can’t believe this is happening!”

“If one more thing hits I don’t know what I’m gonna do!”

“My life is pure crap!”

“How did I get into this shitty situation?”

“Is EVERYTHING this horrible?”

“WHY ME?????”

“HELLLPPPPP!!!!!”

Okay, you and I already know that shit, indeed, happens – literally and figuratively. You don’t need to read a book to know that this is so. But I’m presenting you with a book—It Takes A Lot of Sh*t To Make A Garden Grow—with a different twist. What if, just what is the possibility, you could take the challenge you’re dealing with right now and look at it as a kind of compost to help you re-landscape and ultimately grow a brand new perspective?

That’s what I was forced to do when I found myself knee-high in metaphorical muck. I knew I had a choice as to either slide deeper into that dark abyss of hopelessness…or start shoveling out of it. After a series of life-stuff had hit me almost simultaneously—divorce, a health scare and some other terrifying losses—I was convinced I was going to die. All that I knew about who I was—or thought I was—was being challenged. I had been given a Cosmic Kick—the rug had been pulled out from under me big time.

As a recalcitrant student in school, I still wasn’t learning my life lessons and an inner voice simply said, “You’re not getting it. You have your health and your loved ones and now the chance to learn about who you are for the first time. No more hiding…”

I was starting my life all over again at almost fifty years of age. I had barely any money, lost my beautiful family home and along with stacks of boxes from my past life, had gathered my six animals I adored and depended on me as much as I depended on them. (Thankfully, my two sons were grown and I did this personal pilgrimage solo. I don’t know how single parents manage to do this with young children. My heart goes out to them.)

I remember looking at my emaciated reflection in the mirror in a crammed, one-room studio far away from anything and anybody I knew before. I was miserable; filled with terror and self-pity and one step in the grave. What a shitty way to die. This was NOT the way my life was supposed to be—or end. And who, by the way, would feed my animals? That question alone was a significant turning point for me. I needed to find jobs to feed my little kennel (two large dogs, two cats and two birds) and myself—and I needed to do it fast.

So this was the beginning of a journey that continues to this day. An adventure I now understand that I longed for but never realized I did until it happened and it ultimately helped inspire this book.

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”
Helen Keller

Let Go…Let GPS

Some people seem to be born with a kind of inner navigation chip. Just like homing pigeons. They always seem to know where they’re going and can find their way back and forth with ease. New directions never daunt them. Plop these savvy adventurers in the middle of a freeway grid and they simply navigate seamlessly around and through it and get where they’re going to without nary a ruffled feather.

I’m not one of those birds. In fact, you can easily say I’m a total chicken when it comes to facing one of my worst fears: Getting Lost. The problem is I have zero sense of direction. North, south, east, west? Gimme a break. I only do “left” and “right” and landmarks. Heaven forbid that a store is shut down or a familiar gas station is now a parking lot. I’m lost. Compounded with my other fear of navigating insane freeways that merge and submerge and zig and zag traffic at high speeds enough to make my already silver-ish hair go grey—well you get the picture. I hate driving OUT THERE. Yes, I originated in Los Angeles and somehow survived the madness of maneuvering through La-La Land and that “are-you-kidding-me?” log-jam of four-wheel madness. I did it then. But I was younger and stupider to the ways of the world. That world was all I knew. But time and life-changes (living in the safe cocoon of Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula) and new perspectives began to impact my reality and I succumbed to my present driving fears.

I would only drive highways. I’d arrive at my destination on time but no one knew that I’d started out oh, maybe an hour or two ahead of whenever I was supposed to be where I was expected. No one was the wiser—except my close friends and family who always prodded me with the question, “Cara, you’re being a wimp. Why don’t you get yourself a GPS?” It seemed like one more technical gadget that I would have to deal with that was smarter than me and I’d be even more lost than ever. So it was that I did this circuitous driving dance in the Sacramento area and more recently in San Diego, where Pete and I recently moved.

Then my dear, 93-year-old father took pity on me as I faced a whole new world of strange freeways and directions beckoning the most beautiful places I was too afraid to discover on my own. I couldn’t always depend on Pete or anyone else to get me everywhere I needed to go (a habit I was getting too used to doing and seriously hated.) His job is super demanding and I’m on my own a great deal of the time. I knew that Fate or Karma or whatever had plopped me wayyyy out of my comfort zone. And I didn’t, for the life of me, know how to find my way back home. WTF!!!!!

