songbirds – Page 16 – In the Woods

faerie for colorful autumn foliage

10.12.12 ~ Old Lyme, Connecticut — Autumnal Fortress created by Kristen Thornton
10.12.12 ~ Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut

Faellan is the faerie for colorful autumn foliage. His name comes from Old English and means an abundance of leaves, aka the fall! The many colors and textures of the leaves inspire the painters in so many ways. As the leaves turn from green to gold, they capture the creative imaginations at several stages. Whether held aloft in the tree top, dancing fancifully through the autumn air, or carpeting the ground below, Faellan’s leaves are the season’s showstoppers.
~ Wee Faerie Village: Land of Picture Making

Blind folk see the fairies,
Oh, better far than we,
Who miss the shining of their wings
Because our eyes are filled with things
We do not wish to see.
They need not seek enchantment
From solemn, printed books,
For all about them as they go
The fairies flutter to and fro
With smiling, friendly looks.
~ Rose Fyleman
(White Magic)

Deaf folk hear the fairies
However soft their song;
‘Tis we who lose the honey sound
Amid the clamor all around
That beats the whole day long.
But they with gentle faces
Sit quietly apart;
What room have they for sorrowing
While fairy minstrels sit and sing
Close to their listening heart?
~ Rose Fyleman
(White Magic)

The fairies have never a penny to spend,
They haven’t a thing put by,
But theirs is the dower of bird and of flower
And theirs are the earth and the sky.
And though you should live in a palace of gold
Or sleep in a dried-up ditch,
You could never be as poor as the fairies are,
And never as rich.
~ Rose Fyleman
(Fairies & Chimneys)

lure of life

"White House at Night" by Vincent van Gogh — “White House at Night” by Vincent van Gogh

Tonight, the moon came out, it was nearly full.
Way down here on earth, I could feel it’s pull.
The weight of gravity or just the lure of life,
Made me want to leave my only home tonight.

I’m just wondering how we know where we belong?
Is it in the arc of the moon, leaving shadows on the lawn?
In the path of fireflies and a single bird at dawn?
Singing in between here and gone?

~ Mary Chapin Carpenter
♫ (Between Here & Gone) ♫

faerie goddess of green-growing things

Mihashirano, the faerie goddess of green-growing things, works hard alongside her mom, Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, to help things grow along the river. The plants work hard purifying the air and water as well as supplying food and shelter for many creatures. Their work also benefits the artists in many of the same ways, including natural beauty that inspires their paintings. The location for Mihashirano’s tea house was chosen by a bird.
~ Wee Faerie Village: Land of Picture Making

Janet, all bundled up to brave the elements, located the mystical bird and Mihashirano’s sailboat at the tea house out on the water by using binoculars provided by the fairies on the shore. It was a very wet, raw and windy day especially down by the river.

We didn’t feel anything here in southern Connecticut, but last night at 7:12 pm there was an earthquake centered in Maine, 4.6 on the Richter scale, which was strong enough to shake homes as far south as northern Connecticut. Auntie is supposed to come home from the hospital today – I wonder if they felt the tremor up north there last night… And today would have been my mother’s 81st birthday – Happy Birthday, Mom!

Cumberland Island ~ 4

4.9.12 ~ St. Marys, Georgia — 4.9.12 ~ Cumberland Island, Georgia

This is the end of the Cumberland Island National Seashore pictures… Stay tuned for pictures of other places!

Cumberland Island ~ 3

Still more pictures coming!

Cumberland Island ~ 1

Between the four of us (Nate, Shea, Tim & me) we took well over a thousand pictures with the new camera over our five-day visit to Georgia. We kept taking turns getting shots and spent several evenings dazzled in front of the TV screen watching the digital slideshow of the day’s pictures. It’s been difficult to choose which ones to share here on the blog!

Starting off here with our day at Cumberland Island National Seashore, a 45-minute ferry ride from St. Marys, Georgia. Nate had the camera for most of this day so the majority of the shots are probably his. It’s hard to remember who had the camera when, but, he most definitely took the one of the tiny lizard puffing out his throat (above) and we are all blown away over how well it came out!

We had hoped to see the wild horses but all we got to see of them was their droppings and hoof-prints. However, the island was teeming with wildlife everywhere we looked, so there wasn’t much room for disappointment.

