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“It is not we who seek the Way,
but the Way which seeks us.
That is why you are faithful to it,
even while you stand waiting,
so long as you are prepared,
and act the moment you are confronted
by its demands.”
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“True morality consists not in following the beaten track,
but in finding the true path for ourselves,
and fearlessly following it.”
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“Does the walker choose the path,
or the path the walker?”
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“Water is the most perfect traveler
because when it travels
it becomes the path itself!”
.
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“Don’t keep forever on the public road,
going only where others have gone.”
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“As one gets older
one sees many more paths that could be taken.
Artists sense within their own work
that kind of swelling of possibilities,
which may seem a confusion, or a freedom.”
.
~
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“Who said it was a path?
It could have just been artfully strewn cookies.
You made it a path by following it,
and assuming it had any intention.”
.
~
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“Let the path that you follow
be bathed in light.”
.
~
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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2020
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“They aren’t roadblocks.
They’re signposts.”
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Please visit my new website, Illuminations, for a daily photo from our garden.
Forest Garden 
White mountain laurel is RAD! We used to grow mountain laurel, but there was such a limited market for them here that they were discontinued. I have never seen them in their natural habitat, but would like to go to Pennsylvania and New England someday to see the sugar maples and other flora there. Sunny California is . . . well, sunny. There is plenty of sunshine here. However, the quantity is not as important as the quality for pictures such as these. As you know, too much sunshine makes pictures difficult.
Hi Tony, Too much sunlight makes photos of white or other light flowers nearly impossible. You lose the details and just get a huge reflection of light. Twilight is actually a pretty good time, believe it or not. I love the mountain laurel that grows wild in our area. What a gift of nature! It like growing on slopes, and colonizes river banks. You see it often as you drive across a bridge. But our neighborhood has a fair amount of it, too. And we’re blessed with two different patches of it in our yard. it colonizes over time. Years ago, when I was in a condo with a spiral metal staircase up to the loft, I collected dead branches of mountain laurel in the fall to decorate the pole of the staircase. Wired on, and draped in white twinkle lights, it was stunning. I still use a lot of Mountain laurel branches in winter floral arrangements. It is a shame that it isn’t grown much in your area. Come east, young man- at least once to enjoy the different flora and fauna!
Mountain laurel is one of the few ornamentals (that produced neither fruit nor vegetable) that I intend to add to my garden, down by the creek. It is surprisingly unappealing in cans, with floppy sprawling growth. The stock plants in the arboretum were much prettier. As much as I like the white cultivar, I will likely grow one with color that is more comparable to what grows wild. I do not believe that there are any of the straight species in the arboretum. They should all be cultivars of one sort or another.