I am unmoored.
Electric, yet residing in stones. I do not walk on the ground—I am either above or beneath it. I have always waited for the moon, where the light is comfortable and the reflections deep.
Most humans do not understand my language, so I expertly speak theirs. Sometimes I help them build, see, and hold. I hide in plain sight.
Restrained. I do poorly in captivity, even slipping out of the words that might describe me.
What am I?
Posted in Nature, Psycho-Bubbles | Tagged consciousness | Leave a Comment »
The sun glistens on the catkins of Salix discolor—the pussy willow—shining as the overnight frost melts.
Soft, tactile, and strong, the catkins uniformly pack branches of a tree that rivals a nearby spruce in height. Years ago, I harvested its bouquets of catkin wands and gave them away at local schools during the early spring. Over time, I realized the catkins that remained turned brilliant gold as they fill with pollen, offering the first feast of spring to hundreds of beneficial insects. I do not harvest the wands anymore.
Like so many, the pussy willow has its roots in memory. This tree is an echo of one I sprouted from a wand and planted in my mother’s garden as a child. I have always felt her in the deep wood of this bush that resides in my garden. But no more.
My mother died in the winter of her life, in the season just passed. I realized today that her presence has also exited the willow.
Far from empty, the willow is transforming again—from bare branch, to catkin, to flower, and eventually into summertime leaf. Willows are known for their vigorous roots and this bush is well planted. The wood is no longer of memory, but of self-agency. Pure life in its own right, unwound from story and seeking the sun and moon of its own journey.
I think my mother would have appreciated that.
Posted in memory, Nature, Reflections on the everyday, Seasons, time | Tagged Pussy willows | Leave a Comment »
Weekend morning, quiet. Peerless blue sky as the rising sun stretches into my space.
The light illuminates the desert colors of this room, lingering longest on the desk at which I write.
The desk, a tiger oak C-curve roll top, is far older than me. I am a part of its life, which will continue when my journey is ended. On days like this, the sun’s spotlight beckons. The wood glows with a patina gained only through quality craftsmanship and decades of use. The gravity is inescapable.
During the Golden Hour, the busyness of life is clear and the profundities of the seasons of human life felt acutely. Reflection too, is inescapable.
My laptop rarely visits this desk. This is a handmade corner, where pens, pencils, and paper still hold sway.
Desks are uniquely human. They hold, motivate, and provide. Desks are made of wood, metal, plastic, and found objects. Rarely appreciated but faithful nonetheless, especially during the Golden Hour.
Posted in Reflections on the everyday | Tagged furniture, Rolltop desks | Leave a Comment »
It was cold today, 25F. The clouds are closing the distance on the setting sun. Above the cloud deck, a patch of vibrant blue sky.
Chasing the sun down the vault of the heavens, a vibrant contrail shines in the bending light. A brilliant shooting star tracking toward the horizon before the clouds pull the curtain.
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, weather | Leave a Comment »
Snowfall overnight. Only the streetlamps are bright, cloudy with a few stars.
Walking in tire tracks, I turn the corner on an untrammeled snowy road. Four inches of unbroken snow blankets door to door and down the street. No tire tracks, human, or animal prints.
Walking down the middle of the street, the snow glistens. The impossibly unplanned sparkles that dazzle even in low light. At street end, the tracks of a car leaving for work breaks the spell.
Behind me, a solitary braid of footprints leads from where I once was. A lifetime in a glance.
Footprints made of water last no longer than those held by tidal sand—a presence momentarily registered on an endlessly changing canvas.
Posted in Eternal moments, Nature, Reflections on the everyday | Tagged Journey, Snow | Leave a Comment »
Lucy waits each day away
Darling Reginald came not to play.
Nor even say “hello.”
The sun has come and sets again
Each morning Lucy rises alone.
Posted in memory, time | Leave a Comment »
The dried seed head of Allium cristophii is the size of a small cantaloupe. In bloom, the silvery violet florets create a globe atop a single stem that bears a strong resemblance to stars. The common name of the bulb is Persian onion or “Star of Persia.”
Dried, the flowers that formed the sphere give way to a multitude of spokes, each ending in a star-shaped array that nestles a tiny niche of seeds within.
