Wordless Wednesday - Early Golden Lily

Trout Lily
(Erythronium americanum)
(also called Yellow Snowdrop, Fawn Lily,
Adder's Tongue, Dog's Tooth Violet)

The Dancing Path

Round-lobed Hepatica
Hepatica nobilis var. obtusa
(Hepatica americana, Anemone americana)

As brown and grey as the woods are at this time of year, delicate wildflowers are springing up everywhere the sun touches the earth. There is a winding flowery trail of these little white wonders through the Two Hundred Acre Wood this week, and one goes dancing along the path, trying to avoid stepping on them wherever possible.

I apologize profusely for the flowery litanies being dished out this week, but it was an extraordinarily cold and snowy winter here in the north, and the white season seeemed to go on and on and on forever. The appearance of every single wild cousin encountered in the woods is a blessing and a rare treat.

Blooming

Dutchman's Breeches
(Decentra cucullaria)

It's the second of the wild springtime cousins to come into view and another one of my favorite April findings.

The rich grey-green feathery clumps and nodding plumes of white pantaloon-shaped flowers spring out of drifts of dead leaves in sunny places, and they peer hopefully out of the granite of wooded cove and gorge and cliff as well. The best and most photogenic specimens always seem to be growing thirty feet up (or down) a towering wall of weathered stone. There are times when one just has to do a bit of climbing in April.

Again, it is not one of the more flamboyant residents of our woodland in April, but I have great affection for it as one of the first wild cousins to appear, and it always seems to be nodding in greeting when I find it.

Bloodroot

Bloodroot (sanguinaria canadensis) are the first wildflowers to appear in our northern woods in springtime, and finding them in bloom on the Two Hundred Acre Wood is a sure sign that we are on our way "into the green".

Delicate creatures all, they're not brightly colored or showy, but their slight incandescence, snowy veined petals and golden hearts show up at quite a distance in the woodland. Yesterday, I could see this colony from right across the ridge - the blooms glowed like lighted lanterns from their deep and shady hollow.

Thursday Poem - In Muir Woods

Masters of stillness,
masters of light,
who, when cut by something
falling, go nowhere and heal,
teach me this nowhere,

who, when falling themselves,
simply wait to root
in another direction,
teach me this falling.

Four hundred year old trees,
who draw aliveness from the earth
like smoke from the heart of God,
we come, not knowing
you will hush our little want
to be big;

we come, not knowing
that all the work is so much
busyness of mind; all
the worry, so much
busyness of heart.

As the sun warms anything near,
being warms everything still
and the great still things
that outlast us

make us crack
like leaves of laurel
releasing a fragrance
that has always been.

Mark Nepo, In Muir Woods

Wordless Wednesday - Jonquil

For Earth Day

For Earth Day, the first red tulip growing wild and splendid and free in the hedgerow this morning, a little after sunrise.

We will (as always) spend the day picking up detritus in the village and along the road which runs along the front of the Two Hundred Acre Wood. Otherwise, it's business as usual — reuse, recycle, rethink, clean up after ourselves and try to leave as light a footprint as possible on the Old Wild Mother as we go along — be grateful and show a little respect, exercise a gentle caring stewardship of this dear little blue planet which is our chosen home this time around. Earth Day is (or it ought to be) every single day of the turning year.

Be mindful!

Husband the earth. Protect
her from greed and violence. Build
humbly, plant trees, grow flowers and clothe her
with dignity. Respect all her creatures. Honour her
natural laws and the universe which cradles her.
Above all, heartily worship the Source of All that is.

This world needs secret heroes! Be brave, speak the truth,
heal the sick, make peace. Be strong, serve patiently, love
generously, live simply. Enjoy fellowship, eat and drink modestly,
celebrate the festivals. Breathe deeply, sing and make music,
walk often, cycle and recycle. Be thrifty, prefer cashflow to
possession, give good measure. Let your work be your prayer.

Put on the whole armour of light! Unearth the beauty in
everything. Inhale the Spirit of Goodness. Kindle kindness,
especially toward yourself, embracing the sweet
silence of your own soul. Fear nothing. Accept
what you are and — while you have
breath — give thanks.

John Rogers

April's Full Seed Moon

April's Seed moon is big and beautiful and it comes up over the trees like a sanguine gesture, promising an end to the northern snows, heralding warmer days and nights, my perennial garden coming to life and shooting greenly up and out in all directions at once.

