Mrs. Teabody Puts a Bully in the Corner

A lily prepares to bloom without fear.

Hello, Summer! You have teased this little part of the world for weeks now with the errant scorcher, the ominous thunderstorms,  the lushing-out greens. Now this June 22, 2015 you have officially arrived full of promise, full of plans, and ready to throw a curve ball into any of it when you have a mind to. Welcome, Summer, with all your wacky and unpredictable wonderfulness.

At Tickle Your Fancy, Mrs. Teabody's little downtown enterprise, you can find at least a dozen teas that will flavor your summer in new and unchartered ways including Marrakech Mint, Moroccan Mint, and  Slammin' Sammy Spearmint for all of you who like to get your mint on. For the exotic, there is brandy new "Shakespeare" which is a dark chocolate cherry tea good hot or cold. For the health-conscious ( All tea drinkers believe in and enjoy wonderful health!) there is "Bullett-Proof", a rooibos generously laced with turmeric and ginger. Do check out the webpage and feel free to order. Mrs. Teabody just packed up an order for a darling friend in Colorado this morning, and she will happily make a packet for you, too.

 For most of May, Mr. Teabody spent a great deal of imagination and labor in wrestling rocks from Mother Earth and creating a meditation room at Chez Teabody. When the Teabodys first made their home in the Meadow Grounds fifteen years ago, Mrs. Teabody labored many days building little walls and planting lovely flowers to view from the bedroom window and from the back porch.  Along her little wall she planted lilies, dianthus, a pink spirea, several clumps of miscanthus and a pair of hollies as well as a very thorny and contorted New Dawn rose. She also planted two Buddleia, commonly known as butterfly bush and also known for their ability to take over, pushing the competition out of view, squelching the beauty of everything in its path to make itself shine. One of nature's bullies if you will.  Year before last some sort of blight affected the Buddleia cutting them down to half their size, and this year they were easy enough to eradicate from the garden. There is no place, after all, for a bully in the meditation garden. As the meditation garden took form, the beauty that was there all the time began to emerge. This morning, this June 22, 2015, there is nothing but beauty in the garden. There is order. There is riotous color. But here, here in this place made for peaceful contemplation, there is no room for aggression and dominance, no room for plants that thrive to the detriment to others.

The Buddleia have been relegated to the corner of the lot dedicated to similar undesirables: crown vetch, thorny dead rose branches, poison ivy. It's doing well there, happy to battle it out with other aggressive types and far enough away to do no harm. It has a lot of good qualities. Playing well with others just does not happen to be one of them.

Comments

  1. The Tea And Hat LadyJune 23, 2015 at 5:22 AM

    Excellent blog. I am reading about your meditation spot while enjoying mine with my morning/daily Matcha (www.teaandhats.com) in my cup. Here's to the enjoyment of life, gardens, happiness, and most of all Tea.

    ReplyDelete

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