• flowers,  Plants,  poems

    There is this Invitation

    July 22, 2025

    Toward Peace

    Clematis

    Perhaps some part of me still believes
    peace is a destination,
    a place we arrive, ideally together.
     
    I notice how shiny it is, this belief,
    like a flower made of crystal,
    beautiful, but lifeless,
     
    devoid of the dust and scuff
    that come from living a real day.
    Meanwhile, there is this invitation
     
    to grow into peace the way real flowers grow—
    in the dirt. With blight and drought,
    beetles and hail.
     
    Meanwhile this invitation
    to live in the tangle of fear and failure,
    to be humbled by my own inner wars
     
    and wonder how to find a living peace
    right here, the peace that arrives
    when we take just one step through the mess
     
    toward compassion and notice
    as our foot rises our heart also rises
    and in that lifted moment
     
    still scraping along in the dirt,
    there is a peace so real we become light,
    become the momentum that is the change.

    Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Toward Peace
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  • computer,  flowers,  Plants

    Out for delivery…

    June 19, 2025
    Foxglove

    Well, I ordered a new Macbook to replace my 7 year old one. I received an email this morning saying it is out for delivery today. I am going to back up and transfer the data myself so if I’m silent for a couple of days it’s cuz I’ve probably encountered a pilot error (Maybe two).

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  • flowers,  Plants

    Fallen in Love

    June 18, 2025
    Cashmere Sage

    Yesterday afternoon we had a monsoon rain and pea sized hail. After everything settled down, the air smelled wonderful. I then made a trip to the CSU Flower Trial Garden and may have fallen in love with a new flower. Please enlarge this image to check out the tiny hair follicles and this plant’s beautiful color. Cashmere sage is a perennial flower grown for its clusters of flowers. These showy lavender-pink blossoms are arranged in tight whorls on slender stems, and appear in summer over soft green, broad leaves. Google says the tiny hairs can deter insects and other animals from eating the leaves by making the plant less appealing or hindering their movement. The fuzzy texture created by the trichomes can help shade the leaves and reduce water loss from the plant’s surface. In some cases, the hairs can help absorb and retain moisture from the air, especially in dry environments. Who would have known? I’ve learned something new!

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  • flowers,  Plants,  quotes

    A Discovered Life

    June 14, 2025

    When we make a place for silence, we make room for ourselves. By making room for silence, we resist the forces of the world which tell us to live an advertised life of surface appearances, instead of a discovered life — a life lived in contact with our senses, our feelings, our deepest thoughts and values.

    Gunilla Norris
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  • bees,  flowers,  insects,  Plants,  quotes

    The Gifts of Other Beings

    August 6, 2024

    Gratitude is founded on the deep knowing that our very existence relies on the gifts of other beings.

    Robin Wall Kimmerer

    Latest news this morning shows the Alexander Mountain FIre to be held at 9,668 acres and is 74% contained. The Stone Canyon Fire is 100% contained. Grateful the skies are returning to their blue color! I found this bee enjoying their time on a sunflower the other afternoon at the CSU Experiment Garden. I really need to thank them more often for being the gift they are and not just as a photographer’s subject.

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  • flowers,  Plants,  quotes

    Take another one

    July 17, 2024
    American Takii

    The way to think about photography is that the next frame you shoot will be the definitive one. Everybody takes one picture and says, ‘Well, I’ve got it.’ Take another one, and always believe that the one you haven’t taken will be even better.

    John Shaw

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  • clouds,  poems

    A Cloud

    May 31, 2024

    I wandered lonely as a cloud
    That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
    When all at once I saw a crowd,
    A host, of golden daffodils;
    Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
    Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

    Continuous as the stars that shine
    And twinkle on the milky way,
    They stretched in never-ending line
    Along the margin of a bay:
    Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
    Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

    The waves beside them danced; but they
    Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
    A poet could not but be gay,
    In such a jocund company:
    I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
    What wealth the show to me had brought:

    For oft, when on my couch I lie
    In vacant or in pensive mood,
    They flash upon that inward eye
    Which is the bliss of solitude;
    And then my heart with pleasure fills,
    And dances with the daffodils.

    William Wordsworth (1802)
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  • animals,  coffee life,  flowers,  shadows

    My Commute

    April 12, 2024

    I am not sure how many days I commuted to and from work but I am grateful I no longer commute to work. However, this morning on my walk/bus ride to the coffee shop I was aware I still commute, yet it does not seem like a commute. While commuting to work, my mind was already at work, figuring, planning, scheduling, arguing, and already building resentments. This meant I was not mentally present for the commute. Wonder how many gifts nature was offering me and I missed them?

    So I’m going to share with you a bit of my commute to coffee this morning. (Sorry if it bores you.) We had a cloudless blue sky. Apple blossoms reminding me it’s spring. A squirrel watching my every move. A cottontail checking out their reflection in the car. Early morning shadows. Spring flowers and new leaves on campus. Heard the cooing of a morning dove and the cry of a hawk. And then when I arrived at Mugs my barista, Emma, offered her wonderful smile and made me a mocha. Yes, I still commute but it’s different. I have an open slate on my calendar, so I plan to do a bit of reading and writing, in the sun. Enjoy your Friday.

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