blackberry – In the Woods

I can see this year is going to have a lot of first-time-without-Tim occasions, but I’m starting to embrace them with a little more openness, letting the feelings be. The grief isn’t as raw these days, the waves of it feel more gentle somehow. And so I had a nice time visiting the Coker Arboretum with Sally while the college students were away on spring break.

spring starflower (South America)
with small milkweed bug

I did not notice that bug when I was taking the picture – it often amazes what the camera finds for me. We lingered quite a while near this beautiful patch of starflowers.

This bunch of spirea bushes was breathtaking – the camera tried but couldn’t quite capture the beauty. We also lingered here.

I don’t see nondual spirituality as a path to perpetual bliss. From my perspective, being awake is about total intimacy with life as it is. It’s not about escape or turning away. And it’s not about trying to find an explanation either, because ultimately, we can’t. Everything is the way it is because the whole universe is the way it is.
~ Joan Tollifson
(Right Now, Just As It Is!, August 21, 2025, “The Play of Life”)

Our lives teach us who we are.
~ Salman Rushdie
(In Good Faith)

Every once in a while the energy of a certain tree will attract me. This swamp chestnut oak was huge! There was something wise and majestic about it. I couldn’t get far enough away to get all of it, so I tried to get half of it. Conversely, because there are signs everywhere warning us to stay on the paths, I couldn’t get close enough to touch it, which is what I very much wanted to do.

But then I thought of my old gull friend with the mangled leg, and how I fed off his wise energy even though I never touched him. So I looked up into the branches and with the zoom lens saw some new leaves and catkins. It made me think of the quote about being intimate with life as it is.

Japanese flowering cherry tree (Kwanzan cultivar)

The last two pictures were actually taken on the UNC campus as we were walking back to the car. These special cherry trees were presented to the university by the Class of 1929, making them almost 100 years old!

So many beautiful blossoms on such a lovely warm spring day. And so many peaceful thoughts to bring home with me.

We are lucky in Groton to have a long boardwalk alongside the Poquonnock River, squeezing in a bit of nature between industrial parks, shopping centers, a small airport and the railroad tracks and bridge. The flatness of the walkway is not good for Tim’s back, which does much better on uneven terrain, but there are a few well placed benches along the way where he can sit and readjust his muscles enough times to make it a doable walk. We were wearing our winter coats this day and most of the birds and berries we saw were nestled in the reeds and trees. No waterbirds on the river, except for an occasional gull touching down for a few moments. And one amazing flyby of Canada geese high in the sky.

We avoided this walk during the pandemic because there wouldn’t be enough room to stay six feet away when passing other walkers. But since we both have had our booster shots we felt safe enough to take a chance. One jogger passed by us twice, on his way out and back. We also passed an elderly man walking along, talking to himself.

I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.
~ John O’Donohue
(Conamara Blues: Poems)

tree silhouette reflection in water
under moss covered branch and bankside foliage

reindeer moss and lichens on dying branch

So far as our noblest hardwood forests are concerned, the animals, especially squirrels and jays, are our greatest and almost only benefactors. It is to them that we owe this gift. It is not in vain that the squirrels live in or about every forest tree, or hollow log, and every wall and heap of stones.
~ Henry David Thoreau
(Journal, October 31, 1860)

one can forget the civilization is so close by

multiflora rose hips
(thanks to Eliza for the id)

blackberry
(thanks to Leelah and Eliza for the id)

The wild cherries ripen, black and fat,
Paradisal fruits that taste of no man’s sweat.

Reach up, pull down the laden branch, and eat;
When you have learned their bitterness, they taste sweet.

~ Wendell Berry
(Fall, for Wallace Fowlie)

Tag: blackberry

life as it is

down by the river