Everyone was out this Thursday evening with their cameras pointed up, taking photos of the cloud-dotted sky with amazingly intense colors.
Celestial Sunset Brilliance
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Category Archives: My Enchanted Life
Dragons and Pearls
I love jewelry boxes. I love them so much that I wanted to pass on the sweet tradition and sent baby Char a ballerina musical jewelry box fit for a princess that plays a tune from Swan Lake. Char wore a rainbow colored tutu for Halloween, so it’s definitely this Grandma’s job to nurture an early appreciation for dance.
It turned out that she loved it so much (and so did Theo) that I had to send him one too, only his featured characters that twirl around from Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince and plays Mozart’s Eine Klene Nachtmusik. It’s about the right time for him to read that book, too.
I also found a new one for me (of course), and it’s better in real life than the photos portrayed on Amazon. The green is truly a beautiful background for the gold dragon. This one doesn’t play music but I have another one that does, so I’m content.
Now we’re all happily playing with our new boxes…a thousand miles away from each other.
Once In a Blue Moon
That’s what my mom would say sometimes when we’d do something extra fun or eat something extra decadent…”It’s special; once-in-a-blue-moon, Rosebud!”
I never really knew there WAS such a thing as a “blue moon” phenomenon; innocent Rosebud that I am/was thought it was something Mommy invented.
But we are now in 2020 experiencing an October blue moon that hasn’t occurred in 76 years. The last time it happened in all US time zones was in 1944.
It’s called a blue moon because it’ll be the second of two full moons in a single calendar month. If you have a clear sky tonight, you can also see red Mars!
Halloween is also the same day as Samhain, a holiday some witchy-types celebrate to honor the dead. This holiday paired with Halloween makes these upcoming days an energetically potent time because of the thinning veil between the spiritual and physical world.
We have some major supernatural happenings heading our way, so remember to manifest and appreciate the beauty of this significant full moon!
Happy Halloween and Happy Samhain, everyone!
Ma…The Space Between Things
I’m inspired by the spartan aesthetic of Zen Buddhism.
Is less really more?
Ma (pronounced “maah”) is a celebration of not things, but the space between them. It’s negative space, voids, emptiness. The place you get to (if you’re lucky) in meditation. Like the space where that tree used to be.
I’m not exactly sure why this tiny little ceramic vase IS. Like why it even exists.
Only four inches tall, it holds about a tablespoon of water and I continued to replace flower after flower until I got the brilliant idea of searching around the garden for beautifully shaped little twigs.
These are the last remnants of the ficus tree that is no longer there, and I decided it would be a simple way to honor that once living entity by saving a little part of it.
At first I was going to embellish the tiny branches with faux gems, pearls, and seashells–like I usually do–but the more I looked at it, the more I loved the bare simplicity. I didn’t want to detract from the design of the vase.
I should write a haiku about the tree and these twigs. Being a minimalist with words is just as difficult for me as NOT gluing shiny things to those tiny little branches.
So this is zen — ma, the serene space between things.
Goodbye, Tree
A while back I wrote about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and I’m guessing I could also call this post “A Tree Dies in SoCal”
Usually the loss of a tree I’ve lived with and loved for years feels like how I imagine a phantom limb might feel- a certain emptiness, a vacant unfillable void–like mourning the loss of a loved one, but this was different.
It actually feels lighter; freer–all in all a good decision that I had procrastinated about for years because I hate to destroy any living creature or growing thing.
The first cut is the deepest–I know those are song lyrics, but there’s a point you can’t go back, when the decision to cut down a tree is beyond the point of changing your mind. Too late to say WAIT, let me rethink things! You can always plant a new tree, right? Replace the old tree with a new one, right?
This was a ficus. I know ficus trees have invasive roots, I know they are much better as potted plants, but I seriously had thought this one was situated far enough away from the house so that it wouldn’t become a problem.
Then I looked under the deck and saw roots, which meant that it would only be a matter of time before there could be real damage to either the foundation or the plumbing.
It’s gone now, and I really don’t miss it at all. I’m thinking about what to plant as the empty space looks a little barren.
