Sparkling Lotus Ink

burgeoning super moon report

The sparkly effect around last night's moon is the result of tree flowers and newly unfurling maple leaves.  I stood outside for quite while.

The upcoming Scorpio full moon has been asking for advance preparation on my part.  This is a significant switch up from me asking my water-cousin's moon-in-waiting to be gentle with me.  I tend to do that as a matter of course and have ever since I was 18 or 18.   'Mixed results' would be a diplomatic way of putting it.  I generally feel like I'm trapped in a psycholgical and emotional cement mixer with thousands of boulders tumbling around intent on 'polishing' me  in the emotional, subtextual, and depth-charged way of such things.  And then other times, it's amazingly healing and feather-gentle.  That's how it was last year, for instance. 

now this year the Scorpionic medicine spirit is talking to me rather than keeping quiet while I figure it out on my own.  Telling me to Prepare to Receive. 

This switch feels appropriate in my life's arc as well as where we are in the chakra wheel: Scorpio moving right on in and murmuring hey baby.  just get yourself ready, okay?  I assume my mind will blown in some way that may or may not be translatable in language-based way.  Part of getting ready for that in the physical sense is another part of what I generally experience during the Scorpio lunar fullness.  Just as usual, I've had really debilitating head pain for the past few days. It's been intense enough to promote altered consciousness. 

People who make a habit out of talking to themselves through their bodies know what I'm talking about.  In my case, it's been vividly clear to me since my late teens that my mind and spirit turned out to be my high cards.  But I try not to flash that around like physically healthy people like to do it.

We all get gifts, we all get burdens.

and then we either sack up or demand to see the manager.

that's my boiled down sixth chakra/scorpio full moon takeway.

it really never varies at that level

but the particulars are endlessly rearrange-able

and so they have been.

The fire pit area post burning is always a kind of new year because the old growing season's been burnt clear.  J's in the background attending to some of his newest tiny white pine transplants.  I've been going outside everyday (except the time it snowed) and slowly tottering around with the cat, and my eyes peeled for new signs of life.  Sometimes I weed a little, and take a fair amount of pictures during camera days.  I dream and envision and listen to all the invisible voices and dreams of the waking plant world.

I'll take the head pain involved

with that level of high frequency reception because I consider it a reasonable price.

Also there's stuff I can do to keep everything at a dull roar so I can maintain some semblance of regular activity on its slowest speed.

add to which:

after I heard the verdict and finally exhaled?

my head pain didn't vanish

but the level is now both livable

and simple to control when it's not.

now i'm going back to not listening to what people have to say

because I'm seeing now, and what I see hasn't yet found a dovetail with word tincturing.  Not in myself or an ability to absorb that kind of conscious word use as it's offered from others.    This happens a lot.  Like the eight year period when I went analog and knew without doubt I wasn't 'missing' a thing. I think the part of my brain that felt it was vital I clock the mainstream level of what's on other people's minds is undergoing major revision.  A lot of this head pain that's louise hay-worthy in nature, is all about how much I need to disconnect from what the shadow realms of keeping track of Everybody are up to.  I've always considered it a point of honor that I don't disconnect from my species along lines of affinity, time management concerns, or discernible 'point'/purpose.  Maybe it still is.  But I'm ready to retire from the front lines there, as well as elsewhere.

This years Maple flowering season has been straight-up magical with its primarily sunny days full of warmth and freshly emergent human experience.  All the new alchemists were able to achieve their first co-creative success by way of working with the flower medicine spirit of the first flower essence they came to know - through the dive program - Red Maple.

This a profound culmination of shifting awareness.

The sense of satisfaction I feel is deeply nourishing.  As is my profound gratitude to the trees spirits who so obviously gave of themselves to these budding healers and light workers.  I felt their energy rippling with invitation:  come.  we are ready to receive your reception.

and they meant me, too. 

and so I went to the red maples here and there around the property, simply receiving.

Ladies Mantle is the alchemist's plant totem by long-established principles.  I invited the new alchemists to approach the plants on the mornings they were here and drink from the leaves if they were so invited.

they were not.  and neither was I.

but we all stood in wonderment

and gave ourselves some points for not going ahead and doing it anyway.

'that would have been so human', one of them texted me.

I considered it a moment

of professional achievement wreathed

in deeply happy sense of personal fulfillment.

I have this plant growing in two parts of the dooryards:  the tiny strip gardens by the porch and a far more sizeable colony in the sidepocket gardens.  They were the only thing the moles didn't destroy back when I was trying to create "nice" beds that looked like I knew that kind of knowing what I was doing (which I do ...)  rather than maintaining a largely feral pollinator corridor, that rings my chimes about a thousand times more.

Another thing I really enjoy is successfully growing a plant from seed to flower - particularly when it's on my holy grail list.  Today I am SO INCREDIBLY UP AND HAPPY because yesterday I spied flower buds of the one and only Cowslip I've gotten this far.  An old friend has grown dozens of them and once created a simple but effective walkway border of just cowslips and japanese ferns.  She's a double Libra.  Seeds instinctively know what she wants from them, and take it from there.   I'm good with just the buds on this single plant. 

it's what my seeds know I want from them:

to shine in their own way and make a meaningful statement in my heart.

Yesterday I didn't care about my head's atrocious hammering neuro-circuitry

because of those buds.

mission accomplished, i say ...

all the plants in this post are neighbors to each other.  The way this coral bell's emerging suggests there's a division of parts in her future.  I refer to this quietly lovely companion as The Dowager.  She reminds me of really old ladies in my earliest formative memories.

Tried for years to grow wild columbines from seed.  Finally gave up and got three little plants from Select Seed.  I planted them in a row for the hummingbirds to feed during a gap in the flowering cycle.  One was summarily dug up by a squirrel intent to replace it with a cache of sunflower seeds.  The other two are pictured above.  There are also three seedlings growing in the cracks of the bricks.  One really wet day  in May, when my head stops hurting as much until thunderstorm season,  I will transplant the babies in the same small bed with their mothers.

This lunar cycle's new moon in Aries has had me on a mission to complete a single hanging-on task that requires a degree of mindfulness a day.  To that end, yesterday's endeavor involved repairing a pomegranate seed rattle I cured and began working with in my early 20's.  have posted about it a fair amount over the years but don't remember if any of those words exist in this iteration of an SLI blog.

Above the repairwork is still wet.  It has since dried and I've lightly sanded so the matte acrylic gel isn't bumpy enough to announce itself.  Underneath the silk ribbon is a hole that developed when the skin of of the pomegranate cracked.  I figured out what to do, and then waited until I was in the right head and other cosmological alignments had occurred.

at first I thought I might like to take other portions of the ribbon scrap and apply them randomly.

silk is such a magically conducive organic material.

am going to use something cellulose based though to be more in keeping with the rest of the rattle.

didn't mind using a little of the gel for the repair rather than decoration because it makes that piece of ribbon better supported from the inside of the hole, and little seeds shaking against the silk.  Have shaken it a lot this morning.

it brings me into myself.

