Wordless Wednesday - Dewy

Sequestered, 355(CCCLV)

Sequestered, 353 (CCCLIII)

Wordless Wednesday - Coming up Purple

First Purple Crocuses

The Purple Eyes of Heaven

Bearded Iris (Iris germanica vulgaris)

This morning's sumptuous blooms are named for the goddess of the rainbow, Iris, messenger of the gods on Mount Olympus. She was charged with carrying their messages along the rainbow bridge between heaven and earth.

Iris also escorted the souls of virtuous dead women to their final resting places in the Elysian fields. In Greece, irises were planted on graves by grieving family members, that the goddess might recognize and guide their departed loved ones home.

Purple is one of my favourite colours, and when bearded irises bloom, they make my heart glad. That is surely what gardens and flowers are all about. A rainbow is a happy thing, and the flower's association with it seems appropriate.

Typing this, I remembered a silky, deep purple ribbon I wore in my hair as a child. The adults in my family thought the colour was not appropriate for someone so young, but I wore it anyway. It seems my love of purple goes back a very long way.

Coming Up Purple

Nectar and Light

Sequestered, Week 214 (CCXIV)

Coming Up Purple

Purpled Fragrance

Spring Has Sprung?

One day there is snow, and we are pottering around in boots and winter gear. The next day, we are clad in capris, short sleeves, and sandals. Temperatures are well above freezing, skies are blue, and dazzling sunlight turns everything in sight golden.

Starlings are donning their summer plumage, and a pair of crows is building a nest in the big pine behind the little blue house. At intervals, the birds take a break from flying in and out of the old tree with nesting materials, sing their pleasure in the season, preen each other, do a little dancing and execute brief "flurry flights" over their territory.

My garlic is poking tender green nubbins out of the earth, and the mojito mint is already sending up tendrils, ditto the English lavender, lemon balm and sage. I spent an hour or so working in the veggie patch yesterday, and I did it in short sleeves. Beau spent the afternoon on the sun deck toasting his tummy.

When the first purple crocus buds appeared in my neighbor's garden a few days ago, I felt like kneeling down and kissing them. Given the damp and my elderly knees, that probably would not have been a good idea, but I considered it, albeit briefly.

Hallelujah! Maybe, just maybe, spring has sprung.

Coming Up Purple

Coming Up Purple

Bumble girl in the Purple

Lit From Within

Sequestered, Week 164 (CLXIV)

After the Rain, Irises!

Sequestered, Week 160 (CLX)

For the Violets

My departed soulmate's favorite spring flowers were the violets in our garden, and they were his mother Nan's favorite too. Every year, he waited patiently for the little dears to flower and feasted his eyes on them for hours when they did. He would bend and inhale their delicate fragrance, then look up at me and say that violets are for love.

When I discovered the violets were blooming this week, I plunked myself down on the steps nearby and had a good cry. I don't weep gracefully, and I probably looked like Hades as I sat there, blubbering and sniffling and wailing and sore of heart. Beau curled against me as closely as he could, trying to comfort me as he always does at such times.

And so it goes... the violets are just being violets and doing what violets are meant to do on this earth, but they feel like a message from my soulmate, and I miss the man so. The days of the wee purples are fleeting, but oh, how they dazzle in their appointed time, spring in and spring out. Violets are for love, and love goes on