The pool (or puddle) in this photo was a great mound of grimy snow only a few days ago, and there were no reflections to be enjoyed until yesterday when springtime appeared to be here at last, and the village launched itself into sprouting mode. There are still a few cold nights to be endured of course, but last evening was the first time in many months that I could stand in the garden after dark without being muffled head to toe in heavy winter togs, and that felt just wonderful. There are nesting birds everywhere in the village, and the local hedgerows are full of cottontails.

A fabulous golden moon it was, and there was something very Zen about standing out in the garden under the evergreens and seeing its perfect lustrous reflection in the melt pool at my feet. Oh to be Basho and write a perfect haiku about springtime moons.

We also know April's golden moon as:

Ashes Moon, Awakening Moon, Big Spring Moon, Big Summer Moon, Black Oaks Tassel Moon, Broken Snowshoe Moon, Budding Time Moon, Budding Trees Moon, Bullhead Moon, Cherry Blossom Moon, Daisy Moon, Moon, Egg Moon, Moon, Fish Moon, Flower Moon, Frog Moon, Glittering Snow on Lake Moon, Grass Moon, Gray Goose Moon, Great Sand Storm Moon, Green Grass Moon,, Growing Moon, Half Spring Moon, Hare Moon, Ice Breaking in the River Moon, Leaf Split Moon, Loon Moon, Maple Moon, Maple Sugar Moon, Maple Sap Boiling Moon, Moon of Greening Grass, Moon of Red Grass Appearing, Moon of the Big Leaves, Moon of the Red Grass Appearing, Moon of Windbreak, Moon When Geese Return in Scattered Formation, Moon When Nothing Happens, Moon When the Geese Lay Eggs, Moon When They Set Indian Corn, Peony Moon, Pink Moon, Planter's Moon, Planting Corn Moon, Planting Moon, Poinciana Moon, Red Grass Appearing Moon, Ring Finger Moon, Snowshoe Breaking Moon, Spring Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon, Strawberry Moon, Strong Moon, Sugar Maker Moon, Summer Moon, Sweet Pea Moon, Tulip Moon, White Lady Moon, Wildcat Moon, Willow Moon, Wind Moon, Wisteria Moon, Yellow Moon

I am rather fond of "Awakening Moon" and "Maple Moon".

Liminal Sundown

One of those April sunsets so vivid and powerful and luminous that it almost brings a shoreline witness to her knees - at the same time, it makes her want to sing and dance (or more likely hobble and lurch) along the beach in sheer full-blown delight and jubilation.

Only a fool would try to paint them (I'm a fool), and even the best of photos seldom captures more than a scrap of the magic of such liminal moments. If these sunsets were potions, they would be potions so rich and sparkling and potent as to convey immortality.

Return to Earth

I discovered yesterday that one of my favorite old beech trees in the Two Hundred Acre Wood had expired and come apart this past winter - my tree probably returned to the earth early in this calendar year when the snow was very deep and muffled the sound of her last song and her falling.

She was a great tree and a very old tree, and I shall miss her shade in summer, her arching branches and her silvery bark. She was a soul friend, and a great pleasure to spend time with over the years, giving me good advice and lending her sturdy shoulder for me to lean on when I needed comfort and healing.

Now it is her turn - she rests in the loving arms of her sisters in the beech grove, and all around her are her comely daughters. Yes, I shall continue to visit her.

The Friday Ramble - Flowing

"For some of us, our love for the world is so great, that we cannot ask it to wait until we are enlightened."
Joanna Macy

It's my ham-handed and arthritic but infinitely loving rendering of the river at sundown on a late summer day in the Lanark Highlands. You can't hear it, but the loons are calling across the water to each other, and a heron strides the shallows around the bend. That evening, the world seemed a perfect place to the bemused elder sitting by the river with her camera and tatty receptacle of artist's implements, her heart as wide and as full as the world.

I'm off and into the woods with my camera today, but the word for this week just has to be flow. The word is very old indeed, and it comes to us through the Middle English flowen, and the earlier Old English flōwan meaning to surge or form waves, to pour out or go by water. Flowing is part of our nature, and it is interesting to note that one can trace the word through so many cultures on this island earth, almost exactly as we hear it and speak it today.

At the heart of flow lies an elemental grace and an abundance of presence, a clear and compelling sense that we are moving along in harmony with the natural orders of which we are such a tiny but integral part. It is something which we need to remember. Earth Day is still a few days away, but the passionate love of Gaia and healing sentiments it espouses should be in our minds and hearts for every single day of the turning year. This one is for Mother Earth.