If you have a chance to make yourself something meaningful & sacred this month

especially between now and the week after the full moon

go for it.

Autumn Views

all images from yesterday morning.   Harvested lemon balm tips, thyme, comfrey leaves, chickweed flowers and leaf stems, broadleaf plantain, and violet leaves.  Blotted all the leaves for 5 or 6 hours and then commenced chopping the stems and leaves.  Added dried red clover, calendula, tulsi and more lemon balm leaves from the spring & summer micro-harvests.  Also last year's dried prunella heads.  Prepared a warm infusion on my stove's warming burner.  Love that burner for this purpose!  I now have a fine stock of therapeutic oil for making the coming season's healing skin balm.

Night before last I prepared a half gallon of spearmint-calendula skin oil.  I don't use it enough for somebody my age and nor does J.  So I doubled the amount I generally prepare and created two batches; one in spring when the leaf shoots were lush and another in autumn when fresh shoots have begun to push aside the spent flower stalks.

My sinuses etc. are currently paying for so much time spent outside but sometimes you just gotta.  The landscape was ready to welcome me again and I was not about to wait around any longer.  J's been walking the woods trail and I sense the glistening somewhat otherworldly activities of the past few weeks have begun to recede.  

It's easier to get down to the bridge now.  It's been a number of days - maybe a week - since I stood there with J for a few minutes but in truth I'm not sure.   Time has become what I always wished it could be - stretchy to the point of ongoing low level disorientation.  It occurred to me that this is indeed something I've sought for most of my life - freedom from 'time' as a human construct.  So it further occurred to me that when we all got shoved down the rabbit hole of ongoing reality distortion fields piling one on top of the other, that I might have intuitively leaned into the time-altering aspects as a way of learning what the reality of a personal wish might look like? 

For two weeks in a row I didn't know what day it was pretty much for the entire 14 days.  In my younger adult years that would have thrilled me.  I would have called and written to people about it as a Mission Accomplished interlude.  In the present tense it scared me.  Because I'm old enough to realize it's important to keep sharp and act sharper. 

As soon as I went into the field I could feel why I'd been asked to stay away for a time.  Not so much at a concrete level as the way the landscape's obviously settled more into itself.  I stood for a long while right here where I took the picture.  I took note of what flowered.  Said a first goodbye to hardwood green ringing our property lines.  Left the flag windblown for this official portrait of my co-creative return.

volunteer polk and mugwort stepping in to help with the vinca/periwinkle situation.  The plants are guiding me in how to break this daunting task into viable pieces.  It's hard to explain.  I go out there and they just somehow convey when and where to pull.  And so far it's working...

Mama - still stiff legged but determined - led us to her favorite basking and sentry position: the center of the gaia-breasted fire pit.

I joined her for a good long while. The experience seemed like the lunar equivalent of this highly solar experience.  It still feels odd to my thinking mind to sit on such a powerful expression of sacred land energy.  But on both occasions of spending more than an hour simply being - the last time with emptied essence bowls and this time with the cat - I returned to my normal routine with a strong sense of personal grounding.  Need all of that we can get these days!

communion and solace

 

 

 

Super in love with this variety of anise hyssop.  Got it at Select Seeds' plant sale in the spring and the sweet lady had a rough start due to many insect invasions that were somewhat biblical in the area. But in the end she made five strong stalks and they've flowered prolificly.  Next year I'll stalk with bamboo.  Flower heads are 4-5 inches tall and about two and a half inches wide.  Hummingbirds love them.

All but one of the white African Foxlove plants has performed super well.  It was the drought portion of the summer in its center that sustained them.  The continuous water saturation has slowed them down somewhat but they're definitely reached five if not 6 feet.  I'm 5'6" and I'm looking the flower stalk in the eye as it were.

All these pictures are from yesterday afternoon.  I took the time to disconnect from the rest of my day and just hang around outside in the driveway area with Mama and all the 'enclosed' kindred spirits.  Every time someone mentions that phrase in relation to other humans my brain and heart automatically think on this level instead.

In the next post things get a bit magical...

wren central

A few days back a new lithium battery for my DSLR arrived.  Although I have a couple different lenses for it my favorite is the lens that I keep on the camera - a 40mm portrait lens with macro capabilities.  We all know why, right?  Yeah.  Close-up flower portraits.  I haven't actually used this camera very much in about a year.  And now that I have it back in operation I want to use my favorite lens for a greater range of purpose.

To that end I went outside yesterday morning for a wander with the camera rather than my phone.  Although I did take a lot of shots in close range mode I also began to actively prompt myself to start taking the kind of flower pictures I want to continue getting better at isolating with my eye and then stretching the "portrait" aspect of how I can learn to frame larger description highlighting a landscape vignette.  Was just beginning to push myself beyond a wheel of perpetual blossom/other organic close-ups when the battery gave out.

I've never disciplined myself to learn how to work this lens for landscape images.  But one of the reasons I chose it as what would work best for me is that so many camera buffs said this is a prime lens you can throw on your camera for months at a time - using it equally well for work-related needs and also vacations or group activities, etc.  Then when J gifted the dream lens I went gaga for close-ups.  Because it's all I've ever really wanted to photograph.  Flowers.  Thank you.  That will be enough. 

Note how the large community of Queen Anne's Lace to the right of the garden posts looks like a gigantic illuminated bowl.

J's favorite indigenous species.  Was thrilled to capture a look at the flower's entire life cycle.   Will print and frame for his office as a birthday gift next month. 

Here is a close up word detail about the way I've most had trouble assimilating to a so-called new normal.  I really couldn't deal with the absence of ongoing tra-la-la visits to the greenhouse and nursery visits.   While winnowing my photo files I started crying one night in an authentically brokenhearted way.  I'd noticed how many of my spring and early summer photos through the years held spotlighted and peripheral evidence of ongoing visits to a nursery or the farmer's market perennial lady.  It was the no-more-doing-of-this thing that felt most unnatural to me.  At least once I'd gone through my cycles in earlier spring of getting so wigged-out and emotionally raw without a background of casual drop-in/run-into-each-other level of of socialization I hadn't realized was so central my to sense of inner stability and balance.

this went on for awhile.  I had only J to talk to about it and he'd look around at all the seedlings and fail to appreciate my emotional turmoil until it manifested in random cry-fests over unrelated things.  He kept telling me this was about that and I should re-institute parts of an order I cancelled when he was first laid off.   There were ... tiffs of an ultimately pointless nature related to my reluctance to resurrect the order once he found the right fit of a new design gig.  Who knows what tomorrow holds, right?  So I made a deal with myself I'd wait for the annual live plant sale at Select Seeds at the end of May and then see.

They had the sale early this year no doubt to stimulate sales among hesitant  shoppers.  I browsed the sale items listing at 2 in the morning back in very early May.  Among several other things I chose two different fuchsias.  They're planted in the same pot and I recently put them on a table rather than leaving them to bloom on the deck's floor.  This will give the hummingbirds clear visibility of the flowers.  It also offers the treasured little birds more protection from Mama.  

