End of the Season Moths

I haven't blogged in a long time, but I'm hoping to post pictures of our woods throughout the seasons.  You know, sort of a commemorative thing of beautiful things in nature.  Since it is fall again and the season signals the passing of the ephemeral creatures of summer, here are some of the last moths of the year.  I think of them as sad stragglers who are hopefully searching for their mate under the glow of the porch light.

Coughs and colds and other cheery items

Well! Life as I know it has been filled with a virus and pneumonia. At some point, I just want to breathe normally. However, I bought stems of pussy willows for the dining room table that breathe spring into the house. I put a couple stems of bedraggled iris into a creamer vase and some ranunculus into a crystal vase. Both scream "spring!". I love the pussy willows so much and I remember a song my grandmother taught us about them:
I have a little pussy,
It's coat is silver- grey,
It lives down in the meadow,
Not very far away,
Although it is a pussy,
It'll never be a cat,
It is a pussy willow,
Now what do you think of that?
Meow, meow, meow, meow
Scat!

Sometimes it's not goodbye, it's see you soon

My Great-Great Aunt Beatrice died last week. The world seems dimmer, somehow less magical than it was before. She was my last Great-Great relative. I've always wondered how people bore the passing of everyone before them, since such grief would only be exaggerated in time. Now I know, or at least I think I do. As the years in front of you become fewer than the years behind, it becomes less "good-bye" and more like "see you soon". And if there is dancing in Heaven, then I'm sure that is what she's doing. She was a dear, dear woman. Sweet and warm, with laughing eyes and a twinkling soul. The type of person that makes you certain you won't meet another of that kind again. Unique not in the snowflake way, but rather, in the way of the big bang. So while the lives of those around her were marked by her kindnesses, now there is only a darkness where her light once shone.

Cannot keep my loves ones from me....

Some long years ago, my great-grandmother sent me a letter which had a snippet of another poem in it.  Although I didn't know it at the time, it came from the following poem.  Reading this poem as an adult has stirred me so much that I wonder if I have misjudged my great-grandmother, who was a very complicated and strong woman.

For those who don't know (I did not), John Burroughs was a romantic poet and considered secondary only to Thoreau in terms of naturalist sensibilities at the turn of the last century (according to various websites). 

WAITING

by: John Burroughs (1837-1921)

SERENE, I fold my hands and wait,

Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;

I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,

For, lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,

For what avails this eager pace?

I stand amid the eternal ways,

And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,

The friends I seek are seeking me;

No wind can drive my bark astray,

Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?

I wait with joy the coming years;

My heart shall reap where it hath sown,

And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own and draw

The brook that springs in yonder height;

So flows the good with equal law

Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;

The tidal wave unto the sea;

Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,

Can keep my own away from me.

Source: Poetry Archive.  The Little Book of American Poets: 1787-1900. Ed. Jessie B. Rittenhouse. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1915.12 Jan. 2011. Web.  http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/waiting.html

Digging Out

Strange things about a winter storm:

1. The world becomes black and white and gray
2. Any messiness is covered with a blanket of purity
3. It's hard to tell how deep you will sink upon taking the first step into the snow
4. There seems some type of magic inherent in the first flakes spiralling down
5. Even the animals love to jump and fall into snow
6. Everything seems quieter

And finally,

7. The expression, "snug as a bug in a rug" makes sense when you are curled up in your favorite chair with a mug of cocoa staring out into the snow-globe world.

And now, I must go dig out!

The changing backgrounds...

I now have a wonderful background that will hopefully see me through the new year! 
Cheers!

Yes, Virginia...

Christmastime!  What a wonderful time of year!  Not because of the snow or the blustery wind that takes your breath away in one cold nip - but because it brings back the warmth of past Christmas memories which have been packed away as neatly as ornaments in their boxes.  Although Easter has always meant more spiritually to me than Christmas, the thought of mankind giving to others because God gave to us fills my soul with liquid cheer and goodwill.  Truly, out of a life that is mostly concerned with bureaucratic intangible constructs, it is this time of year in which action is met with word. The supernatural intangible is made real.  Society is filled with givers instead of takers.  The question asked is "Can I help?" instead of "Why should I?".  The best of us is unearthed and we remember a magic and miracles which are normally stuffed down under cynical workday demeanors.  I am putting that famous letter in the Sun here to warm the cockles of your heart!

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Francis Pharcellus Chruch - Sun, New York, September 21, 1897
http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/