• leaves,  quotes,  sky,  trees

    A Summertime Truth

    “Here is a summertime truth: abundance is a communal act, the joint creation of an incredibly complex ecology in which each part functions on behalf of the whole and, in return, is sustained by the whole. Community not only creates abundance – community is abundance. If we could learn that equation from the world of nature, the human world might be transformed”

    Parker J. Palmer

    I have enjoyed this summer-like day. I sat on my porch and journaled this afternoon. A cool breeze blew and enticed the trees to dance with it. I watched two small robins, who I think were juveniles, chasing one another around the old tree stump. I watched two baby squirrels jumping from branch to branch in their game of tag. These simple games most young ones play. A blackbird sang its song from the far edge of the pond. And the geese continue to practice in their attempt at a song, unsuccessfully. As I look up I see the blue sky with puffs of clouds silently and slowly drifting by. For me it was a cool summertime day with an abundance of community around me. I feel my day has been full. I hope your day was a full.

  • Mary Oliver,  poems,  writing/reading

    Bought a New Book

    On Meditating, Sort Of

    Meditation, so I’ve heard, is best accomplished
    if you entertain a certain strict posture.
    Frankly, I prefer just to lounge under a tree.
    So why should I think I could ever be successful?

    Some days I fall asleep, or land in that
    even better place — half asleep — where the world,
    spring, summer, autumn, winter —
    flies through my mind in its
    hardy ascent and its uncompromising descent.

    So I just lie like that, while distance and time
    reveal their true attitudes: they never
    heard of me, and never will, or ever need to.

    Of course I wake up finally
    thinking, how wonderful to be who I am,
    made out of earth and water,
    my own thoughts, my own fingerprints —
    all that glorious, temporary stuff.

    Mary Oliver (From Blue Horses)
  • flowers,  Plants

    The End is Near

    Black-Eyed Susans
    Black-Eyed Susans

    Walking to the coffee shop I needed to take this image as it depicts the end of the summer and the beginning of fall. The seasons are a changing. Been thinking about planting, or I guess they call it spreading, of some wildflower seeds along the boundary between the ponds and the lawn at my condos. It seems to be a simple enough procedure adding some flowers to brighten up the area around my condo. I’ll let you know.

  • flowers,  Plants/Nature

    Summer is almost gone

    Summer is almost gone

    I noticed a few leaves are turning red and some are falling to the ground in preparation for the coming of Fall. Summer is almost gone so here’s one more flower image, taken last month at Inniswood Gardens. Have a wonderful weekend.

    And, yes it is a day for remembering.

  • landscape

    Pruning in Our Lives

    Fresh Rain for the New Season

    Like a tree during the seasons of fall and winter, we need to be pruned of a lot of dead branches before we will be ready to bare good fruit. The winter season has its own way of pruning itself, leaves and fruits dry up and fall to the ground. With the sun and rains of the spring and summer seasons comes the flow of new life to the seemingly dead branches and we begin to see new buds, blossoms, leaves and fruits. So it is in our lives, pruning is a necessity of our lives.