What Dad did was gift me with a GPS. It arrived in an innocent-looking small box that belied the magic it contained. I seriously had no idea of how that little gadget would impact my life. After my daughter-in-law, Fabiane, showed me how it worked and drove me as we followed the mellifluous GPS voice—that of a patient and gentle woman without an attitude—I began to feel my traffic terror slowly subside. The little toy-like car on the GPS map replicating my own car made me feel like I was part of a benign video game rather than actually maneuvering in the middle of the San Diego testosterone-driven roar of zooming cars. Fabiane wisely advised me to not let the speeding cars intimidate me. And for me to not keep checking my rear-view mirror. “Just stay in the slow lane and let them pass you!”

At the end of that first virgin GPS run—in the dark on a strange freeway far from my home—I waved goodbye to my little family who was heading back to L.A. after a day in Lego Land. They all made me promise to call them when I got home. And now I was truly on my own. “Okay, GPS Fabulous Lady, Angel of The Road, Great Goddess of Manuevering: PULEEEZE DON’T GET ME LOST!!!!”

And you know what? I didn’t get lost. My GPS showed up big time and never once made me feel stupid or scared, but rather made sure I stayed in the lane I was meant to stay in and to make sure I got the point she repeated it at a gentle, but repetitive cadence that was ever so comforting. “Stay in the left lane. You will want to stay in the left lane…” She would alert me that at so many miles I would be making an exit, preparing me in time for what I should expect next. And while she was saying what she was saying, the little map was mirroring every nuance, every turn, every lane change. I could see and hear where I was heading. I wasn’t bewildered. I wasn’t terrified. I was driving back home.

In time I began to think of my GPS as a Guardian Angel. The thing is it’s designed to de-stupidize you. Seriously. Miss an exit like I did? She never once called me a jerk or an a-hole. Just calmly said, “Recalculating…” and she guided me right back to where I needed to go.

I began to think out loud as I followed her navigational expertise, “This is AMAZING. I can’t fail. I can’t get lost.” Because no matter how stymied I was by my directional challenges and driving skills or lack thereof, my GPS Guardian Angel seemingly ignored my ignoramus-ness and kindly recalculated me back on track. All stupid mistakes were magically transformed into destinations that ultimately offered solutions to get me to where I wanted to go. I could space out all over the damned place and she would still, ever-so-serenely recalculate me homeward. This was a miracle.

It got me to mulling over the thought that maybe we’re over-complicating everything in our lives. I mean, what if we just trusted that no matter how far off-base we are in our thinking or doing, there is a Higher Power there to guide us back to ourselves, to a better place, to a safer haven—if we simply trusted that this is so? We wouldn’t have to beat ourselves up because no matter what we did, our paths were always readjusted, recalculated. All roads would not only lead to Rome, but to Home. You aetheists might by now have pushed the “delete” button, but bare me out with this. Think how comforting it is to believe that there really is a Benevolent Being above and deep within each of our souls—(G-d or Jesus or Mohammad or Buddha or Abraham or Moses or The Great Spirit) that is always there to protect our travels and to never undermine our attempts to help us find our way. This Universal Life Force is non-judgmental, wise, accepting, and will instantly recalculate our missteps no matter how far we fall or fail—or happen to take what we consider to be the wrong exit. I know, that’s a lot of heavy-duty thinking prompted by a little GPS.

But for me who has white-knuckled so much of my life there is something profoundly reassuring to believe that I’m not alone in this madness. And though I’m not a Christian, I love the concept of Carrie Underwood’s hit song, “Jesus Take the Wheel.” At least while I’m attempting to drive my way through and around the San Diego freeway maze.

So I’ve named my GPS Angel—“Francis Gabriella”—after St. Francis, Patron Saint of Animals; and Archangel Gabriel, known for a whole passel of great things including to help communicators overcome fear, procrastination, and being able to navigate safely. His name means “Strength of God”. When I’m at the wheel I need all the angelic strength behind me the heavens can provide. And so does everyone who’s on the road with me…

Palm Trees, Tai Chi and Me…

“A tree that is unbending is easily broken.”
Lao Tzu

I don’t know if it’s the sound or the sight of them that I love most. From my vantage point, the graceful palms dance to the blustery winds outside the windows. High atop the fourth floor of our apartment we’re eye level to a glistening circle of these emerald beauties swaying from each view. The shushhhhing symphonies of palm fronds and wind lull me into a state of calmness. Boo and Scout curl into quiet cat-atonia next to me as we each watch and listen to the palms leaning and bending in tune to the gusts of wind playing around them. Amazing, I find myself wondering. That they don’t break in half.