Maybe a fruit tree or two? Something that’s a bit more giving than the ficus which was definitely NOT an example of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree–more like the TAKING tree, sucking all the life out of the plants around it and leaving a mess to clean up.
I feel as if I most deserving of some reciprocal quid pro quo in return for all my love and nurturing and caretaking.
…to an infinite degree
Did you think I was referring to love? I could have been, but nope, not this time.
While this isn’t my photo, it’s worth sharing. In a cool social media twistyturny kind of way, I was chatting with a fractal artist on Twitter and shared my previous fractal post with him, Fractals Freak Me Out.
Here’s a link to Dan’s site and a post about fractals:
https://www.redideostudio.com/what-in-the-heck-is-a-fractal-why-should-i-care/
His book of fractal art is soon to be published and he kindly shared a photo with me, so here it is for a very wordy #WordlessWednesday. I am sooo jelly of creative people.
I wish you every success in your awesome endeavors!
Daniel Travers
Multimedia Producer & Artist
www.redideostudio.com
Fractals Freak Me Out
To a Butterfly
STAY near me–do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!
Much converse do I find in thee,
Historian of my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart! – Wordsworth
This female Papilio glaucus, the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, hung around for about half an hour, leisurely fluttering from one flower to another. I almost felt like paparazzi as I snapped photo after photo of this Lepidopteran celebrity. A little research revealed that the first known drawing of a North America butterfly was in 1587 of an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail by John White.
It happened in the front yard this time along the dry river bed.
I was enchanted while she took a rest break on the ground, basically right at my feet, long enough for me to take about fifty more pics.
To a Butterfly
STAY near me–do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!
Much converse do I find in thee,
Historian of my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive in thee:
Thou bring’st, gay creature as thou art!
A solemn image to my heart,
My father’s family!
Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey:–with leaps and springs
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her, feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.
By William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Fog + Real Ducks In a Fake Pond
I had to get up at the crack of dawn to walk before the devil heat returns.
Lucky for me there’s a deep marine layer and so much fog that it’s impossible to see across the street from my house. The fence around the school is barely visible; that’s how moisture-laden the skies are right now. Normally, it’s possible to see all the way to the lagoon from here, but not today.
It’s an hour-long walk around the lagoon and up the hill, and I hurried to beat the emergence of the fiery ball. All-time heat records were broken yesterday; it’s easier to comprehend nuclear fusion creating a core temperature of 270 million degrees on days like that.
These are real ducks in a fake pond on the street where all the paddleboarders park. They built this water feature and have since tried in every way to deter ducks from using it–but here they are. It’s literally feet away from the lagoon which is a natural body of water; how could they expect wildlife NOT to enjoy it??? Duh.
Hello, ducks! Have a wonderful swim. Welcome to Carlsbad!
…and so it begins
Here in SoCal, there are unusual excessive heat warnings for the coast; it could reach 105 degrees today. It was 87 degrees at 8:00 a.m. and now it’s 101 at 11:00 a.m. HOT!
The National Weather Service announced red flag warnings for high fire probability with humidity less than ten percent. The forecast also calls for areas of smoke. High heat records are being broken this weekend. Our desert temperatures could exceed 126 degrees. Crazy!
There’s ash on my car and deck from the fire in Alpine, fifty miles away in the east county. I tried to go for a walk at 7:15 and not only was it already too hot, but my breathing was compromised from the smoke so I had to turn back. As of right now, the (named) Valley fire is estimated to have burned 4,000 acres and is 0% contained. Ten structures have been destroyed.
And then I found this, the first one of the season. The first leaf fallen from the mulberry tree. Autumn in SoCal.
I see a few more yellow leaves up there; soon I’ll be raking them up and the branches will be barren.
Sometimes I hear the voice of my poetry professor and search for a poem to illustrate the bittersweet feelings of the changing season. This is a good one by Rossetti.
Autumn Song
Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
Laid on it for a covering,
And how sleep seems a goodly thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
And how the swift beat of the brain
Falters because it is in vain,
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf
Knowest thou not? and how the chief
Of joys seems—not to suffer pain?
Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the soul feels like a dried sheaf
Bound up at length for harvesting,
And how death seems a comely thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
By DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
