...a wild marriage of seasons...

So, what does a person do when she is all prepared to photograph spring flowers, and ....... winter makes a surprise comeback?  She creates a merger!  A merger of pics of flowers with pics of the trees laden with snow.  The results are rather intriguing.  What do you think?

Here purple petals of a Spring blossom are juxtaposed with snow-covered trees.

And here is a clematis sitting in branches of snow, like a Hawaiian flower in wild hair.

How about a bright orange nasturtium paired with wintry limbs?

And last, but not least, a scalloped-edged leaf juxtaposed with snow and ice - boggles the senses, don't you think?

...carrying old pain?...

"Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of pain that was entrusted to you.  Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, each one of us is part of her heart, and therefore endowed with a certain measure of cosmic pain.  You are sharing in the totality of that pain.  You are called upon to meet it in joy instead of self-pity."
 
~Pir Vilayat Khan, Sufi teacher.

Asked by one of my dear readers to speak about the grieving process, I am preparing a little primer on the subject.  In preparation for that post I thought I would offer you some of the gentle wisdom of Wayne Muller, from his book, "Legacy of the Heart - The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood". 

First, let me say that painful childhoods do not have to be ones of abuse.  In fact, neglect is now being categorized as a form of abuse by the field of psychiatry.  Perhaps, you were bullied or ostracized during your school years.  Perhaps you lost a loving parent at a young age.  Perhaps you had a kind parent who suffered from depression.  There are so many ways in which we may have experienced a 'painful childhood'.

It is common for people to minimize their particular circumstance and the emotional pain that accompanied it.  However, left unattended it makes itself known to you by means of any manner of symptoms.  It is your job as an adult to decipher the meaning hidden in your particular symptoms, address your past, heal the wound and move on into the one and only life you have.  Here is a bit of the wisdom of Wayne Muller:

"As we make the journey out of childhood, we are invited to grieve what we have lost.  However, many of us who explore our childhoods are not ready to let go of the old stories.  For some, the anger we feel toward our parents has become a source of personal power; we were treated badly, and now we deserve to be heard ... we have a deep remembrance of the way it should have been for us, and we want to convince our parents to apologize, to love us, and to make right what was done so horribly wrong.  We are still trying to work out the same old story, trying to make it turn out right, trying to wrestle a happy ending from the protagonists in our unsatisfactory childhood ...

"How can we allow that loss to simply be true, to feel the truth of our emotional orphanage and know that it has never changed, and probably never will?

"We begin by acknowledging that the old story is over.  How long will we keep looking for someone who can make it all turn out differently?  Our challenge is simply to let what was true be true:  We were hurt.  We never had the parents we hoped for ... When we feel the deep sadness of that loss, the pain and the loneliness, we simply grieve the loss of our childhood, the childhood that never was and never shall be.  That story is over ... if we finally allow ourselves to feel the depth of that sadness and gently let it break our hearts, we may come to feel a great freedom, a genuine sense of release and peace, because we have finally stopped running from ourselves and from the pain that lives within us."

~Wayne Muller, Legacy of the Heart

...a casualty of the storm...

Mid-morning we became aware that a huge, old tree had 'fallen' victim to yesterday's snowstorm.  You can only see a branch of it (from last summer) in the picture below in the upper left corner.  That branch and its copious other smaller branches hung over the creek and the foot bridge.  The picture below is the before....

The next picture below is the after....One portion of the trunk of this tree fell from the weight of the wet snow and has damaged the foot bridge (there are cracks in the stones and one side of it is wobbly), and struck the big stone wall on the other side of the creek, bringing a portion of it down.




Men have already begun to saw up the trunk to dry for firewood. Now the little bridge and the stone wall will have to be repaired. Good thing our neighbour is an amazing stone mason, built the wall originally, and offered to help us repair it!
I promise to find something else to post about soon!

before and after

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, oops Winter ... wait a minute, isn't April in North America supposed to be Spring?

  Thought I would show you some of the before and after shots of this snowstorm.  The 'befores' are Monday.  There are a couple of photos of 'during', and the 'after' photos were taken early this morning, Wednesday.

Late yesterday afternoon                                                Early this morning

Peonies growing happily in the sun on Monday.

Peonies at far end of flower bed still standing as snow begins on Tuesday.

                                                                                

                                                                        

Peonies crushed and under snow this morning, Wednesday.

Blackberry bushes growing happily on Monday.

