Sunday Dinner: Symmetrical

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“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes.

If it were always a fist or always stretched open,

you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,

the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated

as birds’ wings.”

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Jelaluddin Rumi

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“There are moments when i wish i could roll back the clock

and take all the sadness away,

but i have a feeling that if i did,

the joy would be gone as well.

So i take the memories as they come,

accepting them all,

letting them guide me whenever i can.”

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Nicholas Sparks

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“He felt that there is a loose balance of good and evil,

and that the art of living

consists in getting the greatest good

out of the greatest evil.”

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Machado de Assis

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“To light a candle is to cast a shadow…”

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Ursula K. Le Guin

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“Mathematics expresses values that reflect the cosmos,

including orderliness, balance, harmony,

logic, and abstract beauty.”

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Deepak Chopra

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“what is joy without sorrow?

what is success without failure?

what is a win without a loss?

what is health without illness?

you have to experience each if you are to appreciate the other.

there is always going to be suffering.

it’s how you look at your suffering,

how you deal with it, that will define you.”

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mark twain

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Photos by Woodand Gnome 2020

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“You must let what happens happen.

Everything must be equal in your eyes,

good and evil, beautiful and ugly,

foolish and wise.”
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Michael Ende

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In memory of Robert Nowak 1941-2020

and for those he’s left behind

Sunday Dinner: Precisely

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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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“Billions of years ago

there were just blobs of protoplasm;

now billions of years later

here we are.

So information has been created

and stored in our structure.

In the development of one person’s mind from childhood,

information is clearly not just accumulated

but also generated—created from connections

that were not there before”

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James Gleick

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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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“sacred knowledge of the cosmos

seems to be hidden within our souls

and is shown within our artwork and creative expressions.”

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Nikki Shiva

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“What if Loves are analogous to math?

First, arithmetic, then geometry and algebra,

then trig and quadratics…”

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J. Earp

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2018

All but the first photo are from the woodland walk at the Williamsburg Botanical Garden.   The first photo is from our Forest Garden.

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“the pattern appears so ethereally,

that it is hard to remember that the shape is an attractor.

It is not just any trajectory of a dynamical system.

It is the trajectory toward which

all other trajectories converge.”

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James Gleick

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“The geometry of the things around us

creates coincidences, intersections.”

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Erri De Luca

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“If the human mind can understand the universe,

it means the human mind is fundamentally

of the same order as the divine mind.

If the human mind is of the same order as the divine mind,

then everything that appeared rational to God

as he constructed the universe,

it’s “geometry,” can also be made to appear rational

to the human understanding,

and so if we search and think hard enough,

we can find a rational explanation and underpinning for everything.

This is the fundamental proposition of science.”

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Robert Zubrin

WPC: In Focus, Or Not….

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“When I fully enter time’s swift current,

enter into the current moment

with the weight of all my attention,

I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here.”

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Ann Voskamp

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“Miracles… seem to me to rest not so much upon…

healing power coming suddenly near us

from afar but upon our perceptions being made finer,

so that, for a moment, our eyes can see and our ears can hear

what is there around us always.”

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Willa Cather

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“Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind.

Their leaves are telling secrets.

Their bark sings songs of olden days

as it grows around the trunks.

And their roots give names to all things.

Their language has been lost.

But not the gestures.”

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Vera Nazarian

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“Pay attention to the intricate patterns of your existence

that you take for granted.”

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Doug Dillon

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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“Attention is a resource as abundant as sunlight.

It streams outward all day long

whether we choose to tap into it or not.

By developing conscious focus of our attention,

we learn to harness one of the greatest creative powers

available to humankind,

one that happens to be freely available

within ourselves at all times.”

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Scott Edmund Miller

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For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Focus

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

Sunday Dinner: Observers

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“To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.”

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Paul Valéry

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“Chaos is peaceful

when you stand quietly & watch –

we are eternal observers,

reflecting both tiny & vast,

singing infinitely within.”

