Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Spontaneously, we got in the car this morning and went to a beautiful garden about an hour away.  There was no traffic, and we love this place especially in springtime.  It's a National Trust; a former private estate now maintained for the public.  There were thousands of daffodils, the white ones, the orange and yellow, every variety.  There were terra cotta pots gorged with daffodils everywhere, but also daffodils among the grasses, in the woodsy areas, along paths.  And a lot of the tulips had come out as well, bright orange, pale pink, yellow; row after row of red ones with small blue flowers between the plants.  And hyacinths, especially grouped together the blue, purple and white.  The smell of them was heavenly.  The fruit trees are just beginning to blossom, and the roses to come to life.  My husband looked on the map and discovered a mile long loop that took us to the farmland and woods, and there we found a little nature center with stuffed local animals, from cougars to coyotes, great horned owls to green herons.  Then we slauntered back through the terraces outside the house, but didn't go inside.  We wanted to be outside.  I'd had to give up streaming my teacher's dharma talk to come, and my husband asked me if I regretted missing it.  No, I emphatically replied.  My soul had soaked in the beautiful of the gardens, and renewed itself through nature.  I'll catch the talk online another time, but today, I just absorbed the joy of spring after a fresh rain.