Black Cats, Super Novas, and Flux

The Road before me
tree-lined, meadow-flanked
and upheld by blue mountains
that shift and fade
to blue sky.

My Mind before me
expansive as sky
clouds roll by
I watch
Truth beheld intermingling,

twinkling like pinpoints
of starlight exposed.
Sky goes dark
then one can see 
what could not be seen in daylight.

It alludes, best seen
when not looking directly
simply being
shows it all,
gives it all.

Like the mountain I sit, though moving.

The Universe casts her spell 
upon me
Knows Herself through me
holds opposites at one time.

The convoluted truth touches our skin
but briefly 
and is gone.
Transfigured.
A black cat in the night
eyes twinkling.

A Break in the Rain, A Walk in the Woods - Photo Journal

If you aren't able to get out in Nature at this moment,

may these picture suffice,

bringing you the beauty and solace this walk did for me.

Alder Reflections

It was pouring all morning then this afternoon I noticed it stopped and suddenly the sun came out.  I went outside to bring in firewood, and the raindrops sparkling on everything like gems drew me out for a longer perusal.











On my way down the mountain (I live on a small ridge in the Appalachias of northern Virginia), I stopped at the hives and checked on them as I am wont to do whenever I am near.  I noticed a bee at an entrance with its tongue out getting water from a rain drop.  :)  It's too cold and wet for them to actually leave the hive.

Goodness, I love that green color.

I brave gentle rain to stay out I am enjoying myself so much; it being warm enough in February for this is the new normal.  I'm not even dressed all that warm (sweater and scarf); am a bit cold, but less than a mile from home.

Happy Moss

I went to my most regular woodland sit spot,

the place where when I go there I feel like I am coming home,

home unto myself.  The Self that is everything and nothing at once.

Where the flowing waters wash my spirit clean.

Microcosm within Macrocosm

Tiny fungal start

As soon as I came in from my couple-hour-ramble-through-the-woods it started absolutely pouring, a full-on deluge.  I feel I am on the "right" schedule when my timing is this impeccable.  I was not dressed to be caught out in it; but I was in the moment and willing to take the chance.

 

"Come forth into the light of things; let nature be your teacher"

- Wordsworth

 

This Sycamore tree in the next picture is such a great example of strength and perseverance. Over years the stream has flooded and carved out the earth that used to hold its roots, but still it remains out in the open, exposed and only half supported, but still full of life.

Seeming to sit, perched in the air.

Witch's Butter Brewing

Now that I am constructing this blog, it has turned into a thunder storm with crashes and flashes right outside the window.  This has happened the past couple of winters, but never in my life before, thunderstorms in winter.  "The times they are a changin'."

I am sad to see that there are areas of these woods where the ground, the fertile seedbed of tomorrow, is covered with the invasive Bittersweet berries/seeds (picture above).  This plant was not noticeably here when I moved here over 18 years ago and now it pervades.  It is not readily edible or medicinal, being more on the poison end of the spectrum and wild life does not seem to favor it.  I hope it's not the next Kudzu, because it'd be worse - at least Kudzu is a great edible/medicinal plant.  This next picture shows Sycamore seeds - a beloved tree and one of my first tattoos.

 “I only went out for a walk 

and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, 

for going out, I found, was really going in.”

- ​John Muir

Lake Rorschach

A language as old as these hills

 Update:  The thunderstorm resulted in losing electricity mid-blog, and for 5 hours.  This always drives home how much I/we rely on electricity.  Candles were lit and books read!

'Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out'

"Do not try to save the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life
and wait there patiently,
until the song that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know how to give yourself
to this world
so worthy of rescue."

- Martha Postlewaite

'Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out' 2015

Fecund Exposure

Last night's rain
on the Oak and Hickory leaves underfoot

becoming Earth once again

Tannin-soaked air reaches my nose

Like a sweet cigar, or a waft of perfume from a steaming cup of tea,
or the smell of rich woodland soil under shovel

in my hands, in my nose, in my heart.

One moment in time

a poignant mystery

to explore.

The depths are reached

in this slanted, decaying light.

The trees bare their bones.

Birds flit, exposed once again in their plenty

no longer their song giving them away, but their feather.

If we are of luck,
we too become exposed

in our journeys back home.

Where the deep, rich Earth will consume us

once more.

Lay it open

raw

rare

and beating.

For how can life grace us

if we aren't fertile ground.

Tomorrow's acorn sprouts

in the rot of yesterday's leaf.

Release the leaf.

Mea'n Fo'mhair - Mid-Harvest: Crisp Juicy Apples, Cricket Symphonies, and Recognition

from The Lord of the Rings:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

In the middle of what is forecasted to be a week of rain, I am getting a chance to write about harvest and share some pictures of recent harvests from the past few days before the rain began...  and to actually stop the outward harvest and look within at my personal growth.

Every day is a day of harvest, but this time of year, Mabon, the time of the Autumnal Equinox, is a yearly time of harvest.  A time in which we gather what we have sown as we prepare to go inward for the winter. A time to recognize and give thanks for what we have.

The Winter's Soups and Mash and Curries...

This is not simply garden talk, but life talk.  Our gardens and its seasons are a metaphor for life and while we may not all have a garden, we all have life.

What have you sown; what are you harvesting; how are you preparing for the coming dormancy?

Goldenrod and Asters:  The Bee's Current Harvest

Aw shucks...looks like it's time for some bingewatching of Bushcraft videos or something.  :)

Mathieu transplanting wild Tansy from the 'soon to be house site' to the orchard where it will attract beneficial insects.

How much of harvest is luck and how much of luck is what we did in the past?
We can be like the Mantis ever ready to seize the opportunity that presents itself at that precise moment when it is offered...

"You think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis, and, nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society" . - Henry D. Thoreau

Milk Thistle in the Medicine Wheel Garden dropping its seed for next year's harvest...

What seeds are you dropping into the fertile ground of your soul?  Take advantage of this rain to water them in.

 Day and Night are equal right now at this balance point of the year as we go from the Yang of Summer into the Yin of winter.  We offer gratitude to the waning sunlight - the same sunlight that nourished the fruit we harvest and that will nourish us through the coming dark of winter...though hidden deep within it will be...

Sensual Magic - from seeds planted in April.

Enjoying the fruits of harvest.

Moussaka time!

What didn't come to fruition?  How will you ensure next year's harvest?  What seeds do you set aside?

First Year Teasel salvaged from the 'soon to be house site'...

...to be made into tincture for future use...

The summer sun captured in Goldenrod.  It smells like honey - or does honey smell like it?  Medicine for the winter.

Finish old projects, begin new ones...  All things come to an end and in the end is a new beginning.

Mourn the passing, celebrate your success.

                        Balance.                           

                                                                            

The last of the season's beans.

Great Ragweed along the Anacostia River from a recent plant walk I did in DC at Figment;
we sat and communed with this oft maligned plant.  It was magic.

"Go out, go out I beg of you
and taste the beauty of the wild.
Behold the miracle of the earth
with all the wonder of a child."
  - Edna Jaques

Wren says "hi!"

  'He who delights in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.' 

- Friedrich Nietzsche