There’s a lot of cosmic energy swirling around right now. Don’t forget to breathe!
“As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul…” Hermes Trismegistus
From Lao Tzu:
Empty Mind – Peaceful Heart
Reply
Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Fun at the Flower Fields 🌺 #LiveColorfullyFlowerFields
I remember when rows upon rows of a colorful flowering ranunculus tapestry was only a quirky, delightful curiosity we’d point at as we drove north along the freeway. Back then it was an annual locals-only kind of attraction and now The Flower Fields enchants visitors from all over the world.
I can’t believe that it took me this long to visit The Flower Fields in all its glory, but it’s a definite recommended destination. It was a truly enjoyable day and best of all, it’s simply impossible to take a bad photo there!
The Flower Fields are located off the freeway at Palomar Airport Road in Carlsbad. In addition to forty acres of beautiful ranunculus in peak bloom, there are tractor rides, wine tastings, food, yoga classes, a Mother’s Day picnic, and day-long educational and fun activities for children of all ages.
And a butterfly garden!
HISTORY:
The Flower Fields today are a direct result of nearly eighty-five years of floral cultivation that began with Luther Gage, an early settler and horticulturist who settled here in the early 1920s. Mr. Gage brought ranunculus seeds to the area and began growing them in his fields next to Frank Frazee’s small vegetable farm in South Oceanside. In 1933 Frank Frazee also started growing ranunculus and introduced his son Edwin to the art of seeding, cultivating, and irrigating this beautiful flower.
This is what it used to look like — the fields of flowers grew close to the freeway:
INFO:
Open daily from 9:00am-6:00pm until Mother’s Day (Sunday, May 14th, 2023)
Ongoing Specials (Starting March 6th)
Mondays – With the purchase of one adult or one senior/military, you receive one child’s ticket free (ages 3-10)|
Tuesdays & Wednesdays – Between 1:00pm-4:00pm, receive $2 off adults, seniors/military and children’s tickets.
Buy tickets online at theflowerfields.com
(Excluding the vintage photo, all photo credit to Enchanted Seashells.com)
@the_flower_fields
Another Tragic Train Accident
For the second time in a week, a train killed a pedestrian at virtually the same exact location.
On April 2nd, a train collision claimed the life of an unidentified pedestrian in Carlsbad. The deadly crash was reported to have occurred around 11:28 a.m. on the tracks south of Tamarack near Chinquapin Avenue.
According to authorities, the Coaster train was heading north when it collided with the pedestrian.
And last night, April 11, at approximately 7:30 p.m, a young man died after he was hit by yet another northbound train.
Witnesses said the victim and three friends, who appeared to be in their late teens or early twenties, were jumping back and forth over the tracks ahead of the train near Chinquapin Avenue, south of Tamarack, the location of last week’s accident. They said they heard the train begin to slow as it sounded its horn several times.
A friend who lives nearby told me what she learned: “Kids were playing chicken and one kid didn’t make it. A neighbor said he just saw sneakers flying in the air. The kids just left. They were sitting on the curb in the cold. They looked like high schoolers. They were issued citations by an officer and left with an adult female around 10:00 p.m.”
There is no further information available on either accident.
Sometimes I like to ride the Coaster from Carlsbad to San Diego because it’s a beautiful scenic route and an alternative to driving in heavy traffic but there seems to be increased human versus train catastrophes, whether it’s purely accidental or suicidal or because kids are playing deadly games.
Before there’s another horrific tragedy, Carlsbad needs to find a solution and make it a priority (over tourism and over destroying every single bit of land to build more hideous developments.)
Purple Pride
I’m referring to Pride of Madeira, the superstar of my garden!
This plant REALLY loves the environment here at Casa de Enchanted Seashells. I read that it’s becoming invasive in places along the coast and I can see how that could happen as it easily reseeds itself.
