words.

words.  seeming inviolable.  and at once perturbed.
a mist receding.
the darkness conjures and the light reflects.
but where did they go.  the tail spins off and I am lost again.
a myriad of destinations.  leading nowhere.
and straight home to me.

Pareidolia

Welp, it has been forever since I posted; can you tell I am building a house?  Lots of the things I used to do, and plan to get back to, have fallen to the wayside in order to focus on this massive project.  It's an interesting phase in life, a all-encompassing hiatus, sorta like getting a degree or having a newborn.

Nonetheless, I just had a much-needed vacation and went to Georgia for the American Herbalist Guild Symposium and also got to explore some of the surrounding mountains of the Chattahochee National Forest.  It's gorgeous down there!  The vibrant, yet gentle, light and color of the changing leaves soothed my soul.  I want to share a few of the highlights here; may they soothe you too.

First, a minute-long video for you to pause and take a deep breath and center yourself.
This was taken near a large waterfall which you will hear.  Just breathe as you watch; that is all you need to do.  Let the water wash away your tensions, your cares fall away with the leaves.

"Tension is who you think you should be.  

Relaxation is who you are." 

- Chinese Proverb

“You drown not by falling into a river, 

but by staying submerged in it.”

- Paulo Coelho

"I planted my self in the middle of a great many Glasses full of Dew, tied fast about me, upon which the Sun so violently darted his Rays, that the Heat, which attracted them, as it does the thickest Clouds, carried me up so high, that at length I found my self above the middle Region of the Air."
 - Cyrano de Bergerac

Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding 

that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. 

The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.” 

- Terry Tempest Williams

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, 

but in having new eyes."

 - Marcel Proust  

“A Woman in harmony with her spirit

is like a river flowing.

She goes where she will without pretense 

and arrives at her destination

prepared to be herself

and only herself ” - Maya Angelou

“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” 

― Søren Kierkegaard

“Omnia mutantur, nihil interit”
(Everything changes, nothing perishes)
― Ovid, Metamorphoses  

“Trees are sanctuaries. 

Whoever knows how to speak to them, 

whoever knows how to listen to them, 

can learn the truth. 

They do not preach learning and precepts, 

they preach, 

undeterred by particulars, 

the ancient law of life.”
-Hermann Hesse, 'Wandering'

“Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.” 
― Charles Bukowski

“Whether you try too hard to fit in 

or you try too hard to stand out, 

it is of equal consequence: 

you exhaust your significance.” 

― Criss Jami

“your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.” 

― Charles Bukowski, "The Laughing Heart."  from 'Betting on the Muse'

Breathe, the path awaits your presence...

A Breathing Meditation

Get into a comfortable position, spine straight, but not rigid.  Can be sitting or laying (if you won't fall asleep).  Can be in a chair or on the floor.  Bring your thoughts to your breath, and keep bringing your attention back to your breath when it wanders.  No judgment on the wandering, just notice and bring back.
 

In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,
In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,
In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,...
(continue this for as long as you will, 5 minutes, 30... until you rest in the ever-present NOW,
and the fleeting nature of our existence becomes all you are - nothing -
along with the knowing that YOU ARE EVERYTHING).
In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,
In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,
In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,
In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,...
And the Birth and Death that is This Lifetime
Is but a Breath of a Greater Lifetime. 
A Lifetime where We Are the Mountain.

 

Spring Splendor - A Photo Journal of Beltane's Delight

Helleborus

Wild and feral edibles picked for an omelette, clockwise spiral to center starting from white flower:  Garlic Mustard,  Dandelion, Plantain, Arugula, Sarsaparilla, Violets, Cleavers, Japanese Knotweed, Mustard flowers, Monarda, Trout Lily, Quince flower, Purple Dead Nettle, Clover.

 

True Superfoods - local and fresh!

  

Corvid with a new batch of bees in orientation flight.

 Coming in for a landing:

Pollen-laden

The bees have been loving this Arugula that over-winterd in a cold frame and burst into bloom some weeks ago.  In the background is L'Atelier, the art studio, and where Mathieu makes guitars, overseen by two of my hives:  Stella and Ariadne.  To the right is a Fig in a pot that gets brought in over winter, and a Grape on trellis.  THIS has my Heart.  <3

 

The Mason bees have been very active; I love watching them, so docile and yet judicious.

At work:  Mathieu and I with the fragrant native Woodland Phlox at a landscape client's.

And Luck of Luck!  Found some tasty dinner when I wasn't even purposefully hunting!  My friend Abby and I were just taking a jaunt in the woods...and lo and behold.

