Tricycle | Awake in the World

In bitter January a black rime of ice sealed the frozen pores of the land. Trappist monk Thomas Merton often encouraged practitioners and gardeners alike to hunker down in this dormant season and “love winter, when the plant says nothing.” For more than a decade peace activists have set aside 64 days from January 30, the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s death, through April 4, the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, as a season of nonviolence, an ideal time to commit to sit deep in the saddle of meditation and mindfulness. Yet even in this settled season the invisible plant kingdom is not voiceless. I hear moving through stone cold earth the old music of blood-red Flanders field poppies.