Native to Madeira Island, north of the Canary Islands, it’s a tough perennial and can survive all summer with little to no water. Since I think we’ve seen the last of our record-breaking rainfall here in SoCal, that’s exactly what they’ll have to do to survive.
And in a different part of the garden, a slightly different hue…It’s HUGE.
Bees love it too. So do hummingbirds and butterflies.
Pride of Madeira grows to about six feet tall and some of my specimens are twice as wide as they are tall.
I quite literally have dozens of baby Prides if anyone wants to plant them in their garden!
The Chair That No One Sits In
(I know that one is not really supposed to end a sentence with “in”, but the proper way sounded stilted and phony, so I made a decision based on this information: “never ending a sentence with a preposition is a myth. It’s something wrongly attributed to English that is actually a real rule in Latin.”)
So…on a walk a couple years ago, I found this chair with its turquoise-painted partner tossed out on the street. They looked lonely and sad, so I went home to get my car and rescued them both.
I placed the chairs on the side of the house with every intention of brightening them up with a new coat of paint but their weary and worn character grew on me. I’ve left them to naturally weather every storm just as they are — honest and true — with nothing to camouflage their straightforward authenticity.
I like them just the way they are.
Funny enough, I get a lot of compliments from neighbors who walk by and comment about how they love the artful way the flowers seem to embrace this simple old chair.
The Chair That No One Sits In
You see them on porches and on lawns
down by the lakeside,
usually arranged in pairs implying a couple
who might sit there and look out|
at the water or the big shade trees.
The trouble is you never see anyone
sitting in these forlorn chairs
though at one time it must have seemed
a good place to stop and do nothing for a while.
Sometimes there is a little table
between the chairs where no one
is resting a glass or placing a book facedown.
It might be none of my business,
but it might be a good idea one day
for everyone who placed those vacant chairs
on a veranda or a dock to sit down in them
for the sake of remembering
whatever it was they thought deserved
to be viewed from two chairs
side by side with a table in between.
The clouds are high and massive that day.
The woman looks up from her book.
The man takes a sip of his drink.
Then there is nothing but the sound of their looking,
the lapping of lake water, and a call of one bird
then another, cries of joy or warning—
it passes the time to wonder which.
William James Collins, Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003.
(Photo credit to Enchanted Seashells)
The Girl and the Whale 🐋
Scrolling through the vast wasteland of the internet, I discovered this picture and it immediately brought tears to my eyes.
I could actually feel myself as the girl caressing this magnificent humpback whale.
The essential and enduring connection and communion with other creatures is a combination of compassion and empathy and kindness.
I did a little research and learned about the work of Rachel Byler, artist and creator of The Colorful Cat Studio.
🐋It’s on my May Birthday Wish List as I could gaze at this painting forever and ever. It brings a simple yet complex joy.🐋
One of my favorite poets, Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Oliver wrote about humpback whales:
HUMPBACKS
There is, all around us,
this country
of original fire
You know what I mean.
The sky, after all, stops at nothing, so something has to be holding
our bodies
in its rich and timeless stables or else
we would fly away.
Off Stellwagon
off the Cape, the humpbacks rise. Carrying their tonnage of barnacles and joy
they leap through the water, they nuzzle back under it
like children
at play.
They sing, too.
And not for any reason
you can’t imagine.
Three of them
rise to the surface near the bow of the boat,
then dive
deeply, their huge scarred flukes
tipped to the air.
We wait, not knowing
just where it will happen; suddenly
they smash through the surface, someone begins
shouting for joy and you realize
it is yourself as they surge
upward and you see for the first time
how huge they are, as they breach,
and dive, and breach again
through the shining blue flowers
of the split water and you see them
for some unbelievable
part of a moment against the sky-
like nothing you’ve ever imagined-
like the myth of the fifth morning galloping
our of darkness, pouring
heavenward, spinning; then
they crash back under those black silks
and we all fall back
together into that wet fire, you
know what I mean
I know a captain who has seen them
playing with seaweed, tossing
the slippery lengths of it into the air.
