“When Icicles Hang by the Wall, & Dick the Shepherd Blows His Nail” by Edward Robert Hughes
Soon shall the winter’s foil be here; Soon shall these icy ligatures unbind and melt — A little while, And air, soil, wave, suffused shall be in softness, bloom and growth — a thousand forms shall rise From these dead clods and chills as from low burial graves. Thine eyes, ears — all thy best attributes — all that takes cognizance of natural beauty, Shall wake and fill. Thou shalt perceive the simple shows, the delicate miracles of earth, Dandelions, clover, the emerald grass, the early scents and flowers, The arbutus under foot, the willow’s yellow-green, the blossoming plum and cherry; With these the robin, lark and thrush, singing their songs — the flitting bluebird; For such the scenes the annual play brings on. ~ Walt Whitman (Sands at Seventy)
This is the blessing of the Harvest. The soil is sacred. Food is sacred. We are sacred. We give thanks for the life cut down, for its generous sacrifice, that we might be nourished. ~ Maria Ede-Weaving (The Essential Book of Druidry: Connect with the Spirit of Nature)
3.30.24 ~ ‘old blush’ rose North Carolina Botanical Garden
It’s always a pleasure to be greeted by the roses dangling from their arbor each time we visit the botanical garden. It never gets old! Like sunrises and sunsets, I suppose. A steady presence. But we were on a new mission this day to locate a Virginia dwarf trillium, another tiny ephemeral we heard was blooming. Along the way we saw…
Spanish lavender
hermit thrush
This (below) was the only undamaged dwarf trillium we could find, surrounded by other kinds of plants. We had torrential rains for a couple of days and I think they did a number on the tiny trilliums. But I’m grateful we got a chance to see this one. It is much smaller than all the other regular size trilliums we’ve been seeing this spring.
Virginia dwarf trillium
spreading Jacob’s ladder
white-throated sparrow
Only by living for many moons in one region, my peripheral senses tracking seasonal changes in the local plants while the scents of the soil steadily seep in through my pores — only over time can the intelligence of a place lay claim upon my person. Slowly, as the seasonal round repeats itself again and again, the lilt and melody of the local songbirds becomes an expectation within my ears, and so the mind I’ve carried within me settles into the wider mind that enfolds me. ~ David Abram (Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology)
yellow trillium (?)
twisted trillium
pine warbler
sweet shrub aka Carolina allspice
great white trillium (?)
tufted titmouse
red chokeberry
squirrel going out on a limb to reach maple seeds what a mess he made discarding the “helicopters”
carpenter bee (thanks to Eliza for the identification)
As we were making our way back to the parking lot this giant bee (above) was hovering over the walkway, blocking our path. Well, if it was just going to stay there I might as well get a picture of it. I don’t know if these creatures are unique to this area but sometimes they hover outside our windows and crash into them repeatedly. It sounds like someone is throwing pebbles at the window.
So we’ve lived here for ten moons I think, not very many so far, but our senses are slowly getting familiar with the seasonal changes.
“Chestnut Trees, Louveciennes, Winter” by Camille Pissarro
This is the season of the long night and the leafless tree. The cold seeps into our bones and life sleeps beneath the soil. ….. We know that the worst of the winter is yet to come, and we must endure this, but the solstice sun is reborn and, with it, our hopes for growing light and warmth. In the depths of winter, summer plants its seed and the dark stillness explodes with starlight. ~ Maria Ede-Weaving (The Essential Book of Druidry: Connect with the Spirit of Nature)
10.7.22 ~ Caroline Black Garden, Connecticut College Arboretum
Caroline Black Garden is known as the secret garden of Connecticut College, located on a steep hill between the college and the Thames River. Starting with this gate you follow paths passing through various garden “rooms.” It has four acres of native and exotic ornamental trees and bushes. We enjoyed a morning of exploration.
western red cedar
paths connected the “rooms”
Sit and be quiet. In a while the red berries, now in shadow, will be picked out by the sun. ~ Wendell Berry (This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems)
path leading to a magical pool
Tim pretending to climb a huge glacial erratic
water bubbling out from under this rock ~ a spring perhaps?
