6.6.18 ~ wild geranium, Connecticut College Arboretum New London, Connecticut
The wood is decked in light green leaf. The swallow twitters in delight. The lonely vine sheds joyous tears Of interwoven dew and light.
Spring weaves a gown of green to clad The mountain height and wide-spread field. O when wilt thou, my native land, In all thy glory stand revealed?
~ Ilia Chavchavadze (Anthology of Georgian Poetry)
wild geranium
“Summer is coming!” the soft breezes whisper; “Summer is coming!” the glad birdies sing. Summer is coming — I hear her quick footsteps; Take your last look at the beautiful Spring. ~ Dora Read Goodale (Summer Is Coming)
6.6.18
6.6.18
To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. ~ George Santayana (Words of Wisdom & Quotable Quotes)
notice the ant in the middle of the flower
new growth on a hemlock
female common whitetail dragonfly
How many Flowers fail in Wood — Or perish from the Hill — Without the privilege to know That they are Beautiful —
How many cast a nameless Pod Opon the nearest Breeze — Unconscious of the Scarlet Freight — It bear to other eyes —
~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #534)
6.6.18
sweet little bluets
azalea
inviting path
Honor the space between no longer and not yet. ~ Nancy Levin (Grief Interrupted: A Holistic Guide to Reclaiming Your Joy)
Janet overlooking the lawn where the audience sits to watch outdoor theater in the summer
“Underwater Academy for Seafaeries” by Students from the Deep River Elementary School Led by Art Teacher Diana DeWolf-Carfi 10.12.17 ~ Old Lyme, Connecticut
The theme of this year’s Wee Faerie Village at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme is Faerieville, U.S.A. I think we spent the most time mesmerized at the Underwater Academy for Seafaeries!
Sadly, autumn seems to be very late in arriving this year. But Janet and I stopped for lunch at the museum’s Café Flo, and since it was chilly and we weren’t sitting in the sun this time around, we had two cups each of mulled warm apple cider.
“Faerieville Wind Farm” by Tom & Kristin Vernon
Can you feel the wind blow? Even the wee smallest of towns requires more power than the resident fireflies can provide, so these fairies, in keeping with changing economic times, retrofitted one of their ancient grain-grinding windmills to be a power plant that turns wind into energy. The other two windmills continue to work in their traditional function; one for grinding grain for faerie bread and the other to pump the water from the river to all the homes and businesses in Faerieville. Our motto: When the wind blows, we all win.
Lieutenant River
“Faerieville Depot” by Linda Turner & Gary Urbanik
One never knows when a fairy might appear!
Decorating with nature
“’A Little Birdie Told Me’ Bird Shop” by Madeline Kwasniewski & Tom Donnelly
“Red Water Lily of Southern India” by Marianne North
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. ~ Loren Eiseley (The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man & Nature)
Wednesday afternoon Janet and I found a new woodland garden to explore, Kentford Farm in Stonington, Connecticut. We seemed to have the place to ourselves, but for a very charming tortoiseshell cat who acted as our hostess. When we left we spotted a sign saying the garden was open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays – unknowingly we had been trespassing! But the gate had been open so perhaps our confusion was understandable.
We introduce ourselves To Planets and to Flowers But with ourselves Have etiquettes Embarrassments And awes ~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1184)
5.28.14 ~ Stonington, Connecticut
We will have to return as the seasons progress – it’s a perennial garden and there will be different things blooming every time we go. Please enjoy some of my favorite photographs. The plan was to travel light, with just the camera and not its bag, but it backfired on me when the camera battery died only about a third of the way through. Next time I will carry the whole kit and caboodle with me!
5.28.14 ~ Stonington, Connecticut
The wall is silence, the grass is sleep, Tall trees of peace their vigil keep, And the Fairy of Dreams, with moth-wings furled, Sings soft her secrets to the drowsy world. ~ Ida Rentoul Outhwaite (Tibetan Buddhism Deck: Buddhas, Deities, and Bodhisattvas 30 Meditation Cards)
5.28.14 ~ Stonington, Connecticut
Way over yonder is a place I have seen In a garden of wisdom from some long ago dream ~ Carole King ♫ (Way Over Yonder) ♫
Frequently the woods are pink – Frequently, are brown. Frequently the hills undress Behind my native town – Oft a head is crested I was wont to see – And as oft a cranny Where it used to be – And the Earth – they tell me On it’s axis turned! Wonderful rotation – By but twelve performed! ~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #24)
5.28.14 ~ Stonington, Connecticut
In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (Nature)
5.28.14 ~ Stonington, Connecticut
The good Will of a Flower The Man who would possess Must first present Certificate Of minted Holiness. ~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #954)
dragonfly magic ~ 10.17.13 ~ Harwich Center, Massachusetts
On our mother’s birthday, October 17th, my sister Beverly and I went early to the cemetery in Harwich for some time alone with our parents and our memories, bringing along Papa’s ashes in a nature-inspired wooden casket. After we placed some flowers around the gravestones of our parents and grandparents, a small red dragonfly landed on our parents’ stone. Its presence was a special gift…
more dragonfly magic ~ 10.17.13 ~ Harwich Center, Massachusetts
A little later, as we were remembering our grandparents, the dragonfly flew over to perch on their gravestone, too, just above the “E” in White. And there was another special moment after the rest of the family started arriving. A small red dragonfly landed on my brother-in-law’s shoulder and stayed there for a long while. John was the one who was Papa’s primary caregiver for all these years, and it was good to have him appreciated and acknowledged in this meaningful way. I like to think it was the same dragonfly, but can’t know for sure…
10.17.13 ~ Harwich Center, Massachusetts
When we had all gathered around in a circle, Tim read my little essay about my father – I knew I couldn’t read it without sobbing – and then my cousin Matthew read messages from his father (my uncle) and his sister (my cousin). And then everyone began sharing their own memories. After that, Beverly lowered the casket full of Papa’s ashes deep into the ground, and then most of us took turns shoveling the earth back over him. It was a beautiful autumn day and our little ceremony felt so natural and intimate.
