October Sweetness

Lord, it is time. The summer was very big. Lay thy shadow on the sundials, and on the meadows let the winds go loose. Command the last fruits that they shall be full; give them another two more southerly days, press them on to fulfillment and drive the last sweetness into the heavenly wine.

Rainer Maria Rilke

View from inside a small cave in Missouri at Meramec State Park

October

Old the year grows,

Casting aside her green cloak,

Twirling in lingering twilight -

Offering her final fruits.

Blustering winds bend her limbs,

Enervating darkness calls her to sleep-

Rocking her bones into winter deep.

Hundreds of white pelicans and cormorants traveling together in Oklahoma

A broken tree cradles the moon at Sequoyah State Park in Oklahoma

Wheat tips bending toward the sun in Texas

Ariadne, the banded garden spider, basking in the light of the rising sun in Azle, Texas

The hunter’s moon descends beneath the trees in Texas

Leaves and twig reflecting in a still pond in Pier Cove, Michigan

Milkweed letting go of her feathery offspring 

Autumn Glory of Ox-Bow and lake Michigan beyond from the Crow’s Nest Trail in Saugatuck

A few feathers wave good-bye to the sun and October on the Lake Michigan Shore in Fennville

What I really want from Music: That it be cheerful and profound like an afternoon in October.

Friedrich Nietzsche

October is a month for classical music. For running into a gale force wind. For flying kites and watching scary movies and eating popcorn by the fire. It is one of my favorite months for the colors and the smells and the winds of change.

This October turned into a beautiful but busy month of travel and events and my intention of blogging twice turned into not even once; well as I write it’s still October, Halloween, in fact, but you won’t receive this until November 1st.

I hope your October was as amazing as mine. The unusually warm weather made it possible to be outdoors so much more than usual, and I got to visit my family in Texas which always makes me happy.

Thank you so much for being here! I will see you in two weeks. Really!! 😊

A Halloween treat for the squirrels - carved heirloom pumpkin 

Waking up to the Moon

The night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand.

Frederic Lawrence Knowles

02/23/24 Friday morning - the moon by itself

02/23/24 Friday Morning - the moon, in context, in the western sky

02/24/24 Saturday morning - golden light on her face

02/25/2024 Sunday morning, falling into the field

02/26/24 - Monday, between the branches of a tree

The earth, in fair and grateful exchange, pays back to the moon an illumination similar to that which it receives from her throughout nearly all the darkest gloom of the night.

Galileo Galilei

In a field in Texas,

in the early morning light -

I watch the moon descending.

Old friend of earth,

she bonds me to

all who see,

or have ever seen

her radiant face -

in our lineage

of wonder.

Visiting family in Texas this week. I woke up every morning to see the moon, to have a little quiet time outside to myself. I realized while I was standing out there in the field watching the moon descend in the west, and the sun rise in the east - that people have been doing this for thousands of years. It made me feel connected to a long line of dreamers…including you.

Thank you so much for being here. Love y’all.

…and while the moon was setting in the west - all week - the sun rose on the opposite side of the field.

Looking Up

When you look up at the sky, you have a feeling of unity which delights you and makes you giddy.

Ferdinand Hodler

A woodpecker  

shuffles up the dead palm tree,

pausing and knocking,

picking out her morning meal

in tiny bites.

She shuffles and knocks

pauses and eats,

up and up,

until gradually

she’s circling

the frondless tip -

where she stops

and lifts her head

to the blue sky.

I spent a week looking up, and this is what I saw:

Seagulls flying overhead, calling.

The noisy green parrots looking down -

wondering what I was looking at.

Crows that alight anywhere,

mourning doves who do not approve of crows.

And then the moon,

the moon,

the waning moon.

Looking up was another assignment from the Zen Camera book by David Ulrich. He meant it more generally, as in keeping your head up and looking around you, observing your surroundings rather than burying your face in your phone, or getting lost in your thoughts, but I decided to take it literally for this week. So, here’s to looking up!

Thank you for being here!

Once you have tasted the taste of sky, you will forever look up.

Leonardo da Vinci