songs – Page 5 – In the Woods

in a garden of wisdom from some long ago dream

5.28.14 ~ Stonington, Connecticut — 5.28.14 ~ Kentford Farm, Stonington, Connecticut

Wednesday afternoon Janet and I found a new woodland garden to explore, Kentford Farm in Stonington, Connecticut. We seemed to have the place to ourselves, but for a very charming tortoiseshell cat who acted as our hostess. When we left we spotted a sign saying the garden was open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays – unknowingly we had been trespassing! But the gate had been open so perhaps our confusion was understandable.

The last time we had a cat as our guide was four years ago in May at the the Edgerton & Stengel Memorial Wildflower Garden in the Connecticut College Arboretum.

We introduce ourselves
To Planets and to Flowers
But with ourselves
Have etiquettes
Embarrassments
And awes
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1184)

We will have to return as the seasons progress – it’s a perennial garden and there will be different things blooming every time we go. Please enjoy some of my favorite photographs. The plan was to travel light, with just the camera and not its bag, but it backfired on me when the camera battery died only about a third of the way through. Next time I will carry the whole kit and caboodle with me!

The wall is silence, the grass is sleep,
Tall trees of peace their vigil keep,
And the Fairy of Dreams, with moth-wings furled,
Sings soft her secrets to the drowsy world.
~ Ida Rentoul Outhwaite
(Tibetan Buddhism Deck:
Buddhas, Deities, and Bodhisattvas 30 Meditation Cards)

Way over yonder is a place I have seen
In a garden of wisdom from some long ago dream
~ Carole King
♫ (Way Over Yonder) ♫

Frequently the woods are pink –
Frequently, are brown.
Frequently the hills undress
Behind my native town –
Oft a head is crested
I was wont to see –
And as oft a cranny
Where it used to be –
And the Earth – they tell me
On it’s axis turned!
Wonderful rotation –
By but twelve performed!
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #24)

In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Nature)

The good Will of a Flower
The Man who would possess
Must first present Certificate
Of minted Holiness.
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #954)

nature’s palm

"Thrushes' Nest" by Fidelia Bridges (May 19, 1834 – May 14, 1923) American Painter — “Thrushes’ Nest” by Fidelia Bridges

Question all as to their ways,
and learn the secrets that they hold.
Walk the lines of nature’s palm
crossed with silver and with gold.
~ Ian Anderson
♫ (Cup of Wonder) ♫

Dar Williams

…sign at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center…
photo by Tim

The Kate is a relatively small venue, very cozy and intimate, and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing Dar Williams perform there. We didn’t even mind having to sit a row apart, in the same seats, Tim in the row behind me. But Tim wasn’t in his seat much, poor guy. He still has a lingering cough from the bad cold he caught early in January. For much of the concert he was out in the lobby, where he could listen to the music without disturbing the rest of the audience.

Dar was amazing! These are some of the songs I remember her singing – no doubt there were some more: February ~ The Light and the Sea ~ The Beauty of the Rain ~ If I Wrote You ~ Buzzer ~ I Have Been Around the World ~ When Sal’s Burned Down ~ Mercy of the Fallen ~ Crystal Creek ~ Storm King, which she dedicated to Pete Seeger. All of us joined her in singing If I Had A Hammer in memory of him, too. Her stories in-between the songs were heartwarming and funny. It was wonderful spending an evening immersed in her music and inspiring lyrics. Beyond wonderful…

"North Star" by Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) Czech Art Nouveau Painter — “North Star” by Alphonse Mucha

Oh my fair North Star
I have held to you dearly
I had asked you to steer me
‘Til one cloud scattered night

I got lost in my travels
I met Leo the lion
Met a king and met a giant
With their errant knight

There’s the wind and the rain
And the mercy of the fallen
Who say they have no claim
To know what’s right

There’s the weak and the strong
And the beds that have no answer
And that’s where I may rest my head tonight

There’s the weak and the strong
And the many stars that guide us
We have some of them inside us

~ Dar Williams
♫ (Mercy of the Fallen) ♫

thank you for the songs

My songs are like a three-legged dog – you have to get to know them to have any love for them.
~ Dave Matthews
(Facebook, July 8, 2013)