Japanese inspired water feature
THIS POOL GIVEN TO THE CAROLINE BLACK MEMORIAL GARDEN BY THE NEW LONDON HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 1930
gate leaving pool “room”
The clearing rests in song and shade. It is a creature made By old light held in soil and leaf, By human joy and grief, By human work, Fidelity of sight and stroke, By rain, by water on The parent stone. ~ Wendell Berry (This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems)
prickly pear, the only cactus native to Connecticut
bee and goldenrod
another garden gate
What a natural wellspring — cooling and refreshing the years — is the gift of wonder! It removes the dryness from life and keeps our days fresh and expanding. ~ Edwin Way Teale (Circle of the Seasons: The Journal of a Naturalist’s Year)
4.20.21 ~ red maple seeds Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut
Yesterday we took an amazing walk at the arboretum! A long one, for an hour and a half. We concentrated on the wildflower garden and the bog, both bubbling with the delightful signs of springtime.
the world’s emergence
The person who practices this exercise of concentration sees the universe with new eyes, as if he were seeing it for the first and the last time. In his enjoyment of the present, he discovers the splendor and mystery of existence and of the world’s emergence; at the same time, he achieves serenity by experiencing how relative are the things which provoke anxiety and worry. ~ Pierre Hadot (What is Ancient Philosophy?)
skyscape
red maple
Edgerton & Stengel Memorial Wildflower Garden
striped maple
Canadian white violet
yellow trout lily
Virginia bluebells before opening
bloodroot
Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of spring — that delicious commingling of the perfume of arbutus, the odor of pines, and the snow-soaked soil just warming into life? ~ Neltje Blanchan (Wild Flowers: An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers & Their Insect Visitors)
Virginia bluebells
Glenn Dreyer Bog
moss covered hunk of something
underwater art
tadpoles!
Glenn Dreyer Bog
tadpole and tadpole shadow
red maple
tree scars
peaceful pond
Canada geese
In the light shed by the best science and scientists, everything is fascinating, and the more so the more that is known of its reality. To science, not even the bark of a tree or a drop of pond water is dull or a handful of dirt banal. They all arouse awe and wonder. ~ Jane Jacobs (Dark Age Ahead)
If you rake fallen leaves into a pile and then examine them, you will see that each one shows a consummately clean break at the same place near the base of the stem. The fall of leaves is highly choreographed: First the green pigments are pulled back behind the narrow row of cells marking the border between stem and branch. Then, on the mysteriously appointed day, this row of cells is dehydrated and becomes weak and brittle. The weight of the leaf is now sufficient to bend and snap it from the branch. It takes a tree only a week to discard its entire year’s work, cast off like a dress barely worn but too unfashionable for further use. Can you imagine throwing away all of your possessions once a year because you are secure in your expectation that you will be able to replace them in a matter of weeks? These brave trees lay all of their earthly treasures on the soil, where moth and rust doth immediately corrupt. They know better than all the saints and martyrs put together exactly how to store next year’s treasure in Heaven, where the heart shall be also. ~ Hope Jahren (Lab Girl)
But the most astonishing thing about trees is how social they are. The trees in a forest care for each other, sometimes even going so far as to nourish the stump of a felled tree for centuries after it was cut down by feeding it sugars and other nutrients, and so keeping it alive. Only some stumps are thus nourished. Perhaps they are the parents of the trees that make up the forest of today. A tree’s most important means of staying connected to other trees is a “wood wide web” of soil fungi that connects vegetation in an intimate network that allows the sharing of an enormous amount of information and goods. Scientific research aimed at understanding the astonishing abilities of this partnership between fungi and plant has only just begun. ~ Peter Wohlleben (The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate ~ Discoveries from a Secret World)
I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide [her], it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused – a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love – then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for a child to want to know than to put [her] on a diet of facts [she] is not ready to assimilate. ~ Rachel Carson (The Sense of Wonder)