What does the word flow mean to you? Post a note here or perhaps a link to your own thoughts on the subject.

Thursday Poem - The Task

It is a simple garment, this slipped-on world.
We wake into it daily — open eyes, braid hair —
a robe unfurled
in rose-silk flowering, then laid bare.

And yes, it is a simple enough task
we've taken on,
though also vast:
from dusk to dawn,

from dawn to dusk, to praise, and not
be blinded by the praising.
To lie like a cat in hot
sun, fur fully blazing,

and dream the mouse;
and to keep too the mouse's patient, waking watch
within the deep rooms of the house,
where the leaf-flocked

sunlight never reaches, but the earth still blooms.

Jane Hirshfield, The Task

Wordless Wednesday - Coming Forth

Focus (Not)

All winter long, I wait for these springtime days, and scheme about how I will spend such splendid coinage. Then the days arrive, and I am unable to focus - a kind of wandering silliness sets in.

I ramble for hours, pausing to stare up into the blue and listen for geese and loons. I peer into fields and hedgerows (when I can find them behind the snow) looking for rabbits and the first green shoots of the season. I sit by the river listening to its euphonious antics as it rushes headlong through the gorge and out into the lake. I watch the sunlight pouring itself out over everything in sight, and I feel a little golden myself, but at the same time, I am singularly unmotivated to do anything at all except sit there on my rock in the sunshine and just be.

When I return indoors hours later, I sit here looking at the screen and trying to figure out how on earth I can describe it all. There are (alas) no adequate words for this beautiful blue day.

Drifting Free

Splash of Red

One "bare bones" quick capture sans telephoto, sans tripod, sans anything at all except a handheld camera and one elderly photographer skulking in the shrubbery (myself).

We still have snow, and there is still little or no foliage on the trees here, although one can see in this photo that the trees are doing their best to entertain springtime by leafing out with gusto. Delicate rosy buds are beginning to appear everywhere, and perhaps there will be green leaves in a week or so.

The cardinals who make their homes in the village are nervous at this time of the year, and justifiably so. They visit the trees in the garden and our feeders, but they are in constant motion and never stay for long. There are (as yet) no leafy branches to conceal their vibrant plumage from the local hawks, and it is a rare thing to catch one of these radiant avians out in the open in April. Their color is so bright that it is almost garish when framed against a clear blue springtime sky, and they must be prudent in their appearances.

Looking for...

What exactly is one looking for when she is wandering around in foul weather wearing the equivalent of a wet suit and hip waders, carrying a bag of lenses and with a camera strung around her neck ? A friend asked me that question late yesterday evening, and I have been thinking about it this morning.

Some places arrange themselves perfectly in eye and viewfinder, and yet they do not speak or sing. Others, often on cold, dank and foggy days, arrange themselves easily in neither eye nor lens, but they tug at the sensibilities like a dancing kite on a sunny morning or a fey harp being played somewhere over the hills and far away.

Such places, and they always seem to be wild places, call us out of ourselves and into something greater and more magnificent than we will ever be able to comprehend with our feeble human brains. A group of trees across the Clyde River valley on a cold foggy morning, the cliffs above Dalhousie Lake on a rainy day, a quiet bay where herons haunt the shallows at twilight and loons craft their floating nests, the hidden (and insect infested) highland bog where wild orchids bloom in June - there are many such places in my life, and I am fortunate to know them, so fortunate, even if I never manage to take a single good picture of them.

As Barbara Kingsolver wrote so beautifully in Last Stand: America's Virgin Lands:

"In the places that call me out, I know I'll recover my wordless childhood trust in the largeness of life and its willingness to take me in."

After some thought, I have decided that I am looking for home, just not in the usual places.

Thursday Poem - Want the Change

Want change. Be inspired by the flame
where everything is alight as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body turning away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.

Pour yourself out like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.

Rainer Maria Rilke,
Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XII

Wednesday - Storm on the Lake

It happens from time to time in springtime. I arise at the usual time (before dawn) and watch the day unfold from my kitchen window, which looks out over the garden. A little later, I don my tallest rubber boots, and Cassie and I go splashing through puddles in wilder corners of the village.

