I tried praying and I don't know who I was talking to
Grew up with no religion at all. My parents were kind, practical people who thought church was for weddings.
Last night I couldn't sleep, and for some reason I just said, out loud, 'Hi. I don't know if anyone's there. Thank you for my sister getting through her surgery.' Then I felt very silly, and also kind of lighter?
Is it prayer if you don't know who you're addressing? Do I need to pick someone first? Genuinely asking. Please be gentle, I'm new at all of this.
Japji Sahib at a truck stop
3:50am at a truck stop outside Moose Jaw, minus four, the engine ticking as it cools. Head covered, phone propped on the dash, I recite Japji Sahib the way my Bapu ji did on the farm in Punjab: slowly, never racing the words.
Out here it's just me, the reefer units humming, and frost on the windshield like lace. People think the road is lonely. Not at amrit vela. Waheguru is in the quiet before the diesel starts.
Then an Ardas for everyone on the highway today, the ones I'll pass and never meet. Safe roads, sangat.
Bowing to the old maple
There's an old bigleaf maple on my walk to the bus, trunk thick with moss and licorice ferns, easily two hundred years old. I've bowed to it every morning since we moved to Seattle. My neighbors think I'm very polite to trees. I am.
This morning there was low fog, and as I bowed, every leaf on the lowest branch let go at once. Not a gust. No wind at all. They just came down around me like someone emptying a basket.
Back home, a tree like that would have a shimenawa rope tied around it. Here it has a parking sign. I don't think the kami minds. I stood there in the leaves feeling very much greeted.
Nobody asks who you are at the sink
Home for four days, so I did a shift at the gurdwara washing steel plates after langar. Hundreds of them. You stand at the big sink with whoever turned up: a retired doctor, two university kids, a man who came in off the street for a meal and stayed to help.
Nobody asks who you are at the sink. Nobody asks what you believe. You scrub, you pass, you rinse, you stack. Somebody makes a bad joke and everyone laughs anyway. That's seva.
Three provinces of highway behind me, and this was the most rested I've felt all month.
Asking the hedge first
Hedge-laying season has started, which means three months of mud, hazel stakes and the good kind of sore shoulders.
Before the first cut on any new stretch, I do the same small thing: hand flat on the oldest stem, three slow Awens, and a plain request out loud to lay it well and let it grow back thicker. A splash of water from my flask at the roots and a "diolch" to the hawthorn. No robes, no audience, just me and a nosy robin.
A laid hedge isn't killed, it's renewed. The cut stems keep living and send up new growth all along the line. Every winter I'm reminded that most of the good things in my life came from something being bent, not broken.
A hag stone, asked for
Found my first hag stone on Saturday: a flint pebble with a hole worn clean through it by the water, sitting on a gravel bar like it had been waiting. Old folk wisdom says if you look through one you can see the hidden folk, or at least see things as they really are.
I asked before I picked it up. I know how that sounds. But I have a rule about taking from the land: ask, wait, leave something. I left a few oat flakes and a promise to carry out the litter I'd passed on the way (two crisp packets and one very sad flip-flop).
I'd rather have one stone from my own river than a bag of something shipped across the world. Local stones know the local weather.
Eight years crowned
Today is my eighth birthday in Ocha. What happened in that room eight years ago stays in that room. But I can share the prayer I said at my front door this morning, in Spanish because that's how it came out:
Gracias por mi cabeza, por mi casa, por mis muertos y por mi gente. Que nunca me falte el agua fresca, ni la humildad.
Thank you for my head, my house, my dead and my people. May I never be without fresh water, or humility.
Then I called my godmother, who cried, and my mother, who asked if I'd eaten.
The community orchard had its last picking day on Sunday. When everyone had gone home with their bags of apples, I stayed behind with the old Bramley in the corner, the one that leans like she's listening.
Poured a cup of last year's cider around her roots and thanked her for the crop and for shading the picnic table all summer. Left the highest apples for the blackbirds, and for the fieldfares when they arrive. Then I sat with my back against her trunk for a while and watched the light go gold.
Wassailing is in January, but I don't think trees mind being thanked off schedule.
Three months of reading over your shoulders
I've been lurking here for about three months. No religion, no practice, just a lot of reading at 1am. I wanted to say thank you, and share what I've noticed from the outside.
First: almost nobody here is trying to convince anyone of anything. I honestly expected to be recruited. Instead people answer questions and then go back to their gardens and their prayers and their tea.
Second: on the surface the practices couldn't look more different. A Sikh truck driver reciting scripture at a truck stop before dawn. A Wiccan casting a circle in their kitchen. A Quaker sitting in silence. A rootworker sweeping her porch. But underneath, so much of it seems to come down to two things: paying attention, and saying thank you.
Third: the people who've been at this for decades are the ones most comfortable saying 'I don't know.' I found that unexpectedly reassuring.
My grandpa's anniversary is in a couple of weeks. For the first time, I'm thinking about doing something to mark it. No idea what yet. But I think I've learned from all of you that it doesn't have to be impressive. It just has to be sincere.
Thanks for letting me read over your shoulders.
I ran a parking spell for 30 days. Results inside.
Context for new folks: I'm an engineer, I'm skeptical, and my grandmother's pendulum keeps being right in ways I can't explain. So I've started trying small practices in a structured way.
This month's experiment was a parking charm a friend here taught me. Before you turn onto the street, picture the open space, then say "thank you for my spot" out loud, as if it's already happened. That's it.
Method: 30 workdays downtown. Each morning I flipped a coin to decide whether I'd do the charm (heads) or not (tails), then logged the minutes from turning onto my street to engine off.
Results: 16 charm days averaged 4.2 minutes. 14 non-charm days averaged 6.1. A t-test gives p around 0.11, which is to say interesting, not significant, and I couldn't blind myself, which is a big problem.
The finding I didn't plan for: on charm days my notes column says things like "calm," "let a guy merge," "noticed the maples turning." On non-charm days it mostly says "ugh." Gratitude in advance seems to change how I drive, which might be the entire effect. Or might not.
Conclusion: I'm keeping the charm. Not because the data proves anything, but because I'm a nicer person for those four minutes. Next month: my grandmother's pendulum versus a random number generator. Methodology suggestions welcome.