That’s one of the messages that emerged about being unplugged for almost a week…it’s important to make time to see and feel what’s in our hearts.
In solitude, there is healing.
Speak to your soul.
Listen to your heart.
Sometimes in the absence of noise we find the answers.
Mirrored on the lagoon.
Another one of my secret spots to take a break, breathe, and reflect.
Looking west toward the ocean; peaceful, not a ripple.
**Quote from a lovely little inspirational book by Dodinsky.
This is what my heart dreams about in the deep of night.
Fairies dance in the moonlight
With hearts that shimmer bright
And wings that flutter softly
Making magic in the night”
~ Randi Kuhne
Credit to artist, image curated from Pinterest.
The full moon and lunar eclipse again wreaked havoc with my sleep – I woke up several times seemingly for no reason, but I looked out the window and said “goodnight, moon“, as if I were in Margaret Wise Brown’s classic book where the bunny says goodnight to various objects and creatures before drifting off to sleep.
I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better. –Mary Oliver
Cinderella by Frances Brundage
And, finally I see
There right in front of me
Waiting peacefully
Was a bright new day
A little poem written by Athey Thompson
Art curated from Pinterest
Mushrooms!
This is an indication of how much rain we’ve had in Southern California and just how soggy the garden is…and more rain is on the way.
Unidentified fungi appeared in the crevice of a split ficus trunk that was cut down a couple years ago because the roots were starting to come too close to the foundation.
I wanted to keep the stump instead of grinding it because I thought it was architecturally beautiful and now it’s decomposing exactly like I hoped it would.
These mushrooms are definitely not edible, right? They’re most likely poisonous and I’m certainly not going to find out one way or another. I’m not THAT curious or adventurous. Or dumb.
A day later, here’s how they morphed and darkened, plus it’s raining:
Fascinating!
I found a poem by Emily Dickinson about mushrooms…
The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants –
At Evening, it is not
At Morning, in a Truffled Hut
It stop opon a Spot
As if it tarried always
And yet it’s whole Career
Is shorter than a Snake’s Delay –
And fleeter than a Tare –
’Tis Vegetation’s Juggler –
The Germ of Alibi –
Doth like a Bubble antedate
And like a Bubble, hie –
I feel as if the Grass was pleased
To have it intermit –
This surreptitious Scion
Of Summer’s circumspect.
Had Nature any supple Face
Or could she one contemn –
Had Nature an Apostate –
That Mushroom – it is Him!
My poetry professor would be proud of this haiku I wrote…
solitary finch
perched deep in the mulberry
will you stay or go?
By Princess Rosebud
This morning, I looked up into the branches of a winter-nude mulberry and couldn’t resist snapping a photo of this precious little finch.
I had to run to retrieve my phone as I willed her to stay long enough for a photo op. “Please don’t move, please don’t move, please don’t go.”
And she didn’t.
I was rewarded with a mostly monochromatic composition, which is exactly what I’d hoped for. In reality, the little bird has a yellow breast, but the quality of light turned everything almost colorless and dramatic.
Stars are dropping thick as stones into the twiggy
Picket of trees whose silhouette is darker
Than the dark of the sky because it is quite starless.
The woods are a well. The stars drop silently.
Stars Over the Dordogne – Sylvia Plath
In my dreams…
Those Enchanted places
Where the past shall always be
Where the past shall linger
Quietly, in the present.
Poem by Athey Thompson
Art by Lucy Campbell
A hot blue day had budded into something.
I wasn’t ready. The white clouds rearing
Aside were dragging me in four directions.
I wasn’t ready.
I had no reverence.
I thought I could deny the consequence–
But it was too late for that. Sylvia Plath
Sunday sky. I looked up as jets flew by overhead, so I’m not sure what they are.
I wonder…
…if there’s a message in these clouds.
What do you think?
Today’s Full Wolf Moon mood…
I heard a whisper
Coming from the trees
And, in that moment
I was gone
Gone away
To return, to where I’d come from.
A little Poem by Athey Thompson
Taken from A Little Pocket Book of Poems by Athey Thompson
Photo credit to Enchanted Seashells of magical tree at Big Sur
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 