We held this meeting at University United Methodist Church, where a table of delightful spring foods and drinks was available for pre- and post-meeting snacking, as well as covert raids during the meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Renee-Noelle Felice<\/strong>\nintroduced our topic by reading a moving poem, Invocation<\/em> by Jean Loman.\nThen she was joined by Liz Spence<\/strong> and\nGay Montague<\/strong> as they read part of a\npoem for three voices Vernal Equinox<\/em> by Caroline Candler. Each of our\nreaders had dressed for her part as maiden, motherhood, and crone, adding\nvisual emphasis to their words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Francine Berg<\/strong>\nthen led the assembled women in a Native American song that repeats,\naccompanied by the sound of everyone patting her thighs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe\nearth is our mother, We must take care of her, Hey yana ho yana hey yon yon.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We are always amazed at how good we\nsound when Francine leads us!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Francine introduced Elizabeth\nDorosz<\/strong>, a Syracuse dentist who was originally from Poland. Elizabeth\nbelieves strongly in natural (not the same as organic) gardening, using no\nchemicals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She began by warning us not to buy seeds that have been\ngenetically modified. These will grow into plants that lack hardiness, and if\nyou harvest the seeds from the ensuing crops, they won’t germinate the next\nyear. This keeps the seed companies in business, as new seeds must be purchased\nevery year. She suggested that the best source for organic seeds is Nature Tyme\nor the Co-op on Kensington Place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Francine volunteered that she had purchased a large supply\nof potted herbs which all died. Elizabeth said that happened because the plants\nprobably were genetically modified and forced, and lacked the stamina of\nnatural plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Julienne said that when she tried to buy non-coated seeds,\nthe store clerk told her that all of the produce at the Farmers\u2019 Market come\nfrom modified seeds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Elizabeth also explained how to compost household vegetable\nwaste, using this with manure, sand, coffee grounds, and peat to improve the\nsoil and nourish your plants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Elizabeth also warned to be careful putting purchased\nflowers, especially those that travel long distances, in your compost, as they\nhave undoubtedly received large doses of artificial fertilizers and pesticides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response to questions about controlling garden pests,\nElizabeth said controls should be natural. Allow toads to eat the slugs; enjoy\nthe ladybugs because they eat aphids; plant marigolds around tulips to deter\ndeer or among the tomato plants to discourage Japanese beetles; put down black\nplastic as a weed barrier. She suggested using fish fertilizer, available at\nCountry Max on Bridge Street, to water the plants rather than chemical\nfertilizers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Elizabeth said that combining certain plants will help avoid\nsome pest problems. Plant lettuce between your carrots, radishes, and beets. Put\nparsley and dill together. Plant lovage. Elizabeth offered two handouts with\nadditional information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our next speaker was Betsy\nWiggins<\/strong>. She brought photos of her spring and summer gardens which\ncirculated as she spoke. Betsy read a passage from A New Earth<\/em> by Eckart\nTolle, which spoke of the first flowers as the enlightenment of plants. Tolle\nrelated the story of Buddha, who gave a silent sermon as he held aloft a single\nflower and gazed at it. When a monk eventually began to smile, it was clear\nthat he was the only one who understood the sermon. According to legend, that\nsmile, that realization, was handed down by 28 successive masters, and\neventually became the origin of Zen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Seeing beauty in a flower could awaken in humans the beauty\nthat is the most essential part of their innermost being. Recognition of beauty\nis one of the most significant events in the evolution of human consciousness,\nconnected to joy and love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Betsy said that she first felt that enlightenment at the age\nof five in her mother’s garden. She had awoken very early and dressed quickly\nto race out to be the first one at the swing in the back yard. Lying in a patch\nof lily of the valley was her mother, breathing in the dew-laden fragrance of\nthe tiny white bells. Betsy stopped and lay down with her and found the\nexperience so perfect that she cried. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, Betsy doesn’t mind the passing of any flowers, as she\nknows that there will be more to come. She feels that plants teach you to pay\nattention to shapes, fragrances, and colors that complement or contrast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Betsy’s Mom was raised in Atlanta, Georgia, where it was\ncommon on Sunday afternoons to go visiting. And the visitor would bring the\nhostess a tussy-mussy, a bouquet of mixed flowers from her own garden. They\nwere things of beauty and instant conversation starters, as the homeowners\ncompared the progress of their gardens and shared its bounty. She pointed to\nthe bouquet of tulips, daffodils, bleeding heart, forsythia, hydrangea, pansies\nand violas that she had brought to decorate our center table, as an example of\na tussy-mussy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For Betsy, gardens are her Zen, bringing awareness of beauty\nin both the outer and inner worlds. She nurtures her plants outside during warm\nmonths, and indoors under grow lights in cold months. She peruses catalogs,\nplanning for the next season and feeding her soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response to questions, Betsy recommended an egg and\nvinegar mixture to deter deer. She buys the dry mixture at Home Depot and adds\nwater, spraying this throughout the season. Although it has a bad smell that\nreoccurs after rain, it is quite effective and natural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Several members had brought poems for the season,\nrepresenting a variety of cultures, and read them aloud with delight. They put\nus in the mood for our final activity, a fusion of color, movement, and\nlaughter. Sixteen women held wide, summer-hued ribbons attached to the top of a\nMaypole. With eight moving clockwise and eight moving counterclockwise and up\nand down, we wove the ribbons around the pole in a beautiful pattern as\nFrancine sang and we all enjoyed the confusion of the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now on our feet, we all went to the plant tables where\nmembers shared the bounty of their gardens. Elizabeth had potted basil plants,\nenough for everyone. Betsy had bagged marigold seeds from last year’s garden,\nenough for everyone. Others had brought chives, lily of the valley, lamb’s\nears, pachysandra, and other plants, and many members left with bags ready for\nplanting in their gardens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gardens can bring awareness of beauty in both the outer and inner worlds. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-programs",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7808"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7811,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7808\/revisions\/7811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}