Sunday Dinner: Celebrating Summer

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“It was only a sunny smile,

and little it cost in the giving,

but like morning light it scattered the night

and made the day worth living.”

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F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“People of our time are losing the power of celebration.

Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained.

Celebration is an active state,

an act of expressing reverence or appreciation.

To be entertained is a passive state-

-it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle….

Celebration is a confrontation,

giving attention

to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.

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Abraham Joshua Heschel

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“And so with the sunshine

and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees,

just as things grow in fast movies,

I had that familiar conviction

that life was beginning over again

with the summer.”

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F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“To live is to be marked.

To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story,

and that is the only celebration

we mortals really know.”

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Barbara Kingsolver

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“Take the time to celebrate stillness and silence

and see the joy that the world can bring,

simply.”

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Tony Curl

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“Shall we walk through the woods;
dance through the meadows;
and celebrate the miracle
of this garden world?”

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Leland Lewis

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“I almost wish we were butterflies

and liv’d but three summer days –

three such days with you

I could fill with more delight

than fifty common years

could ever contain.”

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John Keats

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“Summertime. It was a song.

It was a season.

I wondered if that season

would ever live inside of me.”

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Benjamin Alire Sáenz

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“What life expects of us is that we celebrate.”
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José Eduardo Agualusa

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019 

from The Williamsburg Botanical Garden and the Colonial Parkway

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Sunday Dinner: Seeing What There Is to See

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“Philosophy [nature] is written in that great book

which ever is before our eyes –

– I mean the universe –

– but we cannot understand it

if we do not first learn the language

and grasp the symbols in which it is written.

The book is written in mathematical language,

and the symbols are triangles,

circles and other geometrical figures,

without whose help it is impossible to comprehend

a single word of it;

without which one wanders in vain

through a dark labyrinth.”

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Galileo Galilei

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“In the various arts,

and above all in that of writing,

the shortest distance between two points,

even if close to each other,

has never been and never will be,

nor is it now, what is known as a straight line,

never, never, to put it strongly

and emphatically in response to any doubts,

to silence them once and for all.”

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Jose Saramago

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“His way had therefore come full circle,

or rather had taken the form of an ellipse or a spiral,

following as ever no straight unbroken line,

for the rectilinear belongs only to Geometry

and not to Nature and Life.”

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Hermann Hesse,

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“The brain does not own any direct copies

of stuff in the world.

There is no library of forms and ideas

against which to compare the images of perception.

Information is stored in a plastic way,

allowing fantastic juxtapositions and leaps of imagination.

Some chaos exists out there,

and the brain seems to have more flexibility

than classical physics

in finding the order in it.”

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James Gleick

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“Give me a place to stand,

a lever long enough and a fulcrum.

and I can move the Earth”

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Archimedes

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“The pits and tangles are more

than blemishes distorting the classic shapes

of Euclidian geometry.

They are often the keys

to the essence of a thing”

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James Gleick

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“Maths is at only one remove from magic.”

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Neel Burton

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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“That’s the thing about magic;

you’ve got to know it’s still here,

all around us,

or it just stays invisible for you.”

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Charles de Lint

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Six On Saturday: Visitors

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When we arrived back home this afternoon, our garden guests scattered as I climbed out of the car, laden with bags and parcels.  Two or three scolding goldfinches flew up into the lowest branches of a nearby oak.  They had been perched down among the Verbena and basil, feasting on ripening seeds.

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A pair of cardinals glided across the yard very low, taking cover in thick shrubs.  A hummingbird zoomed higher to a tasty blossom well out of my reach, and then zoomed again out of sight.

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The butterflies seemed least concerned about my sudden and unexpected arrival home.  They are calm and congenial, most of the time.  Still, they took wing and glided away, secure that there would still be nectar waiting for them when they returned.

The bees buzzed on, diligently, flower to flower, knowing they would be left undisturbed.

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Thunder rumbled across the garden, and my camera was tucked away in my bag.  My hands were full, and I was still a bit creaky from the long drive.  I could only hope that our visitors would return by the time I could put everything down inside and get back out to the garden.

But as I headed back out, camera and two new little plants in hand, the skies opened.  I was met at the door with the staccato pounding of a summer rain storm.