What is it about them that makes each so malleable yet so strong? Why don’t they crack from such air born pummeling time and time again? “It’s their flexibility that contributes to their strength,” Ted Safford, Certified Arborist, explains.

The Nature Teacher lesson resonated loud and clear. If palms were rigid and unyielding in structure they would easily be felled from wild winds, “…but,” continues Safford, “…you see palm trees blowing and bending in hurricanes and horrific storms—and yes, some are downed by them, but in all my 35 years of maintaining palms I’ve never seen one break.”

In fact, research has proven that when palm trees are bent to such a degree that they’re practically parallel to the ground from the challenging gusts, their root system actually gets stronger, initiating new opportunities for growth.

I learned that palm trees aren’t really trees at all, but rather from the family of flowering plants—the only order of the monocots called “Arecales.” Ted admits his great affection for palms is not only because of their supple acquiescence to treacherous weather, but he loves their longitudinal simplicity. They don’t have added “baggage”—heavy branches and leaves—to weigh them down. Palms lose their wind-resistant leaves a lot faster than trees lose their branches. Once the leaves are gone in a storm there isn’t much left to catch the wind.

Palm trees also have an extremely flexible, fibrous trunk and a shallow-yet-regenerative root system as compared to a much sturdier tree such as an oak. This bendy ability gives the palm true mobility and wind-sway. The shallow, thinner roots make it easier for the palm to not only fall over rather than snap in half, but to rebuild a root structure yet again.

My goal now is to be more “palm like” in my approach to life. This is something that my Tai Chi teachers taught me as well. When one is coming at you in a mighty attack and you stand rigid, you are easily pushed over. But when you relax your shoulders and ever so slightly move with the punch, the attacker is the one who falls. I’ve seen this happen over and over again in class.

So I must remember all of these lessons: to face adversity, and the inevitable body slams of surprises, setbacks, losses, etc., with the same grace and majesty of a palm tree and a Tai Chi Master. To not stand rigid in fear and ultimately crack under pressure, but rather move in an inner dance-like sway to the wild winds of change. To not be blown-away by situational storms, but do all I can to relax into them and let my flexibility—an acceptance of life the way it is not the way I wish it to be—ultimately be my strength.

A Butterfly Moment

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”
Rabindranath Tagore

Kaio’s mama shouted for us to enjoy the delicate beauty of the little butterfly before it flew away. My five-year-old grandson, Kaio, and I ran over to witness the tiny beauty at our feet. None of us breathed as we watched her flap her wings and begin to take off and then—and then she fluttered, swayed, and looped-delooped lopsided back-down to earth. Oh! We gasped in unison. Something was terribly wrong. Kaio looked at her closer. “Oh no, Nana! I see the problem. She’s broken. There’s a hole in her wings. She’s hurt. I don’t think she can fly!” Instantly our joy in her jewel-like splendor dissolved into sorrow. Then action. “Nana, butterflies like nectar!” I soaked a bit of bread with honey. But the stickiness looked like it was going to glue her to a fast—albeit, sweet—denouement. “I know!” Kaio brightened. “Flowers!!!” He and I ran to gather as many flowers as we could find and he brought them to her. She would rally, show a spirited attempt to climb upon them and then again try to fly away only to find herself leveled, staggering to the earth far below her vertical goals of sky and tree tops and clouds.

Kaio and I ran along beside her. We placed her in a generous earthen pot and filled it with more flowers, hoping she would find solace in a safe garden for her final resting place. But no. She again would try again and again to fly and fall and lift and topple over and over again. Kaio named her “Flower” and I marveled at her strong will to live even though everything about her was ragged and growing ever more weary. Her strength was ebbing. “Nana, I think she’s going to die…” And we talked about how fierce she was in her fight for life. We worried that she might be grabbed up by a bird, or the dog might inadvertently step on her. So once again we scooped her up and placed her in a quiet grove of bushes and brought her a tiny cup of passion fruit juice surrounded by more flowers and there she rested. Exhausted. Probably from us carrying her about too much. In time, Kaio was off playing, his work with “Flower” was over. Somehow I knew that he knew there was not much more he could do for her and moved on.

But I couldn’t leave her side. I watched as she tried to drink the sweet liquid while her wings opened and closed slower and slower. In my heart I could almost feel the aching strains of Puccini’s exquisite opera, Madama Butterfly. In moments, breaths, her wings finally closed together as if in prayer transforming her into what looked like a minuscule Japanese origami—at last falling over on her side nestling against the flowers.

