A New Heartsease...

Snow

 

Then, comes the snow in its beauty,
Each flake a pattern of lace
That floats in the air, so gently;
Then, finds its own, special place.

~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham,

"God is an Artist of Nature" (1940s)

 

*Photo taken from my living room window

A Picture's Worth...Remembering...

Let us not forget our heroes... 

In our minds and hearts

Forever.

* * * *

 

A Blessed Memorial Day Weekend to each and every one.

 

On Thanksgiving...

 

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

    On thinking about Thanksgiving Day, a menu has been decided, a table setting arranged based on who and how many will be in attendance, the groceries secured, a plan of action set down for the day before and the day of the Feast.

    It occurs to me that one day a year is set aside for a National day of giving thanks, while just about every other Holiday (perhaps excepting Easter to some degree) has been co-opted by the forces of marketing and consumerism. Thus, we find ourselves at an odd crossroads in our evolution as a culture...

    ...by having the strange juxtaposition of a day of thanksgiving quickly followed by the sinister-named "Black Friday" when deal-seeking, money-waving, mania-maddened multitudes mob merchandisers (Ahhh...how I love alliteration!).

Okay, I realize the name, "Black Friday" arises out of the idea that rampant and collective consumerism on this day will put businesses in the "black ink" column. At least that's the idea.

Still, the concept that frenzied acquisition follows immediately upon the heels of gratitude and thanksgiving can only be the wayward "child" of Capitalism. Not that Capitalism is a bad thing...unless it becomes the "only" thing.

Capitalism becomes questionable when it subsumes, consumes, and ideates a society to the exclusion of the "un-dollar-able" values to be found within the heart and the soul of a people and their society. 

For me Black Friday has become - not a time to shop - but a time to retreat from shopping. Instead, I light the candles, turn on quiet music, pick up the journal and pen, and make a cozy cup of herbal tea. I make myself comfortable and with pen in hand list all that I am grateful for over the past year. 

I thank the God of my Heart for abundance, health, family, friends, lessons learned (from the joyful to the painful), and retreat for a time from the noise, expectations, seduction, chaos, glitz (and the false promises that stuff will make me happy and fulfilled) and simply sit quietly within that sublime inner space where head and heart meet and commune with Soul.

I wish everyone all of the love, delight, communion with others, and thank-fullness, abundance and feasting that Thanksgiving Day offers. And, safety, sanity, and success if you choose to join the Black Friday fray...and of course, blessings, and abundance throughout the Holiday Season to come!

October!

 

Listen! the wind is rising,
and the air is wild with leaves.
We have had our summer evenings,
now for October eves.
~Humbert Wolfe, P.L.M.: Peoples, Landfalls, Mountains, 1936

 

 

Summer's End

 

There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.

~Celia Thaxter

 

    I have so enjoyed this Summer. Yes, it's been mostly smoky with a few hot days in the 90's, very little rain, and two or three days over 100-degrees. Smoke from the fires burning all about.

    The last few mornings have been cool with nights in the 50's...Autumn is drawing nigh - less than 30 days away according to the calendar. But Nature awaits no man-made calendar!   

    But wait...I'm not finished with Summer yet! There's still much I want to do...to experience! Wonderful people to share with! Sights yet to be seen!

    I grow pensive as I feel, now, Summer's early morning hints of Fall in the air. I'm not ready to let go of Summer quite yet. No!

    Yet, this has been a blessed Summer of healing, going, seeing, endings and beginnings...explorations, and realizations - all woven and knitted into and within this wonderful place where I now live and call "Home". HOME! My Home. The Home of my Heart. 

    Yet, there's an ephemeral feeling of "ennui", of change in the air, in the energy, the very ground of being. It is lodged in the locus of this place and in one's own spirit and heart - hastening, ending, rife with expectation - all indecipherable, but present in the Soul's yearning. A feeling that nothing will ever be the same again.

    Days of champagne and smoke.

    A Season of celebration of blessings, and of forests burning. How do we reconcile birth and death, happiness and loss, this intimate thing and that epic event? All are both a blessing and a curse divided only by perception and acceptance. Humility and hope.

