Tag: summer

take time by the forelock

2.2.18 ~ Fota Wildlife Park, Carrigtwohill, Cork, Ireland ~ lion

A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it. We must not be governed by rigid rules, as by an almanac, but let the season rule us. The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature’s. Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
~ Henry David Thoreau
(Journal, April 23, 1859)

Thoreau wrote these words when he was only 41 years old. (He died at age 44.) When I was 41… Let’s just say that after a childhood of ‘finding my eternity in each moment’ I found a way to squelch that way of being until I was into my 40s. But ‘living in the present’ has been coming much more naturally to me in the past twenty years. It’s a blessing to be alive.

This summer has been unbearably hazy, hot and humid. So many heat advisories and air quality alerts. I cannot remember the last time we turned off the air conditioners and opened the windows. I am crazy with cabin fever and going outside offers no relief.

But, I had some good news yesterday. I had an appointment with my oncologist and he found no sign of cancer recurrence! So I don’t need to see him again for a whole year!

Come, autumn. Please! Time to curl up again with a good book. To ‘launch myself on a new wave.’

late spring in the woods

6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut

The wood is decked in light green leaf.
The swallow twitters in delight.
The lonely vine sheds joyous tears
Of interwoven dew and light.

Spring weaves a gown of green to clad
The mountain height and wide-spread field.
O when wilt thou, my native land,
In all thy glory stand revealed?

~ Ilia Chavchavadze
(Anthology of Georgian Poetry)

6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut
6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut ~ what is it?

“Summer is coming!” the soft breezes whisper;
“Summer is coming!” the glad birdies sing.
Summer is coming — I hear her quick footsteps;
Take your last look at the beautiful Spring.
~ Dora Read Goodale
(Summer Is Coming)

6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut
6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut
6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
~ George Santayana
(Words of Wisdom & Quotable Quotes)

6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut ~ notice the ant in the middle of the flower
6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut ~ new growth on a hemlock ~ might the woolly adelgid infestation be subsiding?
6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut ~ sunbathing on a boulder
6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut

How many Flowers fail in Wood —
Or perish from the Hill —
Without the privilege to know
That they are Beautiful —

How many cast a nameless Pod
Opon the nearest Breeze —
Unconscious of the Scarlet Freight —
It bear to other eyes —

~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #534)

6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut
6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut ~ sweet little bluets
6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut
6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut
6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut

Honor the space between no longer and not yet.
~ Nancy Levin
(Grief Interrupted: A Holistic Guide to Reclaiming Your Joy)

6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut ~ Janet overlooking the lawn where the audience sits to watch outdoor theater in the summer
6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut ~ fringe tree blossoms
6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut ~ more fringe tree blossoms
6.6.18 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum, New London, Connecticut ~ and still more fringe tree blossoms

profound stillness

“Forest in the Winter” by Isaac Levitan

I love the deep silence of the midwinter woods. It is a stillness you can rest your whole weight against. Not the light silence of summer, constantly broken by the sound of leaves, bird-song, the scurry of little beasts, the hum of insects. This stillness is so profound you are sure it will hold and last.
~ Florence Page Jaques
(Snowshoe Country)

When I was a child I loved winter, still do. There were so many moments when time seemed to stand still. Outdoors playing in the swamp and in the woods behind our house. The magic of ice-skating between clumps of earth surrounded by ice in the swamp. At dusk. Sometimes there were snow flurries, too, adding a silent thrill to the spell.

Only now do I discern the concept of stillness. My life happens in a small city these days and I have been complaining to Tim about the racket the snow plows keep making in their ceaseless efforts to keep the roads and our parking spaces clear. I find myself craving to be away from the noise, to enjoy snow flurries out my window without the inevitable pandemonium.

Maybe I’m just cranky these days. A couple of days before my six-week surgery follow-up I came down with a bad cold. Tim had it for three days before I succumbed to it, so we have been very miserable together. As soon as I got the go-ahead from the surgeon to resume normal activities I was too sick to enjoy the freedom! And now that the cold is almost gone I will be going to see the radiation oncologist tomorrow to consult about the next round of treatment.

A few years ago I wrote this on one of my posts:  One early wordless memory I have is of lying on the cold winter ground in the woods and eyeing a little princess pine peeking through the snow. I was astonished at the connection I felt to the small precious life, and how thrilled I was to be aware of its presence!

One little princess pine in an endless sea of snow and trees. I thought of that moment once again when I read Florence Page Jaques’ words about “a stillness you can rest your whole weight against.” One little cancer survivor in the endless flow of here/now.

middle summer

“The Flowers of Middle Summer” by Henri Fantin-Latour

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.
~ Natalie Babbitt
(Tuck Everlasting)

in the dim twilight

summer wolf by Chrille Kroll

But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called – called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.
~ Jack London
(The Call of the Wild)

midsummer magic

6.25.16.2935
6.25.16 ~ we celebrated the summer solstice on Saturday ~ good friends, good food and good fun…
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6.25.16 ~ bald eagle
6.25.16.2790
6.25.16 ~ catbird
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6.25.16 ~ woodpecker
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6.25.16 ~ woodpecker taking off
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6.25.16 ~ I’m drawing a blank on identifying flowers…
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6.25.16 ~ a lily?
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6.25.16 ~ ???
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6.25.16 ~ another lily?
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6.25.16 ~ fairy light
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6.25.16 ~ as close as I could get to this doe before she stomped her forefeet at me ~ I backed off so she could graze in peace…
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6.25.16 ~ chipmunk
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6.25.16 ~ so many orbs on a magical night
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6.25.16 ~ after a long day of fun in the sun, a fire to enjoy under a clear sky full of shimmering stars, with fireflies glowing in the surrounding trees, and fairy lights sparkling near the grass…