Wordless Wednesday - Catching the Sun

Pussy Willow Time Again

Pussy Willow (Salix discolor)

Happy Ostara (Vernal Equinox)

Sequestered, Week 152 (CLII)

Sunday, Saying Yes to the World

We have been carrying on two parallel conversations, one about respecting human diversity, the other about preserving natural diversity. Unless we merge those conversations, both will be futile. Our efforts to honor human differences cannot succeed apart from our effort to honor the buzzing, blooming, bewildering variety of life of earth. All life rises from the same source, and so does all fellow feeling, whether the fellow moves on two legs or four, on scaly bellies or feathered wings. If we care only for human needs, we betray the land; if we care only for the earth and its wild offspring, we betray our own kind. The profusion of creatures and cultures is the most remarkable fact about our planet, and the study and stewardship of that profusion seems to me our fundamental task.

Scott Russell Sanders

Bunch of Gladness

Friday Ramble Before Ostara

Next Monday marks the Vernal Equinox or Ostara, one of two times in the calendar year (the other being the Autumn Equinox or Mabon) when the Earth and her unruly children hover in perfect balance for a brief interval. Humans had nothing to do with this day - it's a pivotal astronomic point ordained by the heavens, by the natural order of things in this magnificent cosmos where we live out our days, spinning like tops in the Great Round of space and time.

If I lived further south, Monday might be a time of greening and enchantment, a day when Eostre, the old Teutonic goddess of greening and fertility, wanders wild places with her arms full of spring blooms. Flowers would spring up in her footsteps as she passed, and she would be attended by hares, her special animal. The air would be filled with birdsong, the heady fragrance of rich dark earth and wild springtime herbs.

Alas, the only snowdrops blooming here at the moment are in a glass jar in my study. It will be several weeks until Lady Spring makes an appearance in the northern landscape, but rumors of her imminent presence and the arrival of the greening season persist. It has been a long winter this time around, and Eostre can't show up too soon for me. Our winter birds feel the same and are proclaiming their craving for warmth and light. Every feathered visitor to our sleeping garden seems to be declaring its lofty status as a messenger from the sacred, a harbinger of abundance and new life.

Early this morning, Beau and I went outside into the garden for a few minutes, and a cold going it was. As we shivered in the star spangled darkness and looked up, it seemed to us that March's full moon (now a waning scrap) bears more than a passing resemblance to a great cosmic egg, a perfect expression of this turning of the wheel with its verdant motifs of warmth, light and new life coming into being.

There will be blooming in our thoughts on Monday, but it will be too cold for outdoor celebrations, and it will be very dark - the moon will be only a day past new on Tuesday. We will spend a few minutes outside looking at the stars, and perhaps we will light a celebratory candle on the deck, but the festivities will be indoors for the most part.  All are welcome at the table, and there are enough chairs and mugs to go around. See you there.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Irish or not! 

Tobar Phadric (for St. Patrick's Day)

Turn sideways into the light as they say

the old ones did and disappear

into the originality of it all.

Be impatient with easy explanations

and teach that part of the mind

that wants to know everything

not to begin questions it cannot answer.

Walk the green road above the bay

and the low glinting fields

toward the evening sun, let that Atlantic

gleam be ahead of you and the gray light

of the bay below you, until you catch,

down on your left, the break in the wall,

for just above in the shadows

you’ll find it hidden, a curved arm

of rock holding the water close to the mountain,

a just-lit surface smoothing a scattering of coins,

and in the niche above, notes to the dead

and supplications for those who still live.

But for now, you are alone with the transfiguration

and ask no healing for your own

but look down as if looking through time,

as if through a rent veil from the other

side of the question you’ve refused to ask.

And you remember now, that clear stream

of generosity from which you drank,

how as a child your arms could rise and your palms

turn out to take the blessing of the world.

David Whyte (from River Flow)

Wordless Wednesday - Windy

Crocus Thoughts

Winter's continued presence in the village and the woods of the eastern Ontario highlands is not entirely unforeseen — one can reasonably expect the long white season to lurk in the shadows and make surprise appearances until late April at the earliest, sometimes well into May. I remember a not so long ago year when a killing frost wiped out our newborn veggie patch on the first day of June. 

When winter finally retreats, the woods green up rapidly, and within a short time the whole forest is carpeted in bloodroot, trilliums, trout lilies and Dutchman's breeches, the tiny blooms of spring beauty and wood violets. No quiet and subtle entrance here for Lady Spring, but a triumphant fanfare, running footsteps, an explosion of shaggy green leafage and a riotous profusion of blooms bursting forth, almost within minutes.