Time seems to fly away, and I suddenly remember that I never got around to turning on the computer and writing a little something. The exercise is put off for a while longer as I browse through my photos and remember how spectacular the first storm of the season was. Can you sniff the ozone in the air here and feel the crackling energy in the air? The Old Wild Mother has power to spare.

Among the Trees

The crabapple, rowan and hawthorn trees in the garden of my little blue house in the village are still encased in several feet of snow, and they will be for some time, but a few stalwart upper branches of my old friends are already protruding from this winter's gargantuan snowdrifts. There are buds to be seen on many of the branches.

The crabapple trees are particular favorites, mainly because their blooms are a deep rich shade of burgundy and very fragrant. One of my personal markers for the true arrival of springtime here in the north is the full retreat of the grimy oceanic snows from the skirts of our beloved fruit trees, the jubilant sprouting of the crocus bulbs planted underneath the trees when the snow has departed (and good riddance to it too). One of these weeks, I shall wake up to discover that the snow has vanished and my heirloom gold and purple crocus bulbs are "up and out". Alas, that will not be happening for a while, and not at all if the squirrels were very active last autumn - they adore crocus bulbs.

There is usually something going on in the fruit trees above the sleeping bulbs though. All winter long, there were copious quantities of withered and freeze-dried crabapples, rowan berries and haws on the trees, and the garden was visited regularly by cardinals and jays, who added welcome splashes of scarlet and bright blue to a winter landscape executed almost entirely by the Old Wild Mother in shades of white, cream and grey. Herself has a lot to answer for this year, dishing out a winter that made us all feel as if we were living halfway up a Himalayan peak in Fimblewinter and Ragnarok was approaching - call it Ragged Rock if you are as ardent a fan of Michael Chabon's beautiful novel Summerland as I am).

Shy by nature and wary because of their brilliant plumage, cardinals are difficult to photograph, and I have taken a few good photos of these beautiful members of the passerine family over the years, but not many. The birds are in constant motion when they visit our garden, and the Cooper's Hawk who often sits in the oak tree in the south corner of the garden indubitably has something to do with their agitation.

The flock of Bohemian Waxwings who visited yesterday were certainly not shy, and they couldn't have cared a fig about the presence of hawk or owl, so perhaps there is safety to be found in avian numbers. Every fruit tree in the garden was chock full of dancing and skirling birds, and when they left after an hour or two, there was nary a crabapple, a rowan berry or a haw left on the trees. Such visitations seem to happen only in springtime, and this was a very good thing.

Unfolding

It's what I long for and dream about and post here about endlessly, water and stone and old wood, any chance and uncontrived meeting of elements in a composition which says volumes, sometimes with a few words, often without any words at all.

In such images there is harmony, movement and an organic folding which pulls the viewer, photographer or witness right into the picture. Everything is in motion here, the old granary slowly sliding into the river, the rough stone foundation on which it sits and which is also sliding inexorably into the river, the old river itself flowing quietly along.

Here, there is wabi: a quiet sense of of poignance, solitude and loneliness; sabi, the suchness or innate uniqueness of the various elements, first separately and then together. Then there is yugen or mystery, the hidden and ineffable which lies at the heart of all reality and existence.

Pottering about in the woods with my camera in springtime or along winding highland streams, I have to realize, accept and become thoroughly comfortable with the simple fact that the images I am bringing home on my little memory cards are woefully inadequate. All things are perfect just as they are, and they don't need my meddling, mediocre and doddering presence to give them meaning or expression and preserve them for posterity.

Like the lotus and the morning glory which reside within it, the cosmos is ever unfolding and with no human assistance whatsoever. It really doesn't matter whether I am here or not. While I am here, I am just a joke, a happy wanderer in wild places with her camera in hand. In time, I shall go dancing back to the beginning place, to the stardust out of which I was formed and out of which I shall come dancing again as something else entirely. What a trip!

Just Breathing By the Water

It's what one dreams of in winter, this slow fluid transformation into springtime. Legions of cold clear rivers, creeks and streams higher in the Canadian Shield are melting and plunging impetuously down cliffs and hillsides, singing gloriously as they travel over the rocks. They make a fine madcap music with rampant joy in every note and trill, and there are times when they simply cannot restrain themselves and must shriek with joy.

It is cold in the north woods, and there is still a lot of deep snow about here. There is enough snow to make my pottering about on snowshoes an ordeal fraught with possible unfortunate consequences, but I must go, and I go whenever I can, stopping here and there along the way to watch smoke rising from the Lanark maple sugar camps tucked in among the trees.