I guess the greatest lesson that beautiful little Nature Teacher taught me was that life is experienced in moments…some longer, some briefer, but all moments. We can’t hold on to them. We each have our own paths, our own time limits. And we must live with all our might until our time is up. Until then, we mustn’t give up. That little butterfly was determined to fly until she simply couldn’t any more. I loved that about her. All we can do is offer each other loving support—maybe even a flower or two—moment-to-moment. And learn from the wisdom of a child. At best, when someone beloved close to us dies—even if it’s a gentle butterfly—we must still live and then move on and play enjoying the remaining sunshine of the day…

Rock `n Roll Rose

I had to grab my camera and preserve the beauty of that extraordinary rose growing right smack in the midst of massive river rocks circling in every direction. There it was seemingly oblivious to its bouldery surroundings and—from my point of view—kinda taking it all for granite. In fact the rose was all the more beautiful because of the counterpoint of its brown/grey backdrop. One gorgeous bloom bobbing its head in the soft breeze, with evidence of a few more buds about to make their debut.

The rocky-rose reminded me of a story a woman told me about the hearty tomato plant that was growing right in the middle of her driveway—she had no idea how it got there or how in the world it was doing so well without any care. It just “planted” itself there and grew amazingly unexpected tomatoes. So it seemed this rose was doing its thing—albeit nurtured by attentive gardeners—but the affect was similar. It made you stop and smell the roses amidst the rocks and it made you just that much happier because of the experience. Nature Teachers do that. They remind you that even in the rockiest situations we’re all capable of finding our place in the sun. If we don’t let our surroundings or others’ prickly perspectives stop us from declaring our right to be who we are, we can rock `n roll just about anywhere!

The Power of Pod Potential

Periodically along my daily walks I find one lying on the path. Knocked off from its stem, separated from the rest of its floral family, a singular flower pod awaits its final ending. Kicked aside or simply left to wither in the hot sun it rests vulnerable and alone. I rarely can resist gathering up the little pod and taking it back with me, plopping it into a cool glass of water. There within minutes I watch as it begins to slowly open—as if in surprise, having already accepted its doom and discovering there’d been a last-minute recall from its sidewalk sentencing. Petal-by-petal it gathers in the soothing sunshine and fresh water living a glorious last gasp before its closing act.

I am forever awed by such bursts of life for it teaches me much not only about “pod potential,” but something more. This little Nature Teacher helps me see that we each have such strength within us to live and express ourselves—even when all appears hopeless. We might not believe it at the time, but if given a second chance to live, to express ourselves, to climb back up after falling down—even if for a brief moment—our spirit is equipped to rally and make it possible. We are wired to thrive, as we each have the potential to tap into that pocket of vibrant energy tucked inside our cells and bring it forth. We must never give up hope. We are living, breathing pod potentials. In the Sixties we called it “Flower Power.” Today that expression has a whole new meaning for me when I realize how literal it is. Little flower pods have powerful life-forces in them. And so do we. Bloom on!

Nature’s Purrrfect Comfort-Seekers: Cats…

As I greet the new day, flinging back blinds and opening windows, letting in the morning light and fresh new morning breath, Boo and Scout seek the first patches of sunshine streaking across the floor. They follow it at the sides of chairs and beds. Across the laptop. Next to the screen door. Filtering onto the carpet. Like mini heat-seekers they pounce on the instant warmth that immediately blisses them into a zen state of ecstazzzzzzzzzz’s. Watching them, I can’t help feeling a twinge of envy at how easily they seem to find what makes them happy and immerse themselves in it without a moment’s hesitation.

Why can’t I be more “cat-like” and let myself enjoy the comforting pleasure of a simple patch of sun—even if for a few minutes? Setting aside all the “shoulds” and “gotta-do’s” and lists upon lists of all that I expect of myself to accomplish from dawn to dusk. How good would it be to just allow myself the decadence of purposelessness? The tingling sensation of simply stretching and curling, rolling and yawning into a lazy clump—grabbing a small piece of early a.m. rays before they vanish from each room into the day like a bride gathering the silken train of her gown. Comfort should be as easy to embrace as the way in which Boo and Scout savor such peaceful purrrrsuits. My two favorite Nature Teachers are teaching me to paws upon the instantaneous joy of self-indulgence—one sunbeam at a time…

Get your sh*t together in January! The book’s ready for shipment on the 17th!!!! Yayyyy!

Paperback – $14.95

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” Rabindranath Tagore

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”
Rabindranath Tagore