I will be posting more photos as time allows…

asking for light

"Drops On Leaf" by Anna Cervova — “Drops On Leaf” by Anna Cervova

Don’t give me the whole truth,
don’t bring me the ocean for my thirst,
don’t give me heaven when I ask for light,
but give me a glimpse, a drop, a speck,
as birds carry dew drops from leaves
and the wind a grain of salt.
~ Olav H. Hauge
(The Ways of Water)

brush fire

Poquonnock River Walkway ~ 3.4.12 ~ Groton, Connecticut

Last weekend we took a short walk on the Poquonnock River Walkway because we had heard on the news that there had been a brush fire. Fortunately the fire broke out behind the Poquonnock Bridge Firehouse, but it ignited several patches of brush along the walkway before the firemen got the flames under control. Everything is so wet there it is hard to imagine how the fire might have started.

There were many birds busy in the reeds and trees lining the walkway.

It’s disheartening to see all the illegally discarded garbage exposed by the fire. Wish I knew why some people cannot make the effort to dispose of their waste materials properly at the “transfer station.” When I was little we called it a “dump” and we took to heart all the public service ads on TV encouraging us not to be litter bugs!

For my sister and me Saturday trips to the dump were fun! Perhaps once or twice a month Dad would load up the back of his pick-up truck with our family’s trash. Beverly and I would then climb into the cab and snuggle up to our papa as closely as we could. This was back before the days of seat belts. The reason we held on tight was that the passenger door would sometimes swing open when the truck turned a corner. (The problem was eventually repaired.) What a thrilling adventure! And the chance to feel the strong arms of our father holding us securely, the chance to feel like precious cargo!

On the way home from the dump we got to ride in the back of the pick-up truck! We begged and pleaded and were sometimes rewarded with a side trip up and back down Route 320, a road with many wonderfully smooth bumps – riding over them would make us feel like we left our stomachs on the truck while our bodies were lifted into the air by some mysterious force for a fraction of a moment. These days I’m sure Dad would be arrested for endangering minors, but for me these were the spicy experiences of my young life!

The whispers of shared ecstasy are choral.
~ George Steiner
(Grammars of Creation)

east village in manhattan

lobby of The Ukrainian Museum ~ 1.28.12 ~ New York, New York

Saturday we took a day trip to New York to visit Larisa & Dima, to see their new digs in Manhattan, an apartment on the top floor of a six-story walk-up. We huffed and we puffed and we made it all the way to the top with just a few pauses to catch our breath! After some refreshments and a tour of their sunlight-filled rooms – a marked advantage to being so far up – we went back down the stairs and then it was a hop, skip and a jump to the subway station, where we purchased our passes and spent the rest of the day zipping around the city.

Our night-owl daughter Larisa has wanted to live in ‘The City That Never Sleeps’ for as long as any of us can remember. As we followed her and Dima here, there, and everywhere, we got the wonderful feeling that she was born to live in New York and is thrilled to be living her dream at last. She certainly worked hard to get there and is making a difference in the lives of others as a social worker.

We spent a good chunk of time in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan. Since my ancestry is half Ukrainian we visited The Ukrainian Museum. We saw the current exhibition, Borys Kosarev: Modernist Kharkiv, 1915-1931. Kosarev (1897-1994) was a Modernist artist who managed somehow to survive Stalin’s intellectual purges in the 1930s in Ukraine. Outside we found a street named after Taras Shevchenko, a famous Ukrainian poet, artist, illustrator and humanist. I posted one of his poems on my blog several months ago: “My Friendly Epistle“

In the neighborhood we also found the sublime St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church…

The church is across the street from McSorley’s Old Ale House, New York City’s oldest continuously operated saloon, where the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Woody Guthrie and John Lennon have found refreshment and inspiration. The floor is covered with sawdust and the beer was good, Tim reports. (Being gluten-free I could not partake…) Established in 1854, women were not allowed to enter McSorley’s until 1970!

On a side note, several months ago I updated my iPod and suddenly was no longer able to shuffle individual songs on my playlists. Even Tim couldn’t figure out how to do it, and so he suggested that perhaps one of the younger folks could solve the mystery. I handed the iPod to Dima and in a few seconds he handed it back with the problem resolved! Thanks, Dima!! Our trip home was very merry as we sang along with a more varied selection of tunes. It was a great way to end a great day!

photos by Timothy Rodgers