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Jay Woodman

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“Observation is, at its core, an expression of love

which doesn’t get caught up in sentiment.”

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Takashi Hiraide

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“Keep your eyes open

and you’ll see more than you ever dreamed of.”

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Marty Rubin

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“Learn to see what you are looking at.”

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Christopher Paolini

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“The world was beautiful

when looked at in this way—

without any seeking, so simple, so childlike.”

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Hermann Hesse

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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Wednesday Vignette: Vision

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“The truth.” Dumbledore sighed.

“It is a beautiful and terrible thing,

and should therefore be treated with great caution.”

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J.K. Rowling

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“I believe in everything until it’s disproved.

So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons.

It all exists, even if it’s in your mind.

Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares

aren’t as real as the here and now?”

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John Lennon

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“Facts do not cease to exist

because they are ignored.”

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Aldous Huxley

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“Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.”

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Pablo Picasso

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“In a time of deceit

telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

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George Orwell

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

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Oscar Wilde

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For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Reflecting

WPC: Surprise

Athyrium niponicum ‘Joy Ride’

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The Daily Post’s Photo Challenge this week invites us to explore the often overlooked details in form.  A ‘macro-lens view’ opens up new worlds of beauty.

Often, in the hurry of our daily lives, we glance around us and take the world into consciousness in chunks of meaning.  We register the traffic moving around us, the child moving towards us, the inventory of our fridge. Even in the garden, we register our landscape in chunks of form and color.

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It takes undistracted time to focus the lens of our mind on the tiniest of details, like the uncurling fronds opening on our ferns this week.  This annual springtime show might otherwise be overlooked as the garden explodes in color and fragrance.

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Athyrium niponicum ‘Pictum’

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Who can pass a fragrant Iris to contemplate a tiny fern?  Only the child or the gardener!  Our eyes train on those tiniest of details as we pace the paths of our garden each day, documenting what changes have unfolded since our last visit.

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Fiddlehead of Brilliance autumn fern

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I had a few minutes to wander this morning, camera in hand, as I waited for a friend’s arrival.  And although I couldn’t pass the Iris without capturing another shot or two, I also spent time with several of our ferns.

Jen kindly crafted a challenge this week especially for us craven gardeners, who must photograph our flowers in minute detail.  But because that was the model she set, I decided to leave flowers to others this time, (well, almost….) and instead focus on the elegant and fascinating details found only in the leaves of ferns.

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The Japanese Painted ferns, Athyrium niponicum, have just emerged from their winter dormancy.  Their fragile fronds disappear after a heavy frost each autumn, to reappear quite suddenly and surprisingly some warm spring day.

They are one of the most beautiful surprises our garden offers us each spring.  I realized today, in sharing our garden with friends, that we have something of a collection now of Athyrium niponicum cultivars.

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Athyrium ‘Branford Beauty’

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Not that I intended to make a collection of them, I simply like them and wanted to watch some of the different varieties grow out.  I have ordered a few, like A. ‘Joy Ride’, A. ‘Branford Beauty,’ and A. ‘Burgundy Lace’ from Plant Delights Nursery near Raleigh, NC, in years past.  They carry a staggering and surprisingly wonderful variety of ferns and other unusual perennials which do well in our Zone 7 climate.

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I am still lusting after A. ‘Lemon Cream,’ A. ‘Godzilla’ and A. ‘Thrill Seeker.’  And that lust will go unrequited for the foreseeable future, it seems, as their shipping charges just keep climbing each year.  Now that the minimum shipping charge is nearly $30, I am seeking out these wonderful cultivars locally, and asking our nearby nurseries to consider stocking these beautiful new varieties.

I was absolutely thrilled to find a beautiful pot of A. ‘Ghost’ at Green Planters, Inc., in Gloucester earlier this week.  I will be returning, as they carry a satisfying selection of native ferns in addition to their various Japanese Painted ferns and other cultivars.