Such concerns are front and center over last group of days because the wrens who were born under the lid-cap of our propane tank have fledged.  They're loud and extremely quick to learn.  J's had a front row seat to every step and flutter of their progress since he's working from home and has a window-view desk right in line with their ventures back and forth from the tank.

It's really the perfect place from a wren's point of view. Sometime I'll do a post about that specifically.  But for now just imagine that everything I write here is accompanied by wren song and/or scolding.  Imagine it's what we hear at the volume all teenagers play music riding in a car.  This goes on from the time the babies wake until they go to sleep.  In between they explore their song range and figure out how the various hooks and riffs fit together.  This morning I did my morning yoga practice's beginning standing meditation with the sun shining right in my eyes at first.  On the peak of the mudroom's roof one of the wren children stood backlit by the sun.  This allowed me to see how nearly all of its pinfeathers are gone or reduced to fluffy bits that will most likely be gone by noontime.

The bird sang with great conviction.  I can't say it was joyous like our pair of lovebird cardinals.  It wasn't loopy or strutting its stuff like the catbirds.  It was a song of all the truths this tiny magical bird knew.  A song to be sung in a voice that has learned its primary powers of wing and song.  I listened and watched the bird sing.

Eventually, with the tiny new wren still singing, I got on with my practice and was all the way to its ending point of corpse poste meditation before I realized the bird wasn't singing anymore.  It's kind of like the 7 roosters who live next door.  Yeah you heard me right.  Going full tilt from 4 a.m. until the hens are in every evening.  We don't even hear them anymore, no lie. They have to get super piercing to break the caul of normal decibel acceptance range.

The other day J was in a meeting and I heard him explaining yes, there are multiple roosters and they are very loud but we don't hear them anymore.  He had to shut the doors to the rest of the house and the outside world so his meeting could continue effectively.

Now there are also wrens.  And not just on our deck and all around the roof and foundation plantings of the house.  They are everywhere throughout the propery this year as I've said before.  And I keep thinking about them in relation to Celtic legend.   How there was a contest to see which bird would be king.   The birds would fly as close to the sun as they could.  and Wren figured out how to win by tucking into Eagle's feathered ruff until they were quite close to the sun.  then Wren emerged and flew free fast to be crowned King.  Wren flew directly into the sun's corona before dodging free again.  so Wren was quick enough to escape death but the spots on this bird's tail and wings are said to have originated from this particular escapade.

After we lived at the old place for a few years a decaying local nursery business was restored.  They began restoring the former display gardens by building a pergola to showcase a mantle of yellow trumpet vines. I wished mightily and many times over those years:  that I might someday live in a place with this flowering vine in a previously unknown color.  I found it exotic then and now I find it omnipresent.  There are runners everywhere in the lower portion of the field and throughout the evolving sanctuary.

I so admire Dee's amazing captures of recently dead life.  There's a name for that kind of assemblage but I do not recall what it is.  And cannot think clearly.  There are five or six wrens going full tilt just beyond the windows of this room.  A mother is attempting to instruct on some level and multiple other young wrens have shown up to weigh in on the proceedings.  

I do not want to become immune to their vocal presence as you kind of have to with the roosters.  I've already posted about how much I delight in bearing witness to the wren fledglings' learning curve and individuation process.

This is a seasonal leafy cave created by the original landscape design's placement of the vine.  I put the angel there the day of Vindman's testimony.  I was afraid he was going to be assassinated.  Thought the angel's style and coloration looked out of place but at the same time she seemed to be where she belonged.  This is only the second time I've gone into the leaf enclosed space.  The first time I left a certain flower offering for an immeasurably pivotal friend in the throes of active death. And now, also yesterday when I checked to see if there were any remains now that he was gone. 

I found no trace.  and took it as a message.  I'll be doing that for awhile.

Out in the field the Autumn Clematis vine has found its footing after languishing during the drought as well as before.  This lovely flowering plant's hardiness asserted itself in the wake of something (the big hare-like rabbit I assume) eating it down to practically nothing not once but twice.  Then J nailed one of the left behind lattice forms and I doused liberally with emerald elixir and pear essence.  We have watered from time to time as well when ordinarily we would not.

Basket flower with buds.  I think this is one of the most seductive flowers especially for a bee.  Bumbles are particularly fond if her. Am used to thinking of her from a pollinator's perspective but this year I've also begun to look at the fully opened illuminated crown aspects.  They are so obvious to me now but it took almost two decades to look up, as it were, from the fascinating world of how various local pollinators interact with this flower  Unclear why it took so long.  Mind too stuck on the flower canon and thus Lotus being the open crown blossom of choice.  Basket Flowers attract all manner of pollinators especially hummingbirds and butterflies.  This particular bloom is about 5 inches in diameter. 

Yesterday afternoon J and I went to retrieve the winged cat guardian tribute to Celeste.  On the way home we stopped at our friend's farm.  He lives on the banks of the river I share in an ongoing way.  Said this has been quite a drought  season so yield is both lower and delayed.  Has been irrigating constantly from the river.  I noticed the chickens have a new enclosure and the fields have been rotated in really creative ways.   Loved that their garlic was cured still on the stalk.  I got so much in anticipation of the tomato influx in the near future.

Mark grows wonderful corn.  That's how we got to know him at first.  He and J have music in common but now he says everything they knew as standard socialization fare has fallen apart due to the pandemic.  It seemed logical and yet still a very shocking moment - the three of us standing in the sun joined in contemplation of what that meant at a personal level.  I'll go back for more garlic the next time I do errands in that direction.  I've ordered ahead for the fall and we'll get the unturned plots amended with rotted manure but until then I'm grateful to have a local organic source for this essential plant ally.

Leafing through this book a few times a day - stopping to spot read here and there.  It is AMAZING.  Have decided to set-up a pairing blog for books that are closely related and enhance each other in a useful or balancing way.

Will be pairing this one with Farming While Black.

Took her directly to the field when we got back from our excursion.  Yes.  She belongs.  Later in the afternoon J drove out to the Valley to get take out from our 'special' Indian restaurant where we've been going for years in celebration of holidays and family dates of importance.  Our anniversary is the day before T's birthday.  So we've always gone to have this meal together on either the 10th or the 11th of March.   This year our special dates were eclipsed by Charlie closing things other than restaurants that made all three of us reconsider how comfortable we were doing takeout.  And we couldn't decide.  None of us knew.

So last night we celebrated T's 35th birthday and our 36th wedding anniversary. I additionally count as part of the anniversary our previous 5 years living in Boston.  We arrived in town on the 10th.  When we decided to marry J suggested we do it on that anniversary date.  So we are just 9 years away now from a full half century of time together.  We could not have conceived of what retrospect might show us about ourselves as we have always been.

