Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

In a few minutes I'm going with a friend to the botanical gardens, and, after the rain, it should be especially pleasant to wander among the plants and trees.  The garden is large enough that we cannot see every part, but whatever we do see will be healing.  I like touching plants and grounding myself with them.  This morning I carefully plucked fallen leaves from a huge succulent, tenderly admiring it's hues of blue/gray/pink/purple.  I check for dead flowers on the geraniums, and pick up all the dead camelia blossoms from the ground.  There is a blanket of gold leaves from the birches next door that fall on our patio, and some of our leaves falling too.  The seasons are somewhat confused here, but I like the mixing up of fall and summer and even a hint of spring.  Our persimmon tree's fruit is turning orange as a sunset, though the fruit is overhanging our neighbor's yard instead of our own.  It's always a race between the squirrels, birds and us as to who eats it.  In these days of shorter light and cooler nights, the change is refreshes, and causes unconscious responses in our bodies and minds.  Change is a way of waking us up.