Foxglove is the name of my property, five acres overlooking the Lewis River Valley that was covered with the wildflower when I first moved here in 1996.
The flowering plum literally exploded into bloom.
On Tuesday, it was a mass of deep dark crimson buds.
On Wednesday, it was thickly bedecked in bright pink blossoms,
much like I imagine Annie Dillard's "tree of lights" in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
A quite spectacular transformation to witness.
And grateful that I did.
[First posted: February 20, 2015]
A romantically inclined sky tonight,
all blush and beauty.
So appropriate for St. Valentine's Day.
[First posted: February 14, 2015]
A young doe checking out the bird feeder, maybe interested in adding some sunflower seeds to her diet of winter grass, leaves, and my "deer-proof" rhododendrons.
Squirrel:
"Don't even think it."
[Thoughts on discovering the quartz I placed on a stump years ago.]
There is this hunger to see the world in a new way.
To break out of the rut of one's daily being--following the same routines, thinking the same thoughts, talking with the same people about the same things.
Comfort and security--not to be underrated--can become cozy prisons. One longs for the unfamiliar, for the untried and unthought, for the yet unlived.
Like Tennyson's Ulysses, the spirit yearns to leave the known world, to be shaken up, knocked off-balance, to not know what's going to happen tomorrow, setting off into the unexplored unknown, expectant.
Our salvation may not lie in changing the world, but in changing our perceptions of it, and in doing so, find that we have thereby also changed the world.
[First posted: January 25, 2015]
It's a balmy 36 degrees Fahrenheit here today.
That's 2 degrees Celsius for friends
in Australia and Japan,
and 275.37 K (on the Kelvin scale)
for family in LaCenter
Shirtsleeve weather after this past week, where the squirrels took turns ice skating on frozen birdbaths.
[First posted: January 4, 2015]
2014...Going out glorious.
[First posted: December 31, 2014]
Approaching the close of another year.
They seem to come more quickly the older I get.
(What? Already? Again?)
It's a common observation of those who've lived this long:
Time continues to expand endlessly,
then at some point collapses
into a day, or a life, or a moment.
And there is no time,
only memories...
endlessly.
[First posted: December 30, 2014]
On my desk, facing me, sits a Buddha
from the Thai Kingdom of Ayutthaya (mid-1300s to 1767),
a gift from a friend who collects cultural artifacts.
I have probably looked at it a thousand times or more.
And then one day as I was writing,
the late afternoon sun poured in
and literally cast the Buddha in a new light.
I glanced up and was stopped,
transfixed as he seemed to emerge
from the shadows of the distant past.
And with a shiver I realized
I was gazing into the face of someone
from the 18th century.
[First posted: September 28, 2013]
Years ago, a friend who'd emigrated from the Midwest to be with his girlfriend
would complain about the Northwest's "pissy little winters."
Of all the seasons, he missed most the full-strength winters of his native Minnesota,
and days of bright sun on bright snow. He never could adjust to the glum drabness
of the Pacific Northwest at this time of year.
And yet, if one looks, there are striking dashes of color on this gray seasonal palette.
[First posted: December 18, 2014]
Absorbing the warmth and light,
fluffed up and radiant,
a little sun ball of feathers.
(Speaking about warmth and light: Following last week's windstorm,
I was without power from 5:00 pm Thursday to 6:00 pm Saturday.
I've grown quite fond of the smell of oil lamps.)
[First posted: December 15, 2014]