The restaurant has a slimmed-down menu to accommodate the times.  There was also a sticky note to ask if you had kitchen favorites not on the new menu.  They prepared Pudina Ajwain for me and I was very grateful because I love that bread so much.  Am eating the leftovers of my meal as I type.   The meal here at home was festively low key and a beautiful part of the day's overall vibe and how easily it seemed to be absorbed into my family's etheric skin.

I noticed beyond our collective good humor that we were not as physically distanced.  four or three feet rather that six.  T is into month four of his treatments.  It is indeed unpleasant for him as the doctor described it would be.  His own description ahead of the fact as "highly annoying" is still his way to describe what's going on for him no matter how obviously he's suffering quite a bit on any given day.

I am amazed at his strength and pragmatism.  J has previously shared that T says he learned how to warrior-through from me.  I was surprised.  Yesterday he said it to me directly.  And I was so grateful that the thing I most thought might cause him to flunk me as being a genuinely good mother turned out to be something he can re-invent in line with his own necessity. 

Today I'm collecting Blue Vervain flower heads to make a tincture.  Over the past week I've started two half pint jars of Monarda fistulosa flower tincture.  I've also made a quart and a little extra of a heal-all oil containing dandelion, calendula, prunella, and red clover flowers - all picked here at home and dried earlier in the season.  It also contains comfrey, lemon balm, plantain and violet leaves all picked fresh yesterday.  Preparing the herbs and layering them for the warm oil infusion was an extremely satisfying experience.   Am giving it a few days for sediment to settle and then I'll turn a large portion of it into winter-skin cream.   We've been using some iteration of this recipe all the time this year due to the hand sanitizer drying our hand's skin so much.  Especially our palms and fingers.

(the length of this particular post is a response to a request I honor our departed plant geek leader extraordinaire by posting exactly as I would have if his eyes could read along.)

Namaste

windows of opportunity .17

Yesterday was my first opportunity of open-up season to stop at the river spot I used to blog about on a weekly basis.  The other handful of times I've been by the spot the parking area was clogged with vehicles.  Lots of people mingling very close without masks.  But yesterday there was just one car with an empty boat trailer.  I was able to get out and wander around for the better part of twenty minutes.   Below is more or less what I looked like while I did it.   No mask on because there were no people.  It was right in my pocket and what a fine treat to be able to keep it there.  It's a first beyond the car and somewhere on our property.

This was supposed to be a picture of the two oak crowns.  But I inadvertently turned it into a reverse phase selfie and didn't realize until I was back home.   I love the joyous shine in my eyes and how the trees evoking so much happiness are reflected in my glasses.  Am glad to have a visual reminder of how wonderful it felt to be back with them. 

I hugged both trees and stood with my spine against their craggy bark. Previously I've just seen them from the road and sent them longing messages of my affection. Today my palms still hold the pleasant brrrrrrinnnnngggg of connecting to their powerful energy.  Sustenance of this kind, I'm coming to realize, is just as important and necessary to our species' survival as is quality nutrition in the belly, brain, and body at large.

  Moving closer to the trees and stepping into the green caul of their shade I noticed their offspring scattered all around them. Their combined presence has transformed a roadside pull-off into an authentic oak grove.  Additionally it would seem someone's come in and cleared-away the saplings of other species.  Only oaks remain in the first two rings of their grove  I knew I would benefit from breathing the atmosphere into my lungs slowly and deeply but I was loathe to disturb the vibe with the motion of my breath.   It felt greedy and perhaps unearned.  And so I wanted to float there in that moment just before breath occurs.  No wonder the spot is attractive to so many in this tenuous season of community discord and personal re-structuring.

Note the flourishing Greeter oak on the left hand side above.   I called out "Greetings to the Greeter!" 

  (The guy in the boat above came under the bridge just as I reached the water's edge on the other side of the road.  It was a gentle form of continuity.  Something that could have happened at any point in time since this river was reclaimed from big industry.  We did not acknowledge each other beyond a quick head-nodding glance but there was a feeling of shared gladness to be there.)

The clusters of white flowers are yarrow.  Also made note of the tail end of the red clover's first blooming.   Smaller than usual drifts of St. John's wort.  Plentiful mullein especially down by the boat launch.

They aren't so tall but their group energy is quite lovely.  I stood and admired them one by one.  I noticed some other lovely star shaped flowers on long stalk clusters.   They seem deliberately planted and since they're in the same vicinity as a grouping of planted trees I'm assuming maybe they are.  An effort has clearly been made to eradicate purple loosestrife and I saw only a single stalk of it.

It was nice to stand and absorb the river's energy quietly.  The guy in the boat glided by and then I could have spoken aloud to the land but I couldn't think of what to say beyond we are a sick species. Realized as I said it that I wanted to take greater personal responsibility but didn't know how.  So I said all of that and then I thanked all the other species involved with buildling and maintaining a vibrant ecosystem. 

Finally I sang a little bit of Brokedown Palace but only in my head.    The song has followed me through the years as I've followed moving water.

**

plus here are a couple butterflies I enjoyed once I was back home

evidence of changing micro-harvests

be still my heart!  It's the first basket flower of the season!

and for grace - an illuminated bowl within a bowl at the top of the slope down to our stream.

let's wander like cats

images are mixed mid-week to present from the sunny/rainless time that's just now probably almost definitely getting ready to end.

this red sage is a new trademarked variety that's supposedly hardy through zone five.  We're now classified as 6b.  When we arrived we were 5a.  The shift is a lot more fun for a gardener born and raised in zone 7.  Entirely grim in context and collective root of the climate change crisis.

Am planning on re-potting or planting it this weekend. Most likely potting until this flush of blooms fade and then planting to encourage a second flowering in mid-autumn.   Meanwhile for this flowering welcoming it to the back deck where generations of the same hummingbird clan have been nectaring in my vacillating container gardens. 

We got the last side of the fence in place mid-week while it was still brutally hot in the early evening.   Was consequently running on half-power and a very sore body for two days.  Today is day three and so far I'm pacing my activities super mindfully.  Am still a bit uncomfortable physically from the effort of getting this sucker in place.  J had said repeatedly it was going to be a beast and I finally asked him to stop but now I comprehend a lot more of why he had to psyche himself up in that particular way.  The middle section went up seamlessly in just under a half an hour like we did it for a living year after year.  He'd been bang on to Eeyore over the final stretch early and frequently, though ...

Today the gate will be attached impending rain storms permitting.   Tomorrow for sure if they last longer than expected or arrive later than radar predictions.  This final part of our garden fence building project is going to be epic.  Especially from J's intuitive building skilz POV and also because it means he'll turn his outside world attention towards opening the pool and having that be ready for his morning and afternoon work breaks.  It's epic for me because I've been in the garden a lot most evenings due to ongoing watering needs.  I've come to know the feeling tone of its enclosed iteration without the full impact.  Is downright magical rather than claustrophobic as I'd feared. 