Last night in my sleep I wandered along in a cloud of wildflowers and lacy green ferns, listened to a throng of rose-breasted grosbeaks singing in the overstory, watched an osprey hunting over the Clyde river. (Sigh) early days yet. My dreams will have to sustain me for another several weeks—at present the woods are a realm of deep snow and inky blue shadows, and so they will remain for quite a while.

There are gardening catalogues all over the house, and I dream of putting my hands in the good dark earth of the garden again, but the place is still three (four in places) feet deep in snow. For now, potted tulips and crocus thoughts will have to do.

Sequestered, Week 151 (CLI)

Sunday, Saying Yes to the World

One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us.

Ben Okri, The Famished Road

How Sweet It is

Friday Ramble - Melt

This week's word has been around since before 900, coming to us through the Middle English melten, Old English meltan, mealt and gemæltan all meaning to liquify and (or) digest. It is cognate with the Old Norse melta and Greek méldein meaning the same thing, then the Proto Germanic meltanan and West Saxon gemyltan meaning "to make liquid". At the end of our wordy explorations is the Proto Indo-European (PIE) root meld meaning "softness" or "to render soft". The study of word origins is a fine thing.

Strange as it may seem, the word malt is also kin to this week’s ramble offering. In the malting process, barley is soaked, softened and drained to release enzymes used in brewing beer, and the result is called malt (or wort). The curious relation between melt and malt can be explained simply by the fact that both involve softening. On the other hand, the verb meld "to dissolve, blend or mingle" originates in the Old High German melden, "to announce" and the Old English meldian, "to make known", and it is not kin. The term is used mainly in card games, particularly canasta.

In recent days, we have watched hopefully as icicles dangling from the eaves of the little blue house in the village melted away, little by little, jewel by glittering jewel. We grow some fabulous icicles up here, and a favorite springtime exercise is wandering about with the camera and photographing them as they dwindle at their lofty moorings, become skinny and then disappear into the earth, drop by shining drop.

In the icy wands dangling over my head and suspended in the melting streams below my restless feet are worlds great and small and too numerous to imagine. The world around us and its multitudes of microscopic universes are complete within themselves and teeming with life, science and enchantment, all wrapped up together and happy with the arrangement.

Sometimes melting ice holds the doddering photographer and her camera. At other times, it is filled with sky, clouds, bare trees and tiny sprigs of emerging green, all expressions of this incandescently changing season. The Old Wild Mother (Earth)'s creations are finer "stuff" than I shall ever be able to dream up. I just wander around and chronicle her doings with lens and notebook.

Thursday Poem - Another Spring

The seasons revolve and the years change

With no assistance or supervision.

The moon, without taking thought,

Moves in its cycle, full, crescent, and full.

The white moon enters the heart of the river;

The air is drugged with azalea blossoms;

Deep in the night a pine cone falls;

Our campfire dies out in the empty mountains.

The sharp stars flicker in the tremulous branches;

The lake is black, bottomless in the crystalline night;

High in the sky the Northern Crown

Is cut in half by the dim summit of a snow peak.

O heart, heart, so singularly

Intransigent and corruptible,

Here we lie entranced by the starlit water,

And moments that should each last forever

Slide unconsciously by us like water.

Kenneth Rexroth

Wordless Wednesday - Written in the Trees

Waiting for Sweetness

Sequestered - Week 150 (CL)

Sunday, Saying Yes to the World

.. an artist has to remind herself or himself, in other words, that when you write or paint or compose music, you draw in mysterious ways on the courtesy and genius of the community. It is this sensitivity to gifts welling up unbidden, this awareness of the fate of the community, no matter how ego-driven or self-absorbed a writer or artist might become, and no matter how singular the work, that divides art from commerce.

In traditional communities all over the world, this ethic of communal reciprocity, in my experience, is what separates acts of selfishness from the work of leadership. The role of the artist, in part, is to develop the conversations, the stories, the drawings, the films, the music—the expressions of awe and wonder and mystery—that remind us, especially in our worst times, of what is still possible, of what we haven't yet imagined. And it is by looking to one another, by attending to the responsibilities of maintaining good relations in whatever we do, that communities turn a gathering darkness into light.

Barry Lopez

Rumours of Spring

Friday Rambles - Stirring Things Up

A cold morning, motes of sunlight scattering like stars in the cold air, an icy wind that goes right to the bones and makes a valiant effort to flash freeze one's whole metabolism. Underwhelming to say the least, and I am not alone in my disgruntlement. When I tried to entice Beau into going outside a few minutes ago, he peered out into the garden, gave me a filthy look, turned his back on the door and trotted back to bed.

