Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

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  • Seasons change

    The rains have begun in Oregon, and soon the last of the flowers will wrap up their show and bed down until spring.

    I didn’t want to say goodbye for that long and so have been cutting and pressing a few blooms, mementos of all this year’s sunny garden pleasures.

    It’s surprising and fun to see what survives the loss of moisture. Queen Ann’s lace, lavendar, and the tiny blossoms from the rosemary plant all came together nicely, and glued fairly easily onto card stock.

    But wait, there’s more. I had good luck with my finicky gardenia this summer and wondered if I could start a second one using the softwood cutting method.

    I use plastic takeout containers with lids for starting new plants this way. Just put a little damp soil in the container, insert the cutting, punch a few small holes in the lid for air, close it up and put it somewhere it gets indirect light. This gardenia start has been in the container for about a month and in another few weeks should have sufficiently developed roots that I can put it in a small pot. I’ll keep it inside for the winter and in the spring, with luck, it’ll find a home outdoors. Few things smell more wonderfully exotic than a blooming gardenia.

    Having something young and growing through the winter will be a fine thing.

  • Mindful contagion

    Ann Christianson dancing “Ignite”

    A lively camping weekend will mean no dancing, so I grabbed a 20-minute routine this morning — “Ignite” — that focused on the upper body and was just right.

    I’m still thinking about Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer’s book “Mindful Body.” Some of her experiments focused on whether mindful people just being mindful can positively influence others. These experiments are small and, I have to say, a little weird so I wouldn’t call them conclusive.

    But my experience dancing with Nia instructors is that their mindfulness and reminders to be aware of what’s happening with my body while dancing has had a great positive influence on me.

    Lately I feel less triggered by other people’s anger and outrage, and there is plenty of it all around in these final days before the election.

  • Mind and body

    Artist Patricio González, from Pixabay

    I’m a week out from finishing my personal commitment to dance Nia daily for 52 days and to write about it. On the last day, I wrote that I had no idea what I would do going forward.

    What did I do this past week? I danced six days. Not out of lingering obligation, but just because dancing feels good.

    In one of those fun serendipitous things, I stumbled upon the work of Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer, who has spent a lifetime understanding the body and the mind as a unit, not just as connected systems. I’ve appreciated her new memoir “The Mindful Body,” as it shares some of her ground-breaking research and her personal experience.

    She suggests that noticing what’s happening in the body in any given moment is a key to living healthfully. It so fits with my Nia experience of being in my “today body,” which may not be energetically the same as yesterday’s. She’s frank about her concept of mindfulness. It’s not about meditating, it’s about awareness, being present and especially noticing changes. She is a popular speaker and there are many articles and podcasts available, such as this one:

    https://news.uchicago.edu/why-secret-health-lies-mind-body-connection