The physical gate itself has been a morphing testament to J's inner vision from the jump.  He saw what he intended to construct in his eye's mind and then worked with what we have to hand amplified by what he knew to be available at the local lumber yard. He's been there a lot since This began.  And has consistently felt comfortable entering and walking/driving through.  People wear masks even if some have a lot to say about it.   Quality of pressure treated lumber is going down due to presumed rushing of process to meet increased demand.  And EVERYbody's got something to say about that including me.

  the Yard has always been a center of considerable local activity but now it's also enabled former procrastinators - especially from the tech-centric class, like J, who worked long hours and then commuted a couple more per day -  to become rarin' to go lunch hour warriors.

I love seeing this and thinking of the larger collective quality of life shift it's creating - in various ripple effects - for those who've decided to respond to our shared life shifts in this particular way.  Just a few months before the pandemic locked us down here in MA it must be said that I felt partially adrift within a life/style that was equally locked in and at the same time entirely removed from who I planned to become when we moved here - who we knew ourselves to already be. 

I don't at all like the manner & context prompting either one of us to get ourselves and each other shock-waved into a form of action that's been too-long pushed into the realm of a future tense left unimagined at a practical/planning level.  But the enlarging - and fencing - of the garden has put us in a much different (far more balanced and rewarding) relationship with ourselves, each other, and our authentic capabilities to live a life much closer to our dreamy plans and the Place. 

     [spontaneously got up from completing this post when the rain began with a gentle patter.  Potted the red sage as planned and placed her in a position of prominence in the deck container garden. Finished potting up the overplanted calendulas I rescued from the field a few weeks back and began to situate in their permanent homes yesterday.   Put in the three straggler tomatoes that were becoming very straggly indeed.  Potted up six Sweet Thai Basils.  Working in the rain was amazing - first at my poolside potting table and then out in the field.  It took me through memories of every adult gardens' history and much relating to my teens and childhood garden bases.  Also girl scout camp.]

I dare to hope against hope for a certain clearly envisioned grace note following the gate's successful installment.  bulletins as and when.

today is a hush of deeper greening

Yesterday was a no camera day in which I was able to move my body gently and rest it in appropriate ratio and measure.  Today I woke after five deep sleeping hours.  Stayed up late because fibro is like that sometimes and also to wait for the predicted rainfall between midnight and one.  Wanted to see how hard the rain would fall.  The basement seedlings are fully hardened off and ready for planting in terms of dramatically vacillating temperature/full sun exposure but they've had zero rain/wind experience.  

The rain was gentle.  I stood inside J's office looking through the french doors with the overhead deck light on for a moment quick enough to prevent waking T who sleeps just beneath the blaring light's placement. It was enough to see the seedlings would get their first real natural soaking.  That's an important first experience for them.  I feel it enlivens their natural intelligence at a level that becomes more individualized and richly encoded via collectively shared experience.

  My gardenia bush was right on the other side of the glass.  Just after I turned off the light I stood in the dark with my forehead and palms against the glass panes in the door.  This plant and I have spent 20 plus years together.  I could feel her leaves thickening and growing glossier.  Their leaf-green color  darkening.  Water beading for graceful distillation within the upturned leaves.  I smiled and turned towards sleep in which I dreamed of her flowers.  

The dreams, though consciously un-recalled, insure my perspective is overwritten by the gardenia flower medicine spirit:  lightened awareness in mind and intention.  Regenerated and purified soul & spirit.  Yes.  It's one of my favorite vibrational signatures.  Known to some who read here as a single essence - to others within the blend Sight Unseen.

Not-bothering J during his work-related portion of the day - I stepped outside to be greeted by Mama mewing with a note of rebuke atop the lower deck's picnic table.  She was waiting for our shared morning inspection tour.  Usually I'm ready an hour or so earlier.  

***

above is a tree coming to life on our watch.   A dogwood I'm currently unable to locate in my tree ID link cache.  So many are from sites long gone.  Perhaps someone knows and will refresh my memory.  We have a few of this species that I'm encouraging to settle into the spaces where they've appeared.

The walk down to the stream from the back dooryard is fairly steep.  New trees grow at a 45 degree angle that eventually follows their strongest nature and sense of rooted gravity.

Birds are by now fully nested and thus situated for their summer family life to come.  Wild rose canes we missed in earlier sweeps won't be eradicated until the year round wrens etc. have safely situated elsewhere in later autumn.  Carrion vine I pull up whenever I see it.  Pulled up a youngish vine with a very long root just before I reached the bridge.  Mama prefers to sit at the rim of the incline and observe my navigations from a level-footed perspective.

I'll still be able to pull some vinca closest to the bridge.  But most of that will also have to wait for later autumn.   Each day it gets harder to come down the slope and enter this landscape within the larger place and think about things like responsible land stewardship.  My gardenia dreams already had my mind dropped into a calm and glowing awareness of collective Earthstar energy.  As the greening elementals and rising life force of everything from the stream bed to the rocks envelope all layers of our carbon form(s) it is an invitation for ceremonial and experiential laying-down of those forms.  It is a time frame close enough to my birth to feel myself beginning to steep in awareness  - to re-fit myself within the pure essence of human spirit as I most organically embody it.  And then to feel my spirit take a soft leap beyond that.  I feel a glimmer of starseed formation.  The particles of pure light and cosmic life force/energetic essence I contain.

co-mingling.  knowing exactly what peace and co-operative alliance feels, sounds, smells, and tastes like.  A microcosm of inter-mingled life-forms co-creating abundant pockets of nourishment and mystery.

The water's continuing to move in a steady way but there's far less of it.   I can get lost in the slow steadiness of its path through the rocks and plants.  This is an excellent spot to amplify the giving and nourishing practice of gratitude.

In the next small chunk of time we must commence scything the violet colonies, dandelions, etc. in order to have a clear view of the pond edges and, hence, Snappy.  After a day of ongoing study I see the creature isn't really any bigger than it was last fall.  Upon first sighting both this spring and last my brain registered a much larger animal.  From formative memory and also because that's the way my neurology encoded earliest life danger-trauma.  It doesn't have to be a familiar danger it just has to represent legit threat.   When it is legit everything about it mushrooms in size and scope-of-threat. 

all the more reason to keep the ground around the pond tended to.  This area is the green world's energetic epicenter.  Every year we cut the violets to keep the area less attractive to ticks.  But I like to wait until this later point in spring so that the hosts of flower have had their full unhurried chance to sing in unison right here in this lodestone of life and regeneration.

The massive wild rose warren above has sheltered many generations of various wrens and tiny warblers.  There's another at the edge of the field and a third in a place we always mean to cut back but, as per usual, other stuff took precedence.  I'm not-so-secretly pleased.  That particular warren yields fledglings who get all their earliest flying instruction at the edge of our top deck and the foundation rhodies around the corner of the house.  They fly from the rhodies to the maple branches beyond.  They fly from there to the electric wires and back down to their starting point on the railing of the top deck. 