At times like these, culinary offerings from faraway places go dancing through one's sconce, clattering their cymbals and shaking their tambourines in the pantry. The opening gambit is an espresso strong enough to walk on and a lovely stack of cookbooks. This morning's selection includes the works below, but others will be added to the pile before I plunk myself down in the Morris chair to sip and ponder and scheme. 

At times like these, culinary offerings from faraway places go dancing through one's sconce, clattering their cymbals and shaking their tambourines in the pantry. The opening gambit is an espresso strong enough to walk on and a lovely stack of cookbooks. This morning's selection includes the works below, but others will be added to the pile before I plunk myself down in the Morris chair to sip and ponder and scheme. 

1000 Spanish Recipes, Penelope Casas

A Taste of Haid Gwaii: Food Gathering and Feasting at the Edge of the World, Susan Musgrave

Arabesque, Claudia Roden

The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, Claudia Roden

Mediterranean: Treasured Recipes from a Lifetime of Travel, Claudia Roden

Made In India, Meera Sodha

The Food of Morocco, Paula Wolfert

The Breath of a Wok, Grace Young 

Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge, Grace Young

Rebecca Katz's cookbooks are in a stack of their own. Dipping into them, I savor every mouthwatering recipe and vibrant image. All five are a treasure trove of information on using good food to battle cancer and get through chemotherapy, on maintaining a healthy mind and living a long and robust life. They are also a feast for body and soul. On days when I can't stand even looking at food, Rebecca's books delight the eyes and nudge my taste buds back to life.

It will be an Asian concoction this morning, something improvised, serendipity and redolent of aromatic spices. Whatever is stirred up will likely contain saffron or turmeric, perhaps pomegranate seeds, an anise star or two. Just seeing a dish of saffron threads always cheers me up.

The day's culinary adventures will conjure sunlight and warmth and comfort. All three are welcome on a day when one can't wander about with a camera for fear of going base over apex on sneaky ice, and her canine soulmate refuses to go out. There is an element of ritual to this morning's activities - perhaps my saffron threads and wishful stirrings will be noticed by Lady Spring wherever she is hiding. If not, the dazzling reds and oranges and yellows are almost indecently sumptuous, and they make my heart glad.

Happy March everyone!

Thursday Poem - Return

Through the weeks of deep snow
we walked above the ground
on fallen sky, as though we did
not come of root and leaf, as though
we had only air and weather
for our difficult home.
But now
as March warms, and the rivulets
run like birdsong on the slopes,
and the branches of light sing in the hills,
slowly we return to earth.

Wendell Berry

Wordless Wednesday - Evergreen (II)

Small Openings

We have rung every possible seasonal weather change of late, the pendulum oscillating from snow and deep icy cold to rain and temperatures above zero, then back to subzero temperatures, snow and bitter winds. Yesterday there was a little sunlight, and it made my creaking bones and weary heart glad. This morning, it is snowing, and it will snow all day, lucky us. There are several centimetres of white stuff in the offing.

My neighbours have begun to inquire if my canine companion still lives here. Snow in the garden behind the house is so deep that they can't see Beau running around the circular track I keep shoveled out for him there. The walls of his makeshift twitten are almost four feet high, and he disappears from view completely when he is standing in it or galloping round and round in circles. Enough already.

Areas around the creek are sheltered from the north wind and blowing snow by embankments on both sides, by tall old trees in whiskery winter splendor. There are footprints along the creek's verges, the meandering tracks of birds and field mice, cottontail rabbits, now and then a raccoon. On this day, there were also the prints of a weasel, or ermine as it is known in winter when its fur turns white. Not surprising as the little creature is a fierce and very proficient mouser.

The diminutive tributary is blanketed with snow except for an opening near the bend where the water flows a little faster. In that small and hopeful aperture, the icy water sparkles, holding clouds and light and whiskery branches. It sings blithely of springtime and green things emerging from the earth, of wildflowers blooming and geese coming home. It counsels patience. Soon, it says, very, very soon.

Sequestered - Week 149 (CXLIX)

Sunday, Saying Yes to the world

What a wild ride this is. Spinning at six thousand miles per hour on a minuscule ball in a field of stars that stretches into millions of galaxies. Seriously, this is WILD.

