Zen and the Art of Blueberry Picking

Direct your eye right inward, and you'll find

    A thousand regions of your mind

   Yet undiscovered.  Travel them and be

 Expert in home-cosmography.

               

 Henry David Thoreau

              Walden                 

There are a couple of places about an hour from here where you can pick your own blueberries. Now that I am retired, I have the time for adventures like this, and the inclination to explore more. It doesn't hurt that I have like minded friends who will join me.

So we go to see what the story is....where and how would you go about picking your own? After a little asking around for directions to get to the available fields ("Well, you go down to the end of this road, then take a hard left, then down to the third driveway, then turn down the road between the third and the fourth driveway and you'll come to a shed....") we found our way to the "pick UR own".

Once at the shed, a jolly middle aged woman greeted us. She gave us instructions, buckets to hang around our necks, and a supportive sendoff.
We walked down the row away from the shed. Bush after bush held plenty of green berries, but nothing remotely blue. So at the end of that long row we turned around, and began again, heading back toward the shed on an inner row. Bonanza!!

It seems easy. Reach up, pull blue berries off. Put in bucket. Repeat. Not rocket science. We chattered like noisy birds as we started. Then things began to get quiet.

It is hard to explain unless you are actually doing it. You reach up, pull the blue berries but leave the green, drop them down into the bucket, then begin again. Focus on the top of the bush. Reach up, cup a cluster with your palm, gently wiggle and pressure the blue into your hand while leaving the green. Sweep that arm down with a handful, lift the bucket up with the other hand. Lower the bucket, and raise the first arm to the top again for another go. Continue.

By the time you've got the basics, you'll notice that you've already got your eye on the next few you will pick, then maybe other bunches that might also fit in that descending hand. You'll notice that the "bucket" hand has already begun it's rise as the berry hand comes down. A step towards the next bunch. A step back. A hand outstretched, bucket lowered. Green berries, pink berries, oh, here are big blues. The moves in this dance become more fluid, less deliberate. Stretch up, breathe in. Lower down, breath out. The rhythm is the thing.

How long? How many bushes, how many berries, how many steps? I have no idea. The bucket was full. I looked around, waking up to the rows, the paths between, the sounds of traffic, birds, other pickers nearby.

Merriam-Webster defines zen : a state of calm attentiveness in which one's actions are guided by intuition rather than by conscious effort, lost in the rhythm of the tasks at hand.

Now you can try to find that state in Yoga class. You can meditate. You can study the current phases and fads in mindfulness techniques. Or you can capture that calm attentiveness in a field of blueberry bushes on a beautiful early summer day, rejoice in the practice, and come home with a bucket of berries!

for Carole