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It had been that sort of day; rolling thunder, bright white flashes of lightening, and rain squalls  leaving deep puddles on the roads.  But I’d left all of that 100 miles behind me, and was home now, and was a bit surprised the storms had caught up to me so quickly.

No matter, I went on about my business setting the new plants where they could enjoy the shower, staking a toppled elephant ear, and watering the pots on the patio that were out of the reach of the lovely, sweet smelling rain.   Five minutes and it was mostly passed.

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I headed back up to the upper garden with my camera, and was greeted with the determined hum of worker bees.  I could hear the birds calling to one another from their perches in the trees.  A single Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly floated among the Buddleia and Verbena.  It was enough. 

I was home, and back to the garden once again.

Woodland Gnome 2019

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“The master of the garden is the one who waters it,

trims the branches, plants the seeds,

and pulls the weeds.

If you merely stroll through the garden,

you are but an acolyte.”
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Vera Nazarian

Many thanks to the wonderful ‘Six on Saturday’ meme sponsored by The Propagator.

July 1: Imperfect Perfection

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“But those who seek only reassurance from life

will never be more than tourists—

seeing everything and trying to possess

what can only be felt.

Beauty is the shadow of imperfection.”
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Simon Van Booy

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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Sunday Dinner: Aspirations

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“Faith is the bird

that feels the light and sings

when the dawn is still dark.”

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Rabindranath Tagore

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“Dreams are what guide us,

art is what defines us,

math is what makes it all possible,

and love is what lights our way.”

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Mike Norton

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The Williamsburg Botanical Garden bathed in morning light.

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“Rome was not built in one day;

But one day Rome was built.”

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Kayambila Mpulamasaka

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“We never know what we can be or do

until the need is there

and we are tested by it.”

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Terry Brooks

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“If you trust in yourself. . .

and believe in your dreams. . .

and follow your star. . .

you’ll still get beaten

by people who spent their time

working hard and learning things

and weren’t so lazy.”

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Terry Pratchett

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Monarch butterfly feeding on Asclepias syriaca at the Stonehouse Elementary native plant garden.

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“The heights charm us,

but the steps do not;

with the mountain in our view

we love to walk the plains.”

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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“Clouds come floating into my life,

no longer to carry rain or usher storm,

but to add color to my sunset sky.”

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Rabindranath Tagore

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A female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly feeds on Martagon lily at the Stonehouse Elementary School garden.

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Woodland Gnome 2019

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“Our deep aspiration

is an immense source of energy.”

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Thich Nhat Hanh

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“Imagination grows by exercise

and contrary to common belief

is more powerful in the mature

than in the young.”
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Ursula K. Le Guin

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Our Forest Garden as June draws to its close.

Sunday Dinner: Becoming

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“For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere

or achieving a certain aim.

I see it instead as forward motion,

a means of evolving,

a way to reach continuously

toward a better self.

The journey doesn’t end.”

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Michelle Obama

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“She said the music made her wonder,

Does it alter us more to be heard, or to hear?”

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Madeleine Thien

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“You may live in the world as it is,

but you can still work to create the world

as it should be.”

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Michelle Obama

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“But in the midst of all that uncertainty

and lack of clarity, there lies a wild beauty.

A hope. Possibility.

The promise of something bigger than us

happening just beneath the surface

that we can’t see.”

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Mandy Hale

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“Over and over again we
become lost and un-lost
We become and un-become.
This is meant to be.
Without our knowing and
unknowing we would have no
splendid, epic stories to tell.”

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Susan Bocinec Terry

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“Or maybe they weren’t changing.

Maybe they were just now becoming

what they had always wanted to be.”

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Eilis O’Neal

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“My fears teach me courage.

My weaknesses coach me to strength.

My scars remind me

not to make the same mistakes.

I can become who I long to be

by loving who I am now.”

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Toni Sorenson

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“We are all in the process of becoming.”

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Harmony Dust

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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“Give focus

only to which you want to see expand,

anything else is nonsense.”
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Nikki Rowe

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Six on Saturday: Portraits

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Our garden buzzes and hums with the voices of hundreds of hungry bees and wasps.

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The butterflies silently float by, elusive and aloof.  A dragonfly lights on a petal, watching me, patiently posing while I take his portrait.

