June 5

I have taken to talking to the mustard spinach growing in our vegetable garden.  They were not doing very well after being transplanted and so I gave them a bit of a pep talk and told them they could make it.  Every day, I tell them how much progress they have made and now I am really happy to see them thriving.

More and more I feel a disconnect with the outside world and a stronger inclination to spend time in the garden or out walking.  I am getting to the stage where I would like to cut Facebook out of my life for a while as there is so much hatred going around.  The self-righteous anger of some Facebook users makes me sick, but I try to stand back and say 'well, that's your anger, not mine.'  Since I began meditation at the beginning of the year, I have tried to become more conscious of what makes me angry and how to respond.  There was a time when I would have replied to posts without thinking; now I know it's just not worth it.

I have been doing yoga for some years, on and off and usually in a class, but now I do it on my own, usually once, but sometimes twice a day.  It has helped my life considerably and I feel my day is missing something if I don't do even a fifteen minute routine.  

Religion and belief are those things that are so hard to talk about unless you are with like-minded people.  I have always had a spiritual interest.  In my childhood, it was mixed up a lot with a vengeful God who punished you for the smallest of wrongs.  I tried different churches and always felt very depressed after going to a service.  I never felt the great joy that other people feel.  I consider myself to be quite open to different beliefs.  I certainly wouldn't say there is just one and that is it, but for me the greatest sense of spiritual peace I have found is in meditation.  I am not great at it.  Sometimes I think about supper and sometimes I just say 'right, this isn't working at the moment', but in general I am getting better and feel a great benefit from it.

In the afternoon, it appears to build up for rain and the sky is very dark.  We go to fetch tomatoes from a friend who sells them on behalf of someone else.  It rains somewhere: there is that beautiful smell of rain on dust, but it does not rain at our house.  It's Bulawayo, it's always raining somewhere else.