The lessons coincide with the point in late summer when my studio is intolerably hot during the day.  It's sweet compensation to sit with watercolors - quietly exploring color until the excited noises of wren fledglings changes the script completely.  I turn slowly enough to be soundless on the other side of our dining room's front windows.  They can hear through the screens.  Their mother is stationed closer to the ground in a strong crotch of the rhodie.  Her instructions are unmistakable to mothers everywhere.  be careful.  remember what I told you.  I don't care what your brother/sister/the other children are doing you focus on what you're doing.  Now do it again. be careful.  REMEMBER WHAT I TOLD YOU!!!

I treasure those weeks of the year and smile wide to spend these moments capturing memory into words.  For the next few months the green backdrop of these images shelter and amplify all manner of bird drama and behavior.    I love nearly all of them equally but my favorite birds who share their lives with ours are the catbirds, the goldfinches, and the hummingbirds.

A wealth of sweet rocket - all descended from the single surving seedling I brought from the old place - are now in bloom at the edge of the field.  Note in the background the self-seeded plant growing through the center of the gooseberry bush.

On the afternoon and evening when I spotted J's use of the augur we stayed out late enough to catch the first wave of blooms release their scent to the cooler air.  I can now say with authority that every third year there's a blast of sweet rockets blooming as far as their dispersal radius allows.  It's a very wonderful thing to see - an accepted and beneficial introduction to the landscape. 

[while writing this I heard the season's first nearby calls of the peregrine falcon who spends much of their summer and autumn time in the part of our land where we never go.  The falcon is a signal of constancy amidst humanity's state of devolving chaos.  Have been considering what I seek in place of anything my brain conjures for the word normalcy.   Rather than replacing various aspects of what the word must come to mean why not change the word I use for what-is.  Especially in the context of what-is it about tangible reality that holds the most value for me?

Constancy.  That's my word for what I most need, seek, and intend to build/grow/dream into my life, home, and this place.]

Didn't have gloves so I pulled only a few straggly clumps of goldenrod.  Picked out a massive number of burdock sprouts.   Looked around a lot and tried to envision the fence in place.

The whiskey barrel above contains assorted beets.  The stone in Mama's direct background used to mark the ground just beyond the original tilled bed.  Now it's a good 10 to 12 feet within the enclosure we're creating.  J took a day off and then went out yesterday afternoon to sink posts for the two sides with augured holes.  Then he dug holes and sunk posts for a bit of the third side.  Just up to the first gate post.  I saw the accomplishment around 6:30 in the evening with a great deal of surprised admiration. He was all oh yeah this was the goal for the day but it didn't make his goal's successful accomplishment any less amazing to me. 

It wasn't simply the physical task breakdown of the day's effort bringing our intentions closer to fruition.  It was the vision behind the way he'd tilled and planned the expansion's shape and how the fence would be shaped beyond the new beds.  He'd explained - oftentimes right on location while gesturing helpfully but I don't see beyond what's-there on the same wavelength.   In these moments I do what he does when we stand in the same general space and I'm the one explaining and gesturing.  Reeling off plant names left and right - trees and bushes too as the gestures grow wider in scope:

Nod.  put together words like oh yeah uh-huh sure.  I can almost see it. 

He has discovered post extensions via a buddy.  So that's how we're fixin' to solve the issue with the metal post lengths.  The wooden posts are taller to begin with.   All the same, thanks to Jamie's comment we're considering ways we might baffle below ground.  Burying in a deepish trough some of the left-behind scraps of wire fencing that isn't as sturdy but could be tied together in doubled panels.  My vote is to wait and see what, precisely, breaches the perimeter.  But I have ideas.

everything IS illuminated

pics taken at four different times over the course of two days.

Yesterday I weeded, re-topsoiled, and thoroughly amended a whiskey barrel in which I'll grow beets. I got a mixed variety packet because mixing varieties has led to family favorite side dishes.  Today I did the same with two whiskey barrels in which I'll grow carrots and finocchio.  J's been in the field a lot doing a second round of rototilling.  Tomorrow I'll seed two of the whiskey barrels and plant shallots in a bed he amended with the lobster casting soil conditioner and two bags of top soil.   It's late to put them in but I've been as late as the first week in June and still managed to reap a full year's harvest.  I find they do pretty well provided the soil's still cold enough to hold the night temperature for at least half the day. 

***

Today I had a responsibly quick visit with a favorite local friend.  Haven't seen her in person for upwards of a two and a half months.   The garden-oriented place where she works has set up online shopping and I timed my pick-up around when she was there and free to take five minutes.   We spoke of what was good and whole for both of us but also spoke of exhaustion and its many derivations.  We laughed.  Behind our masks we were both smiling.  I brought home thyme, rosemary and the last sage plant in stock.  And If I'm honest - this is the first time I've been out in the larger world that I wasn't incredibly saddened by all the many things there are to be saddened about/over in these ever-shifting days. It's pretty much the only time in a bit over two months that I've done something containing a social component as opposed to staying rigorously task-oriented and steeped in the nobody must linger vibe.   Lingering for laughter and traded confidences is the part of my former experience I've missed the most and the thing about my personal i-me-mine aspects that leaves me feeling most out of whack.  

And so I didn't think/contextualize about anything much - I was just in that moment socializing.  The masks didn't matter or in any way infringe on a single one of our combined Liberties & Freedoms.  It was sunny and warm enough if we stuck to the sun and the wind wasn't blowing.  Also had a chance to suss out the shape of this year's garden there in a different yet utterly familiar garden world.  The person who fulfilled my order was worried I didn't know much about plants or I never would have ordered three thymes.   My friend was asked to make sure I understood it spread farther and wider the happiest it was.  Nobody else could conceive it was true I knew quite a lot about plants and yet ordered 3 Thymes. We laughed and laughed about that  (I told you THREE THYMES now she isn't kidding when she says she was raised in a garden) and then pivoted back to our evolving days.

*** 

J also socially distance socialized today and arrived home with four generous bags of well rotted horse manure.  His friend has a connection.  They had it in the works for a week or so but J didn't want to raise my excitement level before the transaction was complete.  This is an invaluable development given all the newly tilled space we have to amend.  

***

Some of the pictures above were taken yesterday evening.  The sun came out just in time to cast that magical glow that steps everything out of time and space itself.    The last two pictures were taken yesterday morning about half an hour after it stopped raining.  Other pictures are from today in both morning and afternoon.

Tomorrow I'm turning off the heat mats under the plants in the basement.  Some, that have had two weeks without under-heating, will be moved upstairs to begin their hardening off process on the top deck.  This transition involves getting them situated in their transplant pots tonight and/or tomorrow morning.   There's a very beautiful co-creative wind at my back and I'm eternally grateful for that in these unsettled and unsettling times.

Namaste

 

here we go !!!