When I arrive at the Two Hundred Acre Wood, I find an impetuous fast-flowing tributary with a flat rock near by, and I sit there for an hour or two in the sunshine, connecting with the earth and the sky and just breathing in and out. Again and again, I find myself wondering what I ever did to deserve such richness and light and wild community.

Spring is finally on its way methinks. Far out, terrific, tubular, grand and definitely cool. Emaho!

Morning Light

Caravanserais Along the Way

108 Bowls: A Water Mala

A Mermaid in the Attic
A Novelist's Mind (Lilian Natel)
A Penchant for Paper
A Personal Gazette
A Sacred Friendship
A Wrung Sponge
Abigail Padgett
Age Old Tree
Alisa Burke
All I Did Was Listen
Abbey of the Arts
Altered Gypsy
aMused artisan
An Artist's Garden
An Open Sketchbook
Anchors and Masts
ars longa; vita brevis
Art and Words
Artefacts
At Brigid's Forge
At the White Bench
Awake is Good
Awakened Living

Baba Yaga's Mirror
be present, be here
Beyond Words
Bloom Spirit
Blue Dragon Arts
Blue Sky Dreaming
Books to the Ceiling
Brushstrokes
Burning Moonlight
But Wait, There's More

Camilla Engman
Capricorn's Quest 
Captured: A Photo Journal
Cari Ferraro
Carmen Torbus
Carry It Forward
Celtic Shaman
Cheerio Road
Circle of the Year
Cloud Hands
Color Sweet Tooth
Coming Into Sight
Constantly Evolving
Contemplating the Moon
Contemplating Reality
Contemplative Living
Contemplative Photography
Contrary Goddess
Counting Petals
Coyote Crossing
Crayons Encore
Crone Heart Worship
Crow Greetings

Dante's Heart
Dark Roast
Deb Did It
Demeter's Spicebox
Divining/Designing
Dharma Bums
Dirt Worship
Donna Iona Drozda
Drawing a Line in Time
Drawing Board

E.D.G.E. Gallery
East of the Sun, West of the Moon
Effort is Offering
Elderwoman
Elderwomen Musings
Emerging Crone
Emma Tree
Endment
Enhance the Everyday
Errant Artist
Evenstar Art
Eyes for Ghosts

FarmLass
Flowers... Uncut
Foothills Fancies
Four Rooms
Four Winds Haiga
Fragments From Floyd
From a Lanark Highlands Farm
From Barren to Bountiful

Gaian Soul
Garden Path
Girl Unwinding
Goblin Fruit
Goddess in a Teapot
Greater Albion Typefounders
Green Gal
Green Tangle
Green Whisper
Groundswell

Gypsy Girl's Guide

Hearthwitch Cottage
Heather Smith Jones
HecateDemeter
Hill's Chronicle
Hoarded Ordinaries

I Saw Us in a Painting
Ilka's Attic
immersethrough
In Among the Heather
In a Dark Time
In the Labyrinth
Inkstone
Intense City
Into the Hermitage
Its Just How I see Things

J'ellen in the Black Hills
Jane Tomlinson's Journal
Jizo Garden
Journey to the Center
just... A Moment

Kate Smudges
Kelly Rae Roberts
Kim Antieau
Kind Over Matter
kindling

Lama Surya Das
Leafshade
Leaping Greenly
Letterology
Letters From a Hill Farm
Lifescapes
Light Night Rains
Liminal Light
Little Scraps of Magic
Living In Moments
Living in Season
Lobster and Swan
Louise Penny

Magic in These Hills
Magic of the Ordinary
Mama Craft
Mama of Letters
Many a Road
Margaret Almon Mosaics
Medusa Coils
Melissa Moss
Mermaid Healing
Mind Sieve
Mind Trips
Miss Whistle
Moleskinerie
Moomin Light
Moonlight and Hares
Moonroot
Mother Earthbeats
Museworthy
Musings From Gelli Fach
Mutterings
My Inner Edge
My Journey to Mindfulness
My Photo Visions
Mystical Gypsy
Mystic Meandering

Narrow Road/Open Mind
Nature's Whispers
Naturography
nectar & light
Night Vision Journal
Nine Acres
Nine Ravens

OASIS Writing Link (OWL)
ODD Imagination
Oh My Cavalier
One Day at a Time
One Single Impression
One Thousand Gifts
Ontario Wanderer
Optimistic Voices
Ordinary Courage
Ornamental
Our Lady of the Red Thread
Outside the Line
Over Good Ground
Owl's Daughter

