From the deepest, darkest part of the ocean to where I feel more at home, following a path on terra firma…
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening — Robert Frost
Artist Micell A. via Pinterest
Happy first day of summer and the longest day of the year!
Until recently, I hadn’t known about the practice of celebrating Litha during Midsummer. Litha is a pagan holiday, a time of light, purification, and healing; to reflect on the light and dark within us and the world.
It’s time to appreciate everything we have in our lives and to be grateful for nature and all that she provides.
Pick some flowers to honor the season or build a fire or light a candle. A fire lit on Litha is said to be very powerful and magical.
“Write down your hopes and dreams and burn them in the fire, to do this on Litha night will bring you your desire.”
The Sun
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
– Mary Oliver
I’m so excited! This is the first time I’ve ever seen a Red Admiral butterfly. I had installed a solar powered fountain in the pond only minutes before when this little guy came to visit and take a drink. After that, he spread his wings on the sun warmed rocks and I was able to get a good look.
I hope he hangs around for a while…I’ll try to capture better photos if I see him again.
The Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) has much more black than the Monarch. It has a black upper forewing with a bright, diagonal red-orange band across it and spots of white on the tips. It also has a red marginal band on its hindwing and the underside is a mottled brown.
I found a poem about this butterfly and had to share. I wasn’t able to learn a lot about the poet, David Wood, but I certainly do like his poems!
Sonnet 68: Red Admiral
Patrolling small stretches of the hedgerow
Like a silent sentry on guard duty,
Other butterflies they will overthrow;
The Red Admiral, nature’s real beauty.
Seen fluttering throughout summers hot days
From buddleia to Michaelmas daisies,
And sheltering from the suns golden rays,
All the people will sing of their praises.
But they cannot survive the winter’s cold
Their life is all too brief, a crying shame:
Alas none of them will ever grow old
Their short life is all part of nature’s game.
Their beauty we cannot take for granted
For they are delicately enchanted.
| Penumbra: a shadowy, indefinite, or marginal area |
I sent you a present last night you know
Though it didn’t address you by name
It was all of those meteors showering, dancing
And falling to earth like the rain
I wrote you a letter last week you know
But it won’t have arrived in the post
I wrote on the bright coloured curves of a rainbow
The reasons I missed you the most
I sent you a message just yesterday
But it wasn’t a message in words
For I spoke to the wind and I taught her our song
And I asked her to make sure you heard
I drew you a picture last Tuesday
But you may not have noticed it there
For I drew round the clouds with the rays of the sun
So they glowed as they hung in the air
No, you may not get gifts like you used to
Or get messages stored on your phone
But I’ll make sure I’m sending something each day
So you know that you’re never alone
And tomorrow I’ll paint something wonderful
I don’t know quite yet what it will be
But I promise you’ll know when you see it
That it’s sent just to you
Love from me
Xxx
From When I Am Gone – Becky Hemsley
This Bush Poppy (Dendromecon rigida) is a California native shrub. It’s a tough and beautiful plant but only if planted in the right conditions. The Bush Poppy thrives on rocky clay slopes with excellent draining. If planted in sandier soils, it can handle supplementary water up to once a month. Prefers full sun. Flowers are beautiful, as are the long, thin, blue-green leaves.
Look at this lemony yellow azalea. I didn’t even know they came in yellow until I used the info app on my phone to identify this gorgeous girl. I think it’s actually called Rhododendron ‘Lemon Lights’.
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.
🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋
I love butterflies. I’ll stop whatever I’m doing to point and say, “Look at the butterfly!”
Every year, World Poetry Day is celebrated on March 21st with the aim of supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression.
Here’s one of my favorites by Anne Sexton, elegantly illustrating our shadow side, at least that’s how I interpret her words.
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.
One of my favorites, poet Thomas Hood, who also wrote A Lake and A Fairy Boat.
This one calls to me, too…
A little fairy comes at night,
Her eyes are blue, her hair is brown’
with silver spots upon her wings,
And from the moon she flutters down.
She has a little silver wand,
And when a good child goes to bed
She waves her wand from right to left
And makes a circle round her head,
And then it dreams of pleasant things,
Of fountains filled with fairy fish,
And trees that bear delicious fruit,
And bow their branches at a wish;
Of arbours filled with dainty scents
From lovely flowers that never fade,
Bright ‘flies that flitter in the sun,
And glow-worms shining in the shade;
And talking birds with gifted tongues
For singing songs and telling tales,
And pretty dwarfs to show the way
Through the fairy hills and fairy dales.
Image curated from Google public domain. Credit to artist.
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 