Day before yesterday was downright hot and the air quality throughout the county was afloat with many kinds of pollen.  I chose not to participate beyond a few cursory inspection tours of the garden beds closest to the house.  I'm thus declaring yesterday to be our first true day of Spring's greener beckoning magical phase.   Was in and out any number of times - listening to the landscape and allowing myself to be mesmerized by various specific plants and trees.  Last night there was a powerful micro-burst of rain and LOUDLY howling wind laced with a great deal thunder and lightning.  Many windows were open at the time and I had to rush to shut them.  J had fallen asleep upstairs and woke to hear the howling wind and rain that sounded like birdshot being fired through every portion of the sky.  He can sleep through a lot but not a wind like that.  He closed up our bedroom and met me in the doorway of the third bedroom/family lounge.  It was a northern wind and the rain had pelted into the room sideways for the ten minutes or so I was rushing around shutting up the downstairs.  I thought he'd be virgo-dismayed by the wet woodwork, rug, and chair but he only grinned and said isn't it wild?

Although I chose the evolving sanctuary garden for the lede image - it's not the way my Outside day began.  I went out the front door "just for a couple of minutes" and beelined down the sloping lawn to the yellow toad lily.  Cleaned her off and took a better picture for jude to find when she ventures by.  I was lavishly admiring as I worked,.  Seemed to receive confirmation of my hunch the plant would like to be divided in the fall.

Walked back to the house but then suddenly turned right and headed around it to discover the solomon seal buds have begun to open.  Made note of where I want to continue consolidating the forsythia with more incisive pruning.

Also checked on the Japanese Spikenard we put in last year.  It was one of those plants that just pulled on me like a tractor beam when we first got out of the car at our favorite nursery out in Amherst.   Once I'd made my wandering way to the source of strong beckoning energy I picked up the pot and hugged it close.  J kept asking if I wanted him to carry it but I just kept hugging and saying I was fine.  When we got home I set the pot right where it seemed destined to live.  

The location is a little too sunny for it to keep its leaf color.  I thought about moving it - mentioned the possibility to the plant and then about a week later I approached with the intention of reading the signs of its response.  The roots were FIRM and unyielding.  I'm staying.  I live here now.  And so I promised it improved conditions.  Consulted J. a few days back and in response he cut some leftover lattice to the size of the porch length behind the plant.  Today he's giving the swiftly actualized shade-aid a few coats of paint to match similar lattice at the bottom of the porch.  The shade-aid can be added or subtracted at any time of day.  Some experimenting will be involved but I'm grateful he had a much simpler solution than something I haphazardly described based on the construction of a telescoping shelf in the refrigerator.

This jack-in-the-pulpit is growing out of the enormous rock I introduced here.  Jude said the sense of Spring holds and even depends on the memory of winter.  I thought that was both an eloquent and elegant way of expressing my own sense of time, life, and this particular day's feeling tone.  Note off to the left a stray glimpse of carrion vine growing there on the rock.   It's been eradicated.   Took this picture on my second walk outside and removed the vine on my fourth.  It's been that sort of day - in and out and in and then back out again.  J's commencing to cut the grass so I thought I'd sit still and create this virtual walk. 

Canadian anemone abound at the edges of woods and on the 'far' stream bank.  The colonies sprinkled at the edges of paths and here and there in the woods spark joy for me - this is another friend since childhood.  The little cluster is nestled between roots of the maple that gave flowers to an essence bowl earlier this year.

This is the first garden you'd meet on the other side of the hemlock-lined path at the western edge of the field.  It used to be two distinct beds but over time they've become joined by colonies of milkweed and goldenrod.   Am introducing it because I've decided to document my reclamation of the bed.  It officially began today but for now I most want to share this:

A self-seeded tableau of green magic making under the gooseberry bush.  a Sweet Rocket plant seeded directly in its center and she is attended by several self-sown yellow foxgloves.  They are stalwart and certain of their Place here.   They haven't exactly rebuked my relocation plans but have made clear their intention to stay as they are.  And so I looked for ways to make their habitat more welcoming and attractive.    Today I began weeding in this spot for the first time in four or five years.  It's a space I love and always mean to [at]tend to but there are always only so many hours in a day.  The somewhat smaller originally square bed was planted with a single-stemmed plantlet from the gooseberry bush I'd been obliged to leave behind.  It was otherwise planted with  A. archangelica and Angelica purpurea as well as a modest colony of yellow foxgloves - all from the old place. Spearmint and orange mint hitched a ride of their own accord.  At this point the two mints are one of the bed's main acts from high summer onward  Somehow the space itself has co-created sequential ways to share nourishment and space. 

This is a close view of the area I hope to have re-cultivated by late October.  Will save tales of what's there and what kind of approach the various green ones have suggested to me during this morning's time there.  Got a bit lost squatting close for long moments of communion and consideration.  At one point this space was packed with plants from the old place.   During the latter half of our third summer here Graves Disease re-upped itself and the garden spaces throughout the property began to self-regulate.  I dreamed of it often and really never doubted it was happening but that truth lives side by side with my ongoing frustration to remain largely uninvolved due to how sick I was for the better part of three years.

Throughout this time there was a simple picnic table bench  at the edge of these two garden spaces.  I sat there frequently with Celeste sitting under or directly beside the bench.  A modest colony of milkweed stalks had appeared just before i got sick.  I encouraged them to stay and establish themselves.  fast-forwarding to now -  the former path was eventually obliterated by drifting milkweed and an ef-ton of golden rod.  Today I began weeding-out the goldenrod runners as gently as possible.  My extra care was rewarded.

The season's first milkweed scout was carefully re-covered with a loosely packed blanket of dried plant matter.   Am going to be fairly merciless with the golden rod in this area because I want to recolonize with more yellow foxgloves at the edges of the milkweed colony.  Will be saving seedheads - saving some for starting on the deck next year with intent to introduce them within the side-pocket spaces.   If there's plenty I'll also plant seed in the evolving sanctuary.  The bench is long gone but I'm going to start bringing my camp chair so I can once again sit in this spot.  It's a good place for day dreaming. Here's a quick peek at the main bed.  J and I have a two week timeline for getting the garden fence installed. 

In the background is a glimpse of J's completed roto-tilling endeavor.  He's juggling a lot right now but seems to be having an experience similar to my own in that stuff's getting done somehow.  Our ongoing byword seems to be:  essential.  What does that mean to us?  To me, or him, or our son?  What is essential for this new phase of life and any given day within it?   How do we show up for ourselves and each other so that our essential priorities are both nurtured and met?

Thistle emissaries are always welcome in my gardens.   I need to pitchfork and re-claim another strip across that's roughly the same width as the mulched portion.   It needs to be done very carefully as per dreams over the last month.    Along similar lines I can see that seed sowing of various kinds will be an ongoing effort for the next few weeks.    Day before yesterday I found balance and returned focus by fully organizing my seed packets in a small gathering basket.  I keep shuffling through them like tarot cards.  Have in the past often slept with bundled seeds tucked into my pillow case but I'm not sure I could handle the depth and specificity that might arise.  Have explained this while wandering and weeding in the main bed.

I did a bit of weeding here in an expanding  Queen of the Meadow colony.  As it's been expanding drifts of red clover have self-sown in a marvelous inter-planting.   Today The Queen's emerging stalks buzzed at me repeatedly.    You are asserting yourself.  We welcome you as one.

Soon now the entire garlic bed will be bristling with green shoots.