I know a whale that will come to the boat whenever
she can, and nudge it gently along the bow
with her long flipper.
I know several lives worth living.
listen, whatever it is you try
to do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you
like the dreams of your body,
its spirit
longing to fly while the dead-weight bones
toss their dark mane and hurry
back into the fields of glittering fire
where everything,
even the great whale,
throbs with song.
🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋
April’s Full Pink Moon
This full moon is all about healing, harmony, and balance. Stay grounded and peaceful as we embrace the beautiful energy of this pink moon.
“Always remember we are under the same sky, looking at the same moon.” – Maxine Lee
For some reason, none of the pictures I took of the moon came out great, so I snapped a pic of some of my favorite crystals on a pink heart dish.
I love this poem about the moon, written by Lady Montagu (1689-1762), a truly remarkable woman. In addition to her poetry and writing, she is also celebrated for introducing the smallpox inoculation to Britain, half a century before Edward Jenner developed a vaccine against the disease.
Hymn to the Moon
Thou silver deity of secret night,
Direct my footsteps through the woodland shade;
Thou conscious witness of unknown delight,
The Lover’s guardian, and the Muse’s aid!
By thy pale beams I solitary rove,
To thee my tender grief confide;
Serenely sweet you gild the silent grove,
My friend, my goddess, and my guide …
Word of the Day: Maitri
Discovering new words is a constant joy.
Maitri: loving kindness and compassion for oneself, to reveal a profound essence that leads to personal growth, the ultimate self care.
Maitri is one of the four virtues of Buddhism, collectively known as Brahmaviharas or ‘the immeasurables’.
The term maitri can be translated from Sanskrit as loving-kindness or benevolence, The concept is central to the Buddhist practice of loving-kindness meditation and is also referenced in ancient Hindu and Jain scriptures.
Maitri was one of the themes of Buddhist teacher and author, Pema Chodron. In her book How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind, she describes maitri as “unconditional friendliness,” not only towards others but towards oneself.
For maitri toward oneself, try this affirmation: “May I be happy, healthy, safe, and live with ease.”
Positive affirmations + the practice of infinite gratitude are two concepts I incorporate into my daily life.
How about you?
Sunday Snaps
After all the rain we’ve had here in Southern California, every bit of land is awash in springtime color.
A picturesque view of the lagoon, train tracks, and Pacific ocean through Purple Mustard, an invasive weed:
I call this plant Beach Daisy, definitely a weed, if not also invasive…
And finally, I’m impossibly happy because the wildflower seeds I planted last year in my native garden decided to sprout and present me with lovely spires of lupine:
**All photo credit belongs to Enchanted Seashells.
Earthquake! NOT An April Fool’s Joke…
Yesterday at 6:16 p.m. I was on the sofa eating a bowl of yummy rice and veg when I felt the entire house shake with an incredibly SHARP jolt like the house was trying to fall off the foundation accompanied by a deafening loud noise.
Did the Wicked Witch of the East crash into my house?
For half a second, I looked around thinking something had fallen outside on the deck. The windchimes were all going crazy and with no discernible wind. I was a bit confused for a minute, then a lightbulb went off in my brain and I hurriedly checked the earthquake app on my phone and sure enough, we had just had a 4.5 earthquake, subsequently downgraded to a 4.2.
There was no damage at Casa de Enchanted Seashells other than a few pictures that weren’t secured with earthquake gel became a little askew, but nothing broke, I’m glad to report.
Again this morning a little after 5 a.m., I sort of half woke up with the same sort of sharp jolting sensation but went right back to sleep without checking the earthquake app.
I slept until almost 7 a.m, and when I got up, I remembered that feeling and wanted to establish whether there WAS another earthquake or if was it just a dream, and I discovered there was a definite 3.2 earthquake at 5:10 a.m. in the same location.
It was real, not a dream!
Maybe it was a joke on all of us from Mother Nature, right? Did anyone else feel it?
Happy April, everyone!
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 