    Past and present collide! What was intrudes upon what is and what will inevitably be! 

    Summer's end is coming! It's here.

    Again, I am not ready.

    Gratitude is the life raft to which we must cling as we find our true being and sail forth into whatever the future may bring.

In Honor and Memory

Honor to all who've served our Nation

 

This 48-star flag survived World War I

 

    On Memorial Day the Nation honors those both fallen and still serving who put their lives on the line to protect the American way of life.

    Today, I am especially thinking of my grandfather, Alvin Benjamin Butler (whom we grand-kids affectionately called, "Pappy") because today the Family Search website sent me a photo of his draft card.

    He may not have fought under the specific flag in the photo above, but he served it when called upon!

 

Pappy's draft card dated June 5, 1917

 

   In 1912 two more stars were added to the 46-star American flag representing the new States of Arizona and New Mexico. Thus, during World War I, those who served their Nation fought under the 48-star flag.

    World War I began July 28, 1914 and lasted until November 11, 1918.

    

 

    

 

Season of Thanksgiving

                                                                                                       

 Thanksgiving is the holiday of peace, the celebration of work and the simple life... a true folk-festival that speaks the poetry of the turn of the seasons, the beauty of seedtime and harvest, the ripe product of the year — and the deep, deep connection of all these things with God.

~Ray Stannard Baker (David Grayson)

Hungry Critters

 

 

    Just as Summer "falls" into Autumn, hungry critters arrive from the forested area across the road. They are getting ready for Winter and bulking up on anything that is remotely edible.

    During Summer's abundance they make less frequent appearances to the common areas around my condo-home. 

    Now is the time I can view wildlife right outside my front door and have a few wild adventures, like the one a week ago when I had to rescue my cat, Junie, from the wild turkeys!

 

Behind my garage, the "Band of Four", that stalked and cornered Junie behind a shrub against one of the condos, seem oblivious to foul play other than their own.

 

This turkey may be listening for a worm wriggling beneath the lawn.

 

    The deer seem particularly voracious! They eat things at this time of year that deer "are not supposed to eat". Right! Like our neighbor-shared rhubarb's leaves, a neighbors hosta, and my beloved comfrey...

 

Near the shrub in the bottom left of the photo sits Junie aka "Mr. Curious". Just as curious is the mother doe looking at Junie while her two half-grown fawns munch the landscaping. My upper story front porch offers a great spot to sit at the bistro table and observe the goings on below.

 

  Mom keeps a watch. Faint spots still can be seen on the fawn on the right.

 

Mr. Curious himself. I suspect he thought the turkeys were just bigger chickens. When we lived at our old Heartsease Cottage he had a cautious relationship with our Chicken Girls.

 

    Junie used to like to hide around a corner of one of the many back garden paths at the Cottage and when an unsuspecting hen rounded the corner, Junie would leap out and startle the chicken who would spring straight up into the air with a squawk. Quickly, Junie would sprint away from the chicken because all too often she might chase him. Or, if his getaway was too slow she could bean him on the noggin, hard, with her beak for the outrage he had perpetrated. I had other barn cats that liked this game, as well. 

     This is also the time of year when the Canadian geese that live around the lake get restless and take to the air, circling and honking. 

    Shorter day lengths might be causing them to think about flying south, although some of our geese don't leave because residents feed them.

  

Leaving or staying

  

     Later in Autumn a covey of quail that frequent our commons will fly up into the apple tree just beyond my balcony to feast on the ripe crab apples. The tiny "crabby" little fruits are about the size of a cherry, yellow with a pink blush and very b-i-t-t-e-r!!! 

      The quail relish them and the tree will host 15 to 20 of them scampering along the branches and perching on eaves and balcony railing. 

    To me it's a magical sight to watch the comings and goings of the wild creatures of the forest.

 

Looking for mom. This fawn might be nonplussed by the sprinklers being on.

 

Christmas Blessings

 

 

May you have the gladness of Christmas which is hope;
The spirit of Christmas which is peace;
The heart of Christmas which is love.
~Ada V. Hendricks

Christmas Reflections...Christmases Past

 

 

Christmas — that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance — a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.

~Augusta E. Rundel