GAME ON

wandering amongst the side pocket garden beds

The above Browallia will thrive exponentially(understatement ...) once the tree leaves have unfurled to provide the level of shade this plant craves.

Today is the 10th anniversary of our closing on this Place after nearly two years of searching for it.  Afterwards J and I stopped back at the house we'd lived in for 14 years.  We stayed just long enough to change our clothes into garden grubs and grab the gardening soil amendments I was confident I'd be able to distribute over the course of that first afternoon and early evening.  Dream on!  A decade in we periodically laugh about that as well as many other things we assumed and presumed as brand new stewards of the land as well as the house.

***

Earlier today we took a slow tour of the [other] side dooryard and field - partly in mutual congratulation of all the dreams and ideas we've manifested in that time and partly as a way of adding to our singular and mutual to-do lists.  I took some pictures and then somewhat arbitrarily decided to feature images from yesterday.  I took them during a solitary much cherished Mother's Day ritual of quietly & slowly  examining the various plants that have come to me as gifts honoring that holiday.   I'm choosing to share them because they relate to garden spaces I don't tend to share very often.  The biggest reason for that relates to nesting birds and fledgling Safe Space I try to maintain until the later part of summer.

I call these the Side Pocket gardens because they ring a little side-shoot of our front lawn.  Each tiny garden plot has been designed to hold space within a Bee Highway (ultimately leading to the field) for the hives across the road.  The selected plants also service the fueling needs of wild honeybees, hummingbirds and a few species of bumbles.

Glad to see this foam flower has survived our strange green winter.  She was one of two last year but it looks like the moles got the better of the second crown.  Am thrilled with just the one, really, as this is a plant I loved only from pictures and rare woodland glimpses as a child.  Had to move farther north to see it more frequently in the woods.  And otherwise patiently wait-out a few decades before having a chance to grow it for myself as a cultivated garden plant.

Over the course of my gardening lifetime I've grown any number of Toad Lily varieties with the beautiful spotted leaf crown above being one of two favorites that are currently in residence.   The flowers are a beautiful brownish yellow that look a lot like delicate candelabras once the buds have fattened on slender branching stalks.

(I will remove 50% of the straw mulch debris over the next week or so as time allows.  Destination: the compost bin, where else. The other 50%  plus last year's fallen leaves will remain to decompose in place.)

Was excited to discover the Black Cohosh has begun to form a colony.  The flower stalks' scent wafts all over the yard once they've begun to bloom.  Once the tree leaves unroll themselves over the next three weeks this plant will have plenty of shade.  The leaves will turn dark purple in response.

   (Most of the little seedlings poking through the leaves are Jewelweed.   This plant is everywhere in the shady/moist pockets of the property.   It's beloved to hummingbirds - and me - so I always leave plenty of it as a bank behind this particular bed.  From there a weaving colony of individual plants will scramble down the gentle slope to the road.)

Here's one of two original Globe Thistles grown from seed under lights.  That was seven years ago when the bed was brand new.  Year before last both plants began to self-seed.  Last September I cut a few seed heads to scatter at the back of the Evolving Sanctuary garden.  This is a significant action on my part because it's one of my few plans that formed ahead of moving here that hasn't been either seriously altered or obliterated altogether by one kind of naturally occurring reality check or another.
I love the aging Hellebore coloration above because it's closest to the [wildly inaccurate] picture on the nursery plant ID label.  It took three years for the plant to flower and then it showed a single raucous plum and lime green bloom that stymied me.   I'd been looking forward to cream colored flowers with delicate raspberry edges.  But the bees don't care about my inability to shift my expectations seamlessly.  This plant - plus the surrounding ocean of pulmonaria - provides reliable nourishment at a time when options are somewhere between slim to non-existent.

This year the plant showed its appreciation of our clearing more space for it last fall.  It's been dazzling me with three flower stalks - each loaded with blooms.  The hot bright green interior isn't visible unless I make a point of looking for it - assuring the flowers I'm getting used to the different look from what I was expecting.  At a less hands-on level the dark plum bells that are constantly visible fit in nicely with the general vibe of that tiny quiet-feeling corner. 

The individual side pocket beds form spokes surrounding a grouping of trees, rocks and a naturally occurring elderberry bush.  Hummingbirds, goldfinches and catbirds nest and raise their young among those trees.  The catbirds in particular relish both the elderberries and a wealth of wild rosehips/blackberries.  They're my favorite bird-resident here both personality and song-wise.  Their yearly arrival is an important milestone for me.  I greet them joyously within knowledge their ongoing elaborate songs and my eventual inclusion in the flying games of the offspring are about to provide emotional ballast on the joyous end of the spectrum.  This year I cried a little at the amount of happiness the alpha male's initial Song of Greeting scattered throughout my emotional field. 

Originally the bed above contained three bee and hummingbird friendly plants:  the mountain mint which is seen above and, before that plant (labelled, amusingly enough, 'very modest spreader' but I'd grown it before and thus knew better) consumed all available space, two wild columbines and a low-growing NE native monarda species. 

The latter jumped clear of the bed and is now covering a lot of ground that's accessible only to bees and birds.  If I want to see it once it's flowering I have to walk down to the road and loop back around to stand on the street and peer through the zoom lens of my good camera.   Have done this once so far and it was a scary proposition due to road traffic.  This year who knows.  It seems likely I'll be able to safely pick some lilacs that grow out there just shy of the road - plus maybe also see the monarda flowers depending on how sane or senseless this state decides to be moving forward.

I rescued the columbines but one expired due to Something Unknown which kept attacking it in its new location.  The other has flourished  - Two years ago producing a daughter who in turn has produced a daughter of her own.  The tiny addition of a third generation was another thrilling discovery for me over the weekend!

For reasons I can't understand the above image has flipped itself and refuses to be re-oriented.  It's bothersome to me but realistically it really only impacts the three people beyond myself and J who read here and also know the gardens as they are in real time.   I planted the lilac and hydrangea 8 years ago.  Behind them is a clump of white peonies that J goaded me into accepting at our town's May Day celebration 5 years ago.   Beyond the peonies there's ladies mantle, lemon balm, and also  Siberian Iris transplanted from the Evolving Sanctuary.  In years past part of our Mother's Day nursery crawl has involved getting a few second year Korean Angelica plants to grow against the fence just behind the iris.  Have not succeeded in growing any from seed nor have they elected to seed themselves.  

Angelica archangelica was my Mother phase's plant ally just as Violet guided and nourished my Maiden phase.  Mugwort arrived right along with menopause to announce herself as my Crone's guiding light.  Part of making the transition seems to involve releasing attachment to 'having' Angelica of any kind as a stalwart presence in the outside world.  I'm still a bit attached at a soul and internalized level although mentally I've made the jump in as total a way as I can manage without the rest of me being full on board yet.  It's a process, isn't it?  Letting nature have her Way with one's inner pictures of Self as well as whatever does or doesn't grow ...

a single A. archangelica flower head at the old place.  one of hundreds upon hundreds over the time we lived there ...