returned to the earth ~ 10.17.13 ~ Harwich Center, Massachusetts
Our parents are together now. The next thing I knew, everyone – there were 14 of us – wanted to go to another cemetery in Dennis, to see where our great-grandparents and two generations before them lie buried. (Swan Lake Cemetery) It was quite something to show my granddaughter the graves of her 5th-great-grandparents, who were immigrants from Norway and Ireland, and tell her how they met here in America and raised their family on Cape Cod, and how he was a sea-captain…
favorite things, Papa was very fond of this baby lynx picture in his last years, we kept it hanging on the wall in his bedroom
After that little expedition we all made our way over to Yarmouth to eat at the Hearth ‘n’ Kettle, a favorite restaurant of the family. We toasted those who came before us with Cape Codders (vodka, cranberry juice, lime wedge) and enjoyed a delicious leisurely dinner. And then we returned to our rented house and had my parents’ favorite birthday cakes as we gathered around the spacious dining room table – lemon jello cake in honor of my mother and chocolate butter-cream in honor of my father.
10.17.13 ~ Harwich, Massachusetts
In the evening we piled into the living room and watched a football game while shelling and munching on peanuts, and drinking Papa’s favorite beer. It was my kids’ idea – they have fond memories of shelling peanuts with their Grandpa while he was watching football on TV. It was good to be with family – sharing memories together – some of us had not seen each other in a very long time.
Whenever we were at a funeral, for people or pets, ever since I was a little girl, my father always advised us to remember the good times. And so we did.
On October 16th, Tim & I drove to Providence to pick up Nate, who was flying in from Georgia. Then it was on to Cape Cod where we had rented a big house (six bedrooms, five bathrooms!) for several days, so the family could gather and bury my father’s ashes together. When Nate unpacked, he gave me this beautiful gift he brought for me from his nephew, Dominic, age 5. I kept it standing on my dresser while I was there, a cheerful image to behold each morning when I woke up. Thank you so much, Dominic!!!
Little did I know there would be more dragonfly magic the next day…
Is it a mistake to look to the world to tell us the meaning of our plummeting lives? Maybe we all have the power to shape our own structure, the structure of our metaphoric wings, what lifts us — our character maybe, call it our spirit. We all in our own ways catch the light of the world and reflect it back, and this is what is bright and surprising about a person, this rainbow shimmer created from colorless structure. Maybe there is no meaning in the world itself – no sorrow. In fact, no good or bad, beginning or end. Maybe what there is, is the individual way each of us has of transforming the world, ways to refract it, to create of it something that shimmers from our spread wings. This is our work, creating these wings and giving them color. ~ Kathleen Dean Moore (Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature)
Time seems to fly by so quickly, and yet, each day seems so long in the living. Especially in August. Please! One crisis at a time!!!
8.27.13 ~ Durham, North Carolina
Near the end of August my sister and I finally and reluctantly decided that our aunt, who is 98, required more care than we could reasonably provide for her. The family doctor pulled some strings and found her a place in a “good” nursing home, much to our relief. She is now “settled in” there.
Our father, who is 91, is doing a little better, but is still on oxygen and remains very weak. So far my sister and brother-in-law feel they can manage him at home. He will probably never walk again, even with his walker… But I have to keep a watchful eye on my sister’s well-being – she has done more for the ancient ones than most people, including myself, would have or could have done.
8.27.13 ~ Durham, North Carolina
At the end of the month I spread my wings and accepted my daughter’s invitation to fly to North Carolina to visit her and my son-in-law in their new digs. It was the first time I flew by myself, although I had a flash of insight on the plane – I wasn’t flying by myself at all – there were many other people on board, fellow humans all with their own ways of transforming the world. All of us one. The flights there and back were spiritual highs for me!
Larisa at Sarah P. Duke Gardens 8.27.13 ~ Durham, North Carolina
Visiting Dima & Larisa for five days was wonderful! Very humid weather put something of a damper on outdoor adventures, but we had fun gardening in the early morning hours and decorating the living room and kitchen together one fun afternoon. We explored Durham in the air-conditioned car and talked and talked and talked. And had some great meals out and even better meals from their kitchen and grill. Had loads of fun taking pictures! I also came home with a lot of spider and mosquito bites for souvenirs. 🙂
tropical quail (?) Magic Wings Butterfly House at the Museum of Life & Science 8.31.13 ~ Durham, North Carolina
The trip did me a world of good – thank you so much for your gracious hospitality and welcoming arms, my wonderful kids!