I’ve been a fan of many songwriters over the years, but Dave Matthews is perhaps my favorite, his lyrics resonating with my unfolding experiences and observations, inner and outer. In the 1990s, when my kids were teenagers listening to the radio all the time, an occasional song would catch my ear and I would ask them who it was by. The answer was almost always “Dave Matthews Band.” So I bought an album and was hooked. Listening to his albums would energize and inspire me to cook, clean and drive up to visit my father, giving me a boost whenever I felt too weary to go on. Most of them were spiritually uplifting to me, or, if filled with existential angst it would be a feeling I knew well.

On my way came up with the answers
I scratched my head
And the answers were gone
~ Dave Matthews
♫ (Spoon) ♫

So I have an iPod with all his music on it, and a large sampling of other favored songwriters’ music, too. I play my whole collection on shuffle, mostly when I’m cooking or cleaning the kitchen, so I rarely get two songs by the same artist in a row. But an interesting thing happened while Toby was living with us. He often popped into the kitchen and asked me about a song that must have caught his ear, and it always turned out to be a Dave Matthews song. It got to be a joke between us. He never would say if he liked the song or not, for all I know he may have been asking in order to find out who that terrible singer was!

When I step into the light
My arms are open wide
When I step into the light
My eyes searching wildly
~ Dave Matthews
♫ (Lie In Our Graves) ♫

But I think now, whenever one of Dave’s songs is playing, I will half expect Toby to come up the stairs, poke his head in the kitchen with a smile and say, “Dave Matthews, right?”

Happy Birthday, Dave!

a trail of busted stuff

"The White Mantle" by Willard Metcalf (1858-1925) American Painter — “The White Mantle” by Willard Metcalf

1° F here this frigid morning… Winter storm Bethany dumped some snow on us Thursday and Friday, and this morning I peeked out the window to see what kind of shoveling job I have ahead of me this afternoon, when it should be a little bit warmer. It doesn’t look like many of our neighbors have been out to shovel either. The world seems so still in the cold.

It was a production getting the bathroom warm enough to take a shower in! But now that I am clean and swathed in extra layers of clothing, I decided to find a painting and type out a few words for a blog post. It’s a start.

Not surprisingly, after nine months of unrelenting stress, my poor husband has succumbed to a bad cold. He’s tucked in on the couch, watching old movies and science fiction movies – a well-deserved rest from his care-giving. I’m bringing him soup, tissues, medicines, hot tea with honey. It’s going to take us a long time to recuperate and rebuild after a rolling stone entered our lives, in the form of his brother Toby.

A rolling stone gathers no moss
But leaves a trail of busted stuff
~ Dave Matthews
♫ (Busted Stuff) ♫

I hesitate to write much about the past year and the the joys and sorrows it brought, all blessings, some in disguise. Toby was easy to love but impossible to live with. Yet somehow we did it. I still had much to learn about family love and pain and trust and compassion. My heart is full of gratitude as I hibernate here in the winter to contemplate and heal…

supermoon ~ 6.23.13

6.23.13.6807 — supermoon ~ 6.23.13 ~ Avery Point

Satellite in my eyes
Like a diamond in the sky
How I wonder
Satellite strung from the moon
And the world your balloon
Peeping Tom for the mother station
~ Dave Matthews
♫ (Satellite) ♫

We speak of the beauty of the moon when we are speaking not only of its pure round whiteness in the night sky, but also of the mysterious influence it exerts. We also imply its strange magnetism, its mesmeric hold on our imagination, and the inexplicable way it affects our bodies, our sleep, our moods, and all nature. When we gaze up at night the moon unifies our world-view. It is a mirror, reflecting the light of the sun, but in its own unique consistency. The moon is more than what we see. Its appeal is cosmic and beyond the mind’s full conscious comprehension. It is as deep in us as it is far above us. To see it is to resonate with a thousand invisible forces and feelings.
~ Ben Okri
(A Time for New Dreams)

nothing is sure

4.27.13 ~ Stonington, Connecticut — my tree ~ 4.27.13 ~ Stonington Cemetery

So I wonder this, as life billows smoke inside my head
This little game where nothing is sure
Why would you play by the rules?
Who did? You did. You…
~ Dave Matthews
♫ (Dodo) ♫

here comes the sun

WillardMetcalf.childsunlight — “Child in Sunlight” by Willard Metcalf

Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it’s all right
~ George Harrison
♫ (Here Comes the Sun) ♫