Then we lay in the grass in the sun for a different type of nourishment.

 Make a wish!

 

 

 Yesterday's and Today's on the forest floor

 Can you say Dazzle?

Morning Majesty

One of my favorite creatures, seen on my morning walk. 

Vultures sun themselves in the morning to dry the dew off their wings so they lose the weight of water for better flying, and what they do so well, gliding. Their gliding gives us a vision of the wind as they ride the thermals. Majestic!  

Plus they make life from death! - the mushrooms of the animal world.  And they keep the place clean and the cycle going.  <3

"Wisdom tells me I am nothing,

love tells me I am everything,

between the two my life flows."

- Nisargadatta

Joy in the Woodland Yard

Want to know what delights me? Discovering a native wildflower in the yard that I hadn't seen here before. Prenanthes serpentaria Gall-of-the-Earth, apparently used for Rattlesnake bite. Let's hope I never need it. It is growing within 30' of where I think Copperheads are denning; wonder if it works for their bite too. It's an alexiteric. Only 4 plants, so I won't be harvesting any, but hoping to support it spreading...

Here are various websites I used to verify the species of the Genus, which was also called Nalabus.

Heroes - Wendell Berry

I am going to start blogging my heroes:  people who inspire me, people who give me faith in the human race, people who do the right thing no matter, people we should all be acquainted with...

To begin, Wendell Berry, a spectacular man whose words are inimitable, rich and masterful,
yet humble and simple at the same time, words that can be a grace to our days, our life.

Here are some of those wonderful words...and a great interview with Bill Moyers.

'The Peace of Wild Things'

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

If you aren't familiar with Wendell Berry, please become so, and if you already are,
refresh yourself again with the magic touch of his words...

To the Unseeable Animal

My Daughter: "I hope there's an animal
Somewhere that nobody has ever seen.
And I hope nobody ever sees it."

 

Being, whose flesh dissolves
at our glance, knower
of the secret sums and measures,
you are always here,
dwelling in the oldest sycamores,
visiting the faithful springs
when they are dark and the foxes
have crept to their edges.
I have come upon pools
in streams, places overgrown
with the woods' shadow,
where I knew you had rested,
watching the little fish
hang still in the flow;
as I approached they seemed
particles of your clear mind
disappearing among the rocks.
I have waked deep in the woods
in the early morning, sure
that while I slept
your gaze passed over me.
That we do not know you
is your perfection
and our hope. The darkness
keeps us near you.

Are you free?

Tengri & Eje

"Divinity is everywhere all the time.  

You can't take Divinity out of nature 

and put it in a book or between four walls."

 - from Paulo Coehlo 'The Zahir.'

And you cannot take it out of us either, those deemed good and bad.  Underneath this duality is One
and we are all connected.  All humans.  All beings.  The plants and the mountains, the waters and
those who ride the wind...

Eternal Blue Sky

"We share the air we breathe with all other living creatures and every breath we take is a confirmation of the essential unity and interconnectedness of life.  Air is a universal for which we neither have to forage nor to till.  By a miracle of plant alchemy, solar energy is taken in by green leaves, acts to convert water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrate, releasing oxygen into the air." 
- Richard Mabey 'The New Age Herbalist'

Plants eat sunlight giving us food to eat and oxygen to breathe.  Have you thanked a plant today?

Axis mundi

  

 "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us,
our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar."
- Wordsworth

“The Mountains and Waters Sutra .... Dogen turns this traditional reading on its head by insisting that mountains and rivers are the sutra. They are the teachers and the teaching." - Mike Hoolboom

"Nature streaming into us, wooingly teaching her wonderful glowing lessons...every wild lesson a love lesson..." - John Muir

"May your rivers flow without end...where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you..."  - Edward Abbey

Iacinct

~



In the Wilderness of my Solitude

    I knew everything I needed to know        without knowing anything
                                            this knowing pervades my moment:


    spiderwebs of time beat upon my shores with their embryonic embrace
   
    sinews of edification breed                                 hope and despair dance


    I bow to the Earth and her straightaway brimstone, tacit as a Dandelion

    behooved to catapult
        this numinous inkling
            of meta-oblation fractalling
                                                      touch the truth

Standing in the sun,     willing to burn away,         while others bask in frivolity
Wit clamors to take precedent,
    all the while words struggle to make it back from their pilgrimage
                                     heavy with the weight of the unspeakable firmament

The mountains are walking, but most two-leggeds are apathetic about their ignorance,
wingless,
                                                                                           driven by the machine…
                                                      the truth touches you

                            do you see?

"There's no sauce in the world like hunger." - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra


~