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The best ferns in our garden, year round, are our Autumn Brilliance, Dryopteris erythrosora ‘Brilliance’.  Their tough, but graceful fronds weather sun, rain, drought wind and winter.  Who could ask for more?

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These sturdy clumps expand a bit each year, and each new year’s fronds seem a few inches taller than the last.  We’re not talking tree ferns, of course, but the older ferns make a substantial presence.  What I admire in these ferns is their wonderful bronze color as  new fronds emerge each spring.

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As each frond unfolds, the hairy brown fiddleheads relax into soft, shiny fresh rose-gold leaves.  It is quite a show and goes on for several weeks.  By mid-summer, each leaf will have relaxed further into a soft medium green.  It’s not until winter that the same fiddlehead brown begins to frost the edges of the mature fronds once again.

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It is the surprising beauty of leaves which carries our garden through the seasons.  Flowers come and go all too quickly.  They may delight with a bold color or enticing scent.  But flowers prove ephemeral by nature.

They are only there long enough to lure a bee, butterfly or hummingbird to pollinate them. so they can get down to their real business of seed production.  Even the hybrids seem confused on this point, and fade far too quickly despite their sterility.  Like kids gone off to college, what is left behind is none too pleasant to look at, oftentimes….

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But leaves prove their worth and loyalty; offering sum and substance, color, drama and incredible detail.

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Woodland Gnome 2017

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For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Surprise!

 

Grace

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Graceful

Effortless harmony

Fluid movement

Elegance in motion.

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Graceful beauty

Attracts our notice…..

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Holds our attention;

Mesmerizes.

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A spontaneous meditation

On the beauty of this world,

Nature’s portal to peace:

Grace

May be found within

and without….

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Gracefully, gratefully,

We join the dance eternal.

We feel nature’s rhythms of wind and wing,

wobble and wave.

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Gracefully, we flow in at-oneness

with our world,

Breathing, becoming, bestowing,

Grace.

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Woodland Gnome 2017

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“Grace is what picks me up

and lifts my wings high above and I fly!

Grace always conquers!

Be graceful in everything;

in anger, in sadness,

in joy, in kindness, in unkindness,

retain grace with you!”

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C. JoyBell

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For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Graceful

Altered Perspective…. ?

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The world looks a bit odd in December, don’t you think?  The newly bare landscape can sometimes surprise and delight us.

Here are just a few clics I captured earlier this week.

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Can you figure out what you’re seeing?

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“Heresy is the eternal dawn, the morning star,

the glittering herald of the day.

Heresy is the last and best thought.

It is the perpetual New World, the unknown sea,

toward which the brave all sail.

It is the eternal horizon of progress.

Heresy extends the hospitalities of the brain to a new thought.

Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy, a coffin.”

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Robert G. Ingersoll

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“Watching the infinite horizons gives you infinite dreams,

infinite ideas, infinite paths!

Choose a great target

and then you will see that great instruments will appear

for you to reach that target!”

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Mehmet Murat ildan

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“In the most surreal, the most joyful,

the most beautiful, the most intense,

the most alive moments of life,

you are absorbed into the horizon

which is at its most invisible,

elusive, perfect blend of sky and sea.”

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Connie Kerbs

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For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  New Horizon

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2016

Wednesday Vignettes: Transformation

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“Sorrow prepares you for joy.

It violently sweeps everything out of your house,

so that new joy can find space to enter.

It shakes the yellow leaves

from the bough of your heart,

so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place.

It pulls up the rotten roots,

so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow.

Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart,

far better things will take their place.”

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Jalaluddin Rumi

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2016

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“When you become the image of your own imagination,

it’s the most powerful thing you could ever do.”
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RuPaul

WPC: Mirror

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“It is when you lose sight of yourself, that you lose your way.

To keep your truth in sight

you must keep yourself in sight

and the world to you should be a mirror to reflect to you your image;

the world should be a mirror that you reflect upon.”
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C. JoyBell C.

 

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For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Mirror

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2016