Sunday Dinner: Flow

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Mist to mist, drops to drops.

For water thou art,

and unto water shalt thou return.”

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Kamand Kojouri

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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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“To them, as to Magnus,

time was like rain, glittering as it fell,

changing the world,

but something that could also

be taken for granted.”

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Cassandra Clare

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“…I keep looking for one more teacher,

only to find that fish learn from the water

and birds learn from the sky.”

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Mark Nepo

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“Water is the most perfect traveller

because when it travels

it becomes the path itself!”

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Mehmet Murat ildan

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“Water is the driving force in nature.”

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Leonardo da Vinci

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“Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape,

so in warfare

there are no constant conditions.”

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Sun Tzu

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“Empty your mind,

be formless, shapeless, like water.

Be water, my friend.”

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Bruce Lee

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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What to Grow For A Rainy Day?

Colocasia ‘Pink China’

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Have you ever found a list of plants to grow for a rainy day?  Surely there must be such a catalog, somewhere.  There are lists of plants for sun and shade, lists for arid gardens, for rock gardens and for water gardens.  There are lists of plants for attracting butterflies and for repelling deer.  Why not a list of rainy day plants, too?

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Colocasia ‘Tea Cups’

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Their leaves must be thick and waxy; their stems strong enough to take a pounding.  And, of course, they should hold raindrops and show them off like fine jewels.

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Oakleaf Hydrangea

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Rainy day plants need a bit of glow about them.  They should sparkle and shine on the dullest of days.

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Colocasia ‘Tea Cups’

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And they can’t ever turn to a soggy mush when rainy days stretch into rainy weeks.  We are blessed with our share of rainy days in coastal Virginia.

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Caladium

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Some predict that climate change will bring us ever more rain, as warmer air absorbs and carries more moisture from the sea.   That has proven true these past few years, as coastal storms have brought us inches at a time.

Our soil holds it, too, like a soggy sponge.  And we need plants whose roots can luxuriate in this wet abundance.

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Muscadine grapes

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And mostly, we gardeners need some beautiful thing to admire on wet days.  Don’t you agree?

It’s good to walk out into one’s soggy garden and find it all looking fine.   To discover new layers of beauty when a plant is raindrop-clad brings us a little extra happiness.

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Daucus carota, a carrot flower

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Let’s make our own list of Rainy Day Plants.  Let’s consider what stands up well in our extreme summer weather, whatever that might be in our own garden.

For us it’s heat, humidity and rain.  Perhaps your own conditions are a bit different.  Do you have wind?  Drought?  Hail storms?  Floods?

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Crepe Myrtle

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Let’s be open to change.  Let’s plant our gardens to succeed in our current circumstance, whatever that might be.

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We can move beyond that tired old list of what we’ve always done before, and make new choices.

Let’s fill our gardens with beauty and abundance, no matter which way the wind blows, and no matter how many rainy days come our way.

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rose scented geranium, Pelargonium

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Woodland Gnome 2017

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“Live in moments that consume your heart and mind,

but be distracted by the music from the leaves,

birds, wind, rain, sun and people”

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Val Uchendu

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StrawberryBegonia

 

 

Sunday Dinner: Water Is Life

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“Brushing the clouds away from my eyes,

I see clarity in the raindrop

and beauty in the first ray of morning sun… 

Life is strange and wondrous…”

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Virginia Alison

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“On the fifth day, which was a Sunday,

it rained very hard.

I like it when it rains hard.

It sounds like white noise everywhere,

which is like silence but not empty.”

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Mark Haddon

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“The sky mingled with the Earth infinitely

in the tenderness of rain drops.”

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Meeta Ahluwalia

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“Sometimes enlightenment descends upon you

when you least expect it…”

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Dean Koontz

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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“Mist to mist, drops to drops.

For water thou art,

and unto water shalt thou return.”

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Kamand Kojouri

To Be One Drop of Water….

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But water always goes where it wants to go,

and nothing in the end can stand against it.

Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone.

Remember that, my child. Remember

you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle,

go around it.     Water does.”

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Margaret Atwood

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“Wisdom cannot be imparted.

Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart

always sounds like foolishness to someone else …

Knowledge can be communicated,

but not wisdom. One can find it, live it,

do wonders through it,

but one cannot communicate and teach it.”

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Hermann Hesse

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“One kernel is felt in a hogshead;

one drop of water helps to swell the ocean;

a spark of fire helps to give light to the world.

None are too small, too feeble,

too poor to be of service.

Think of this and act.”

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Hannah More

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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James River, After the Rain

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We had a golden hour after the rain, as the sun set, illuminating the world with its long gilding rays.

We’d left home in the pouring rain with thunder rumbling in the distance.  But by the time errands were accomplished and dinner had, the sun shone again on a much cooler and softer evening.

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Mist rose from ground and pavement to rejoin the mighty storm clouds still scuttling across the evening sky.

When we turned onto the Parkway at last, a rainbow greeted us, rising up from the dark pines into the iridescent clouds above.

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We saw a thick column of color rising nearly straight up.  And then we played tag, watching for it to reappear as we drove through the forest along this winding riverside road.  I hopped out of the car to capture it time and again from different angles and with different backdrops.

The clouds over the river, rising in tall shimmering, gilded mounds, competed in this celestial pageant.

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It is all a play of angles, this sunset beauty, unfolding against the cadence of the sun’s dropping towards the horizon.

The evening grows dimmer and cooler by the minute, rainbow light fading back into darkening clouds.  More rain creeps ever closer.  By the time I reach the beach, our rainbow is gone.

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The James is high.  Days of rain upriver have filled its banks to their brim and beyond.  Familiar logs and branches are lost below its gentle windblown waves lapping at the sandy shore.

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We hear frog song and birds calling out as evening closes around us.   Dark clouds hug the horizon now, and we head home in the wetness of this summer evening.

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But the rainbow lives on, in these photos and in our hearts.

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Woodland Gnome 2016

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Green Rain Falling

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Green rain falling.

Staccato dripping from gutters,

Broken by frog song,

Call and response from the pond;

Celebration of wet abundance.

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Ground glistens below

Jewel encrusted leaves.

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Steady patter, hour after hour.

Creek filled ditches flowing,

Flowing, flowing, where?

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Frogs shelter on  windows, hunting

By porch light.

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Turtle heaven,

Watery world

Filled with liquid shadows.

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Birds perch beneath the eaves,

Warbling,

Waiting,

Rainy week in June.

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Woodland Gnome 2015

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