Pallas Renatus
Paper Roads
Paris Parfait
Paths in the Green Valley
Paula's House of Toast
PD Packard
Peeling a Pomegranate
Persisting Star
Plumpie Mousie
Poems, Paintings and Photos
Poetic Adventures in the Last World
Politics n' Poetry
Prairie Star's Wonderings
Presentation Zen

qarrtsiluni
Quillin Weaving
Quinn Creative

Rainbow Dream
Raining Sheep
Rainy Day Thoughts

Ravenwood Forest 
Read 'em and Eats
Real Mud Garden
Record the Day
Red or Gray
Red Star Cafe
Rivanna River Days
Roaring Girls
Rock, Paper, Lizard
Room Without Walls
Roswila's Dream and Poetry
Round Rock Journal
Roundtop Ruminations
Rue and Hyssop

Sacred Cake
Sacred Ordinary
Sage's Play
Sakura Snow
Salt Marsh Diary
Say the Trees Have Ears
Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Shambhala Sunspace
Shannon Inside Out
Shine the Divine
Shutter Sisters
Sightlines (Jane Tomlinson)
Signs of the Season
Small Wonders
Soliliquy (Nancy Bond)
Somewhere in Dhamma
Soul Aperture
Spirit Blooms
Spirit Cloth
Squirrel's View
Stepping Stones of Truth
Still in the Stream
Still Life Pond
Sustainable Soul
Suzi's Scribbles
Sweet and Salty
Synchronicity

Taexalia
Tagmeth (Pat Hodgell)
Talk at the Table
Taopolitics
Tessandore Creative
Textilosophy
That's Just the Wild Wood
The Color of Wind
The Creative Spirit
The Crowded Leaf
The Deepest Well
The Fluent Self
The Green Bough
The Herb Wife of Ancestor Meadow
The Life of a Potter
The Old Mermaids Journal
The Quiet Country House
The Rambling Taoists
The Road Less Traveled
the spirit that moves me
The Threadcatcher
The Vibrant Heart
The Whirling Dervish
The White Bench
The Wild Magnolia
Them's My Sentiments
Thief of Quotations
This Week's Water
Three Clay Pots
Tithenai's Journal
Today and Everyday
Tomorrow is Another Day
Tortoise Trail
True Calling
Truth Cycles

Under the Luna Laurel

Via Negativa
Vida's Life
View Through the Fingers of Trees
Vulture Cafe
Vulture Peak Muse

Walking Satellite
Walking Toward Wisdom
Wanderin Weeta
Wanderings of a Wondering Mind
Water::Earth::Wind::Fire
Water When Dry
We Three, Ginger Cats Tales
Wendi Wright
What If?
Whatever the Weather
Wild Soul Open Heart
Winged Paths
Worldwide Saijikii (Seasonal Words)
Wrennaissance Reflections
Writers Rest
Wyldewood Papers

Your Heart's Home

zendotstudio
zenhabits

Thursday Poem - To Light

At the spring
we hear the great seas traveling
underground,
giving themselves up
with tongues of water
that sing the earth open.

They have journeyed through the graveyards
of our loved ones,
turning in their grave
to carry the stories of life to air.

Even the trees with their rings
have kept track
of the crimes that live within
and against us.

We remember it all.
We remember, though we are just skeletons
whose organs and flesh
hold us in.
We have stories
as old as the great seas
breaking through the chest,
flying out the mouth,
noisy tongues that once were silenced,
all the oceans we contain
coming to light.

Linda Hogan,
(To Light from Seeing Through the Sun)

Wordless Wednesday - Curving

Emerging

From time to time, images come dancing out of the ether, and these two fall into the category of emanations from the threshold or liminal realms, pure and simple. I admit cheerfully that the image of organic woman, female pilgrim, woman on a journey or "tree woman" is one which is powerful and appeals to me, tree lover that I am. My two tree women have probably been percolating in my dusty cranium for years,

We put our roots down and branches up. We forge a blood and bone deep connection with the earth and turn our faces to the celestial realm above, to the sun and the moon and the stars from which we came so long ago. We travel along together in wonder and hope and curiosity and (if we are fortunate), creativity and passion and love for the great wide world all around us.

If there is a metaphor or leitmotif for my life this time around, then this has to be it. The question now is: what shall I do with her, or rather them?