looks a little wintery 12.10.15 ~ Sparkle Lake Conservation Area
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence. ~ Ansel Adams (Meditation on Both Sides of the Camera: A Spiritual Journey in Photography)
autumn hangs on
Life has felt pretty blurry, quiet and strange lately, what with the shingles odyssey for Tim and the unusually warm weather for this time of year. It was a welcome change to get outside and take a walk with Janet, camera in hand, to enjoy a pleasant, spring-like day in December. We found plenty of natural beauty exploring the woods behind my condo complex. Even so, I’m yearning for the first snowfall…
12.10.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut
12.10.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut
contrast
12.10.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut
12.10.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut
12.10.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut
late autumn sun
At home I have two woodpeckers who frequent my suet feeder. I’ve learned their call now because they always squeak before they start eating. So while on this walk I recognized a woodpecker call in the wild for the first time and started looking around to locate it. Found him in the reeds!
woodpecker
a symbol of determination and heightened levels of awareness
12.10.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut
forsythia in December?
spent milkweed
And now the weekend begins. Content with silence for the time being, I hope it will be a relatively quiet one, with time for continued healing. Wishing you a great weekend, too!
A child, her wayward pencil drew On margins of her book Garlands of flowers, dancing elves, Bird, butterfly and brook. Lessons undone, and play forgot Seeking with hand and heart The teacher whom she learned to love Before she knew ‘t was Art. ~ Louisa May Alcott (Louisa May Alcott: A Biography)
No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love. ~ Edvard Munch (www.edvardmunch.org)
The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers. ~ Matsuo Bashō (Voices from Earth)
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
There is an extraordinary place located in the quiet corner of Connecticut. My sister and I used to frequent Logee’s, a sprawl of greenhouses specializing in rare and tropical plants and fruit trees. But I think it’s been a good ten or twenty years since we’ve been there.
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of a workhouse. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (Gifts)
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
Back in February there was a discussion in the comments here about how nurseries in northern climates don’t open until it’s safe to start planting outdoors in the spring. For the first time in ages, this got me thinking about an exception to that rule, Logee’s, and I was delighted to find out that they are still open year round!
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life. ~ Jean Giraudoux (The Enchanted)
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
Tim & I made a trip up there on Saturday and the place was still a perfect antidote to the cabin fever which has been plaguing us. Several linked greenhouses are stuffed from floor to ceiling with colorful, bright and cheerful tropical flowers! The aisles were so narrow that two people could not pass by each other or keep from brushing against some of the plants.
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
Permission to take pictures was granted and I had a wonderful time shooting right and left, above and below, and at eye-level. An employee was on a step ladder picking fruit from an orange tree, answering questions while he worked. The stifling heat and humidity was a welcome change from the bitter and bone dry air outside.
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. ~ Claude Monet (The Fantasy of Flowers)
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
I came home with two impulse purchases, a climbing onion and a white Easter cactus. We’ll see how well I care for them. After a nice lunch at the Vanilla Bean Café, we went to see a movie, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and enjoyed it very much.
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
Each flower is a soul opening out to nature. ~ Gerard de Nerval (The Fantasy of Flowers)
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
We noticed on the way home that the temperature outside had crept up to above freezing, just a smidgen! It’s time for the mounds of snow to start melting!
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
What a nice day after being housebound for so long!
3.7.15 ~ Danielson, Connecticut
To analyze the charms of flowers is like dissecting music; it is one of those things which it is far better to enjoy, than to attempt to fully understand. ~ Henry T. Tuckerman (The Fantasy of Flowers)
Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or of acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both. ~ Carl Sagan (Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark)
Children will draw pictures with everything in them … houses and trees and people and animals … and the sun AND the moon. Grown-up says, “That’s a nice picture, Honey, but you put the moon and the sun in the sky at the same time and that isn’t right.” But the child is right! The sun and moon are in the sky at the same time. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller (Buckminster Fuller to Children of Earth)
“Young Woman Playing a Guitar Before a Piano” by Anna Ancher
Music became a healer for me, and I learned to listen with all my being. ~ Eric Clapton (Clapton: The Autobiography)
I let my music take me where my heart wants to go. ~ Cat Stevens ♫ (The Wind) ♫
There is a spirit in all music, the spirit has the ability to conjure up thoughts even pictures of something that happened or you wished would happen or you anticipate happening. Music has the ability to create ideas in you and me. It has the ability to encourage us to be creative. ~ Maya Angelou (Facebook, August 25, 2010)
I’ve been a little sad this week, stumbling across a few painful reminders of losses in the past. One reminder was a deeply moving blog post, Silent Death-Alzheimer’s Disease story-1988, with striking photos that hit so close to home, bringing back memories of my grandmother’s decline and reminding me of what my father is going through now.
The idea of crowds and heat and humidity gave me a bit of pause, but today we ventured out to the 54th annual Mystic Outdoor Art Festival. We were lucky to find a parking spot we didn’t have to pay for and it was not too long a walk to the first booth.
8.13.11 ~ Mystic, Connecticut
The festival is a professionally juried outdoor art show, with booths for over 250 artists and over 60 crafters to display their works lining the streets of historic Mystic. One must cross over the Mystic River on a bascule drawbridge (above and below) to get from East Main Street to West Main Street in Mystic.
8.13.11 ~ Mystic, Connecticut
Before we got too far I fell in love with an oil painting of a cat sitting on a chair looking out the window, called “Oliver’s View” by Kimberley Scoble. The artist told me she painted the scene first and then Oliver cooperated by jumping on to the chair and sitting there for twenty minutes looking at something intently, the way cats do.
Because we were at an art show I was totally unprepared for a booth a few spots down for the Terri Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation. As a kind breast cancer survivor was explaining about the Walk Across Southeastern Connecticut coming up on October 1st I got all choked up and then the tears started. I explained to her that my mother died of breast cancer twenty years ago… I don’t know if this is menopause making me so sensitive… I’m kind of surprised that it hit me like that.
Tim took me away and comforted me as I collected some pamphlets. It took me a while to regain my composure. Now that I’m home I’m thinking maybe the universe is telling me it’s time to get involved in a cause that is obviously so dear to my heart. The woman said if we couldn’t walk the quarter marathon (6.55 miles) we could take part by being in a cheering section. And in October heat and humidity probably wouldn’t be a reason for concern…
8.13.11 ~ Mystic, Connecticut
Anyhow, we went on to see many beautiful oil paintings, watercolors, photography, pastels, sculpture, acrylics, pottery, metalwork and crafts. Most were way out of our price range, and many had signs forbidding the taking of pictures. But we did buy some very refreshing all-natural frozen lemonade!
8.13.11 ~ Mystic, Connecticut
On March 6, 2000, there was a fire at the shops on 18-22 West Main Street in Mystic which burned them to the ground. Every plan proposed to rebuild the site has been rejected for one reason or another and it remains as the fire left it. A wall was erected to hide the empty spot, but there are some holes cut out of it for people to look through. For the festival, the wall has been decorated with children’s art.
8.13.11 ~ Mystic, Connecticut
Another treat was some lovely music we heard before we found the source. This woman was playing an ancient Chinese stringed instrument, a guzheng.
8.13.11 ~ Mystic, Connecticut
We stopped at the local free-range chicken farm on our way home, and at a farmer’s market for tomatoes, eggplant, squash and cherries. I’m looking forward to autumn and apples – I’ve had enough of summer!
