Textures and Patterns

 from a recent trip to Blackwater Falls Nat'l Park:

    

"I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too.

I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them, under the wind-rent clouds, upstream and down.”

- Annie Dillard, 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek'

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...

Cacoethes and 'Roads Less Traveled'

A Bid of Welcome.

Water finds her path to the great body, the ocean, just as we are finding our path back to the Earth.

Many paths, many branches, in the lungs of the Earth.  We share the same breath.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
(I had to memorize this poem with the whole class in 8th grade; it changed me,
guided me, and patted me on the back...)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

A BitterSweet Tangle.

 ~

Seeing into the distance...a far-away vista of color and sun through the murky wood, then closer...

...it comes into view:  a centered spiral of hay for winter, stored sunshine.

~

For some the way is known.

~

Paths known. - a revisit.

Paths unknown - possibility for the 'morrow...

And in honor of a great author who died yesterday:

"It is good to have an end to journey toward, 

but it is the journey that matters in the end."

 - Ursula Le Guin

Gail Force: The Irrefutable Invitation

The call
The caw
It issued forth
          from the Crow's mouth
          but it was prayer
               on my lips.
It pierced the morning
          separating night from day.
I clung to its echoes
     the way a bird clings
     to a ferocious wind
          no choice
     as it cleaves its space from the air. 
          Slicing the indivisible
               the way a moment
               slices future from past
     yet changes in each instant
     always different, always the same.

I knew the day'd be bright
     whether or not the sun shone
for I'd spent my ~time~
     in the blackness of that night. 

 

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

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!