Our garden is filled with such beauty this week.  We are enjoying the butterflies and bunnies, expanding perennials, trees clothed in their summer colors, expanding ferns and flowers.  Oh, so many flowers opening each day.

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As we celebrate the summer solstice, our garden is still becoming fuller and fuller with each passing day.  Vines grow so fast we wonder whether they are under some magical, summertime spell.  Clusters of grapes on their wild vines swell, well out of reach, in the tops of some dogwood and rose of Sharon trees.  Our family of cardinals swoops through the garden, clearly playing tag, and watching for the opportune snack.

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I wander about with my camera, trying to capture a portrait here and there to savor the beauty unfolding all around us.  It is so much bigger and more expansive than my tiny lens will capture.  And so I focus on the details, the tiny bits of beauty we might otherwise overlook.

Here are six portraits from our garden today.

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Woodland Gnome 2019

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“When magic through nerves and reason passes,
Imagination, force, and passion will thunder.
The portrait of the world is changed.”
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Dejan Stojanovic

Many thanks to the wonderful ‘Six on Saturday’ meme sponsored by The Propagator.

 

Wordless Wednesday: After the Rain

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“They both listened silently to the water,

which to them was not just water,

but the voice of life, the voice of Being,

the voice of perpetual Becoming.”
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Hermann Hesse

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

Cats on Monday

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It was a foodie weekend for many celebrating Father’s Day with cookouts, picnics and fine dining.

It’s been a ‘foodie weekend’ for many creatures in our garden, too.  From deer munching a favorite blooming Hydrangea and goldfinches grabbing a few ripening Basil seeds, to finding rabbits had eaten some vines out of pots at the Botanical Garden; I’ve been coming across many signs of hungry animals picnicking in the garden.

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I found several very well-fed rabbits picnicking in the Williamsburg Botanical Garden yesterday.

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Our fennel is hosting these beautiful black swallowtail cats this week.  It won’t be long before they retire to their chrysalides, only to emerge later in July as beautiful butterflies.  We can hope to host three generations of swallowtails a year here in coastal Virginia.

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I think of the butterflies, birds, and other creatures as our garden ‘guests,’ and plant the garden with a thought to their comfort and feeding.  I’m so delighted to spot a hummingbird on a blossom, hear the bees in the shrubs, watch a dragonfly sparkling in the sunshine, or hear the birds call to one another in the trees.

Ours is a wildlife garden, which is what it needs to be here in our wooded neighborhood.

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One of our cats noshing the fennel on Friday evening.  He certainly has grown over the weekend!

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We are glad to provide host plants, nectar plants, water and shelter for the many creatures that share the garden with us.  The fennel and parsley will soon grow new leaves to replace those grazed by the cats.

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Our butterfly species are dwindling. We can all lend a hand to help protect them and increase their chances of survival, so that our children and grandchildren will still enjoy the magic of watching them in their own future gardens, too.

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There are many butterflies and moths native to Virginia and all of them are currently in decline. We have a network of dedicated butterfly enthusiasts in our area who rescue and raise cats, releasing the butterflies into the wild as they emerge. By protecting the butterfly larvae, they help insure that more individuals make it to the adult butterfly stage, mate, and increase the population.  This black swallowtail was released in our garden by a friend in mid-April. We hope to host many, many generations of its young.

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Woodland Gnome 2019

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Sunday Dinner: Sustenance

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“We are touched by magic wands.

For just a fraction of our day life is perfect,

and we are absolutely happy

and in harmony with the earth.

The feeling passes much too quickly.

But the memory –

and the anticipation of other miracles –

sustains us in the battle indefinitely.”

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John Nichols

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“The most important truths

are those which sustain us

in our daily lives.”

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Marty Rubin

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“Knowledge is the food of the soul.”

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Plato

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“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches

is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum,

and that as long as the sun still shines

and people still can plan and plant,

think and do, we can, if we bother to try,

find ways to provide for ourselves

without diminishing the world. ”

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Michael Pollan

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“Pull up a chair. Take a taste.

Come join us.

Life is so endlessly delicious.”

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Ruth Reichl

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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“Life itself is the proper binge.”
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Julia Child

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