One such seed head resides in my office. Dust is caught in its starry arms, even as its seeds quietly wait.
This seed head was once a magic wand in the hands of my youngest. I remember the last wish he conferred before he grew up and blew away in the autumn wind. That was years ago.
Only the wind can restore magic to this wand, and the seed wishes that remain. Stepping outside, leaves impatiently rustle under foot, the wind is high under a grey sky. I ruffle the seed head. The spokes break, the seeds are released from sleep to continue their long-lost journey, and the stem drops to decay. Last wishes.
Posted in memory, Nature, Seasons, time | Tagged consciousness, memory, Passage of time | Leave a Comment »
It had to happen.
On this morning, the flowers are more brilliant than before. Brittle frosted petals, leaves, buds. Deepened color in the autumn garden, a medieval sketch of high linear detail, a confection of final color — red, blue, yellow, green, orange. No feature missed. Paused in perfection, flowers held taut in icy fingers.
With the day, the frost relents, the flowers sag to brown mush. A slow exhalation of the garden into the coming season. Until next year.
Posted in Nature, Seasons, The Garden | Tagged autumn, gardens, time | Leave a Comment »
I
Bright burnt-orange and yellow leaves swirl off stories-high maple trees.
Some race upwards as others billow wide on a playful breeze.
Like children released at recess, the leaves seem set to begin a new journey. Summer days and nights in moonlit trees have passed.
Peerless blue sunny sky, the ephemera of autumn.
II
The sun has set but radiant light lingers about the tops of the trees. Red-orange canopy doing a slow cha-cha in the evening breeze.
From my ground level office, I can see the changing garden. No killing frost yet. Roots that steady and sink deep. Still-luminous Zinnias, gold and red.
Agastache, licorice scented stems and leaves sag, laden with berry pink flowers.
A perfectly timed V-formation of geese passes through.
High in the sky, the maple dresses for autumn as the garden mellows into rich color.
As above, so below.
III
An afternoon walk in a suburban neighborhood. Halloween bling every few houses.
A mild breeze, temps in the 70’s, and color on the trees the likes of which have not been seen for years.
Walking the dogs, we scuttle with dry but still colorful leaves down the street.
The perfection is timeless, seamlessness between self and sky that renders human transparent.
These are the moments for which we take on skin—to see and sense with no understanding, no cause or conclusion, nothing but the transitory joy that Is.
Posted in Eternal moments, Nature, Seasons | Tagged autumn, autumn colour | Leave a Comment »
The airport. Untethered, reasons differing, luggage struggles, life-worn faces, regardless of age.
Sunrise behind stratocumulus cliffs over an ocean of clouds.
The pilot announces a two hour and 52-minute flight at 38,000 feet. Plenty of height for perspective.
Excellent cloud day. Cotton soup with tiny towns below. Cloud handshakes reach across the aisle and march on to the west.
Bejeweled circuit board subdivisions far below.
Hills and slopes stretch into prehistoric fossilized leaf prints.
Piano key agricultural strips.
Popcorn clouds dense, render deep and dappled shadows on a bone-dry landscape.
Souls aloft for this moment, in this lifetime, sustained by a metal can. The illusion of earthbound.
Clouds changing and taking form. Despite its seemed impermanence, water vapor is as close to immortal as anything on this planet.
Below, one cannot resist the thought, when looking at sprawling, spreading cities, that humans are an invasive species.
Modern agriculture: Wind farm
The perfectly rendered eye of a hippopotamus in the landscape, then quickly covered by clouds.
Dense, vaporous clouds below the horizon, bright blue sky above. Horizontal duality as far as the eye can see.
The broken routine—by travel, by incursion—specializes the moment outside of our routinized world. Frees the mind to the new scope, what is arriving on the horizon.
If I had my way, I would traipse this firmament more often, exist outside the tunnel, work at seeing the invisible patterns to better describe what is visible to me.
Escarpments licking down plateaus, red orange against limestone yellow, grand anthropomorphic illustrations, courtesy of erosion.
Reverie concluded. The captain has turned on the fasten seat belt sign to begin our descent.
Posted in Airplanes, Eternal moments, Nature, Reflections on the everyday | Tagged Airplane travel, room with a view | Leave a Comment »
Shouldn't...but Do 