Ralph Benmergui, from I Thought He Was Dead
(With thanks to Kate at Stubblejumpers Café)

An Unexpected Guest

Barred Owl (Strix varia)

Friday Ramble - How Sweet It is

This is one of my favorite intervals in the whole turning year - the cluster of sunny days and cold nights in late winter or early springtime when the eastern Ontario highlands gear up for the maple syrup season.

In the woods, the sugar bird (saw-whet owl) sings its courtship songs, and local lore says that when it does, the time has come to tap the maples. Clouds of smoke and steam rise from wooden sugar shacks tucked in among the old trees, and the enchanting fragrance of boiling maple sap is everywhere. Magic is afoot, and no mistake.

The sylvan alchemy in progress is wild and sweet, and the homely metaphor of the maple syrup cauldron has profound resonance for me. I still have the battered cast iron Dutch oven I carried when I rambled the continent many years ago, stirring soups, potions and stews by starlight and watching as sparks went spiraling into the inky sky over the rim of my old pot. The motes of light rising from its depths were stars too, perfect counterpoint to the constellations dancing over my head.

At home, there is usually a stockpot bubbling away on the stove in my kitchen. There are cast iron skillets and pots, bean crocks in assorted sizes and a slow cooker or two. Squirreled away in the cupboard are enameled cookware by Staub and Le Creuset in bright red and unglazed earthenware tagines. One can never have too many cooking vessels, and I can always be tempted into acquiring others. A small three-legged incense bowl rests on the table in my study, and I use it every day. 

Out in the Lanark woods, there are the sugar camps of friends with miles of collecting hose in confetti colors strung from maple to maple. Modern evaporators are used these days, but in some camps, antique syrup cauldrons boil over open fires to show how maple syrup was made in times past. Claudia Smith's book, When the Sugar Bird Sings: A History of Maple Syrup in Lanark County, is an excellent history of syrup craft in my favorite part of the great wide world, and it is a fine read. While no longer in print, it can often be found in used bookshops and online secondhand book sites.

The word cauldron comes from the Middle English cauderon, thence from the Anglo-Norman caudiere and the Latin caldāria, the latter meaning “cooking pot” and rooted in the adjective calidus meaning warm or “suitable for warming”. At the end of the trail is the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root kelə meaning simply “warm”. Calendar, calorie, chafe, chiaroscuro, claim, clamor, class, clear, council, hale, haul and lee are kin. So is caldera, the term geologists use to describe the massive crater formed when a volcano's magma chamber is emptied by a massive eruption or its roof collapses. The biggest caldera on earth is the Apolaki Caldera located in the Pacific ocean off the Philippine islands, and the most active is probably the La Garita Caldera in southwestern Colorado. Of course, Wyoming's magnificent Yellowstone Caldera is in a class all by itself.

The night that gifts us with stars and enfolds us gently when the sun goes down is a vast cauldron or bowl. Somewhere in the darkness up there, Cerridwen is stirring her heady cosmic brew of knowledge, creativity and rebirth, her magical kettle simmering over a mystic cook fire. From her vessel, the bard Taliesin once partook of a single drop and awakened into wisdom and song. We're all vessels, and one of the best motifs for this old life is surely a pot or cauldron, one battered, dented and well traveled, but useful and happy to be so, bubbling and crackling away in the background (sometimes in the foreground), making happy musics and occasionally sending bright motes up into the air.

And so it is with this old hen when her favorite wild places begin to awaken again. Notions of alchemy bubble away gently. Sparks fly upward; images of pots and cauldrons cosmic and domestic whirl about in her thoughts. She could not (and would not) be anywhere else in the great wide world. Is she a wild thing herself? Oh, yes.

A repeat performance (slightly edited, with a few additions and rewordings) but this remains one of my favorite bloggy offerings ever.

Thursday Poem - Mind Wanting More

Only a beige slat of sun
above the horizon, like a shade pulled
not quite down. Otherwise,
clouds. Sea rippled here and
there. Birds reluctant to fly.

The mind wants a shaft of sun to
stir the grey porridge of clouds,
an osprey to stitch sea to sky
with its barred wings, some dramatic
music: a symphony, perhaps
a Chinese gong.

But the mind always
wants more than it has—
one more bright day of sun,
one more clear night in bed
with the moon; one more hour
to get the words right; one
more chance for the heart in hiding
to emerge from its thicket
in dried grasses—as if this quiet day
with its tentative light weren't enough,
as if joy weren't strewn all around.

Holly Hughes from American Zen: A Gathering of Poets

Wordless Wednesday - Emergence