Welcome Spring!

great black-backed gulls

8.19.12.2692 — 8.19.12 ~ Eastern Point Beach

The seagulls know the truth of it
And scream it overhead
~ David Gray
♫ (Nos Da Cariad) ♫

8.19.12.2695 — 8.19.12 ~ Eastern Point Beach

Growing up visiting the beaches of Cape Cod I never paid close attention to seagulls, taking them very much for granted. But in 2011, after reading the book, A Time for Everything, by Karl O. Knausgård, I’ve been drawn to these interesting sea birds. However, it wasn’t until April of last year (2012) that I noticed that there are different kinds of seagulls, when I saw a pair of black-headed gulls perched on a dock at Cumberland Island National Seashore in Georgia.

Now I’m pretty sure the gulls we commonly have on our beach here in Connecticut are ring-billed gulls. One day last August (2012), Tim & I were having a light supper sitting at a picnic table on the grass at our beach. We were chatting away and I was watching a gull behind him, who was loitering on the grass, hoping for a handout. (We never give them anything, however, because our food is not good for them.) Slowly it dawned on me that this was the biggest gull I had ever laid eyes on! And yet he had the speckled coloring of an immature one.

Thankfully I had my camera, but when Tim turned around to see what I was so excited about the gull took off. He came back, however, and began strutting along the sidewalk as if he owned the place.

8.19.12.2720 — 8.19.12 ~ Eastern Point Beach

Eventually he walked up onto the rocks and posed for me.

8.19.12.2751 — 8.19.12 ~ Eastern Point Beach

8.19.12.2762 — 8.19.12 ~ Eastern Point Beach

In the pictures above and below I was trying to capture this huge baby standing as close to an adult “regular” gull as I could, to illustrate the difference in size. There were two of these large gulls present that day, but this was the one that came closer to us.

8.19.12.2763 — 8.19.12 ~ Eastern Point Beach

Ten days after this gull encounter at the beach we had to take Tim to the hospital in the middle of the night. At dawn I came home to shower and then return to the hospital. As I started driving down Bank Street in New London there was a seagull in the middle of the street, feasting on some roadkill. He didn’t move out of the way of my car until it was almost too late. When he did take off he didn’t fly away, though. He kept flying just a few feet in front of my car, flying very low, all the way down Bank Street to Parade Plaza.

If seagull shows up it means it’s time to clean up your home environment and let go of and recycle as much as you possibly can. … Spend a significant amount of time at the seashore meditating, allowing the rhythms of the waves and the wind to be your guiding pulse.
~ Dr. Steven D. Farmer
(Animal Spirit Guides)

It wasn’t until late September, when we took a day trip to Block Island, that we got a clue about the identity of these giant seagulls. Our tour guide asked us if we had ever seen a great black-backed gull, the largest of all gulls. Apparently they are showing up on Block Island, too!

After Tim came home from the hospital, but before we went to Block Island, son Nate came up from Georgia to help “clean out our home environment” after Tim’s hospital stay. While he was here we took him to the beach one evening, all excited about showing him the big seagulls. But they weren’t there that night. However, we sat with him there for hours, soaking up the healing power of the sea and talking about the wonders of the universe – a memory I will treasure forever. The following sketch reminds me of some of our conversations, Mr. Logic and Ms. Wonder, chatting with their son…

DougNeill.exoplanets — image: Sketchnotes: Natalie Batalha on Exoplanets & Love

Since Nate left to go back home we have spotted the great black-backed gulls at the beach again many times, even after Hurricane Sandy and Blizzard Charlotte, so it looks like the two of them are planning to stick around for a while. And my sister has reported seeing them there a couple of times, too, when she’s gone to the beach to eat a peaceful lunch in her car. Beverly thought I had to be exaggerating until she saw them for herself!