Blackberry bushes crushed by snowfall on Wednesday

The snow is heavy and sticky - great for making a snowman.  But there is just something WRONG about making a snowman in Spring.  I've already put my winter play clothes away!  What is happening to our formerly predictable weather patterns?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A big thank you goes out to Hilary of The Smitten Image (click here to visit her lovely blog) for including my post "...messages from within..." in her list of posts of the week!  Hilary's lists feature interesting bloggers, some of whom might be new to you.  Really worth checking out!

...pity the pretty, pink blossoms...

Snow has been falling all day.  I had hoped there would be no accumulation because of the warmth built up in the soil from so many sunny, warm April days this year ... ha!! 

The snow is wet and weighing heavily on fagile petals of these magnolias and another pink-bloomed bush.  Temps are below freezing, of course, and you have to wonder how these blooms will survive.  So far they are still looking beautiful, and even rather perky, under the blanket of snow. 

Branches are coated with a layer of ice making one wonder if the boughs will break as the wind blows.

Another opportunity to observe our powerlessness in the face of nature's capricious whims.  Hope you are all safe, dry and warm and can look out at the beauty of this snow storm, rather than feel its sting.

(All of these photographs were taken while in the comfort of my home - through the window!)

...look what happened while we slept...

Yesterday, Monday April 26th, 2010 my daughter and her two darling girls came over for supper.  Homework was done outside on the deck in a warm summer-like temperature.  The umbrella was raised to shelter eyes and heads from the sun.

It felt like summer and bare arms were the order of the day.

Tuesday April 27, 2010 we awoke to find snow on the same deck that only yesterday was bathed in warm sunlight.  Talk about be prepared for change!  What happened?

From my office window the snow can be seen sticking to the branches of the trees.  Do you see the little green shoots of leaves trying to brace themselves against wind, cold and snow?

And here is one of the flower beds where I took photos last week to show the spring growth of many of my perennials.

A well-known and much beloved Quebec song-writer/poet, Gilles Vigneault wrote: "Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver" - translation:  'My country is not a country, it's winter'.  He must have seen many April snow falls during his life here in the great white north.  Comes with the territory.

Mon pays

by Gilles Vigneault
"Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
Mon jardin ce n'est pas un jardin, c'est la plaine
Mon chemin ce n'est pas un chemin, c'est la neige
Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver . . ."


P.S. - Two hours later:   HELP!   The snow refuses to stop.  I didn't think it would accumulate like this, but it is ...  Yesterday my husband had been debating whether he could squeeze in a golf game today ... and I had planned on going shopping for a pair of sandals!  It now looks like a good day to hunker down inside, make a pot of soup, light a fire, curl up on the couch with a good book, and whine about the weather on my blog!

P.P.S. - 10 hours later:  Still snowing and still accumulating:

...for the poets among us...

This post is a little thank you to all the poets among us here in this little corner of the blogosphere (happily there are many of you).  I so appreciate the silken words you offer up ... thoughts that soothe, nudge, provoke, confound, trouble, inspire ... and above all, make me rejoice. 

Poetry was all written before time was,

and whenever we are so finely organized

that we can penetrate into that region

where the air is music,

we hear those primal warblings,

and write them down.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The need of the times works inside the artist

without his wanting it, seeing it or understanding its true significance. 

In this sense he is close to the seer, the prophet, and the mystic. 

It is precisely when he does not represent the existing canon

but transforms it

that his function rises to the level of the sacral,

for he then gives utterance to the authentic and direct revelation of the numinous. 

~Erich Neumann

A book (a poem?) must be an axe for the frozen sea inside us.

~Franz Kafka

I am the eye with which the Universe

Beholds itself and knows itself divine.

~Percy Bysshe Shelley

The function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled

but to make settled things strange.

~G.K. Chesterton

A poet needs to keep his wilderness alive inside him.
~Stanley Kunitz


In the mouth of the dragon there are many jewels.
~Buddhist proverb


Let us risk the wildest places
Lest we go down in comfort, and despair.
~Mary Oliver

messages from within

Several years ago I made an interesting discovery.  My psyche not only reveals concerns, answers to questions, solutions to problems, indications of growth needed, by means of dreams - but also by means of songs or poetry that come, unbidden, into my mind. 

So I have learned to pay attention when I find myself humming a particular tune.  I add in the lyrics and see if there is a phrase or two that resonates with my life or concerns of the moment.  A few times the message was startling and helpful.

For example, several years ago I had been feeling somewhat depressed.  I assessed my immediate situation and determined I probably needed to make some changes - as it was surely my current life that was making me blue .... or so I thought.  I had noticed I had been aware of silently hearing a particular old tune in my mind.  I could not immediately pin it down or call up the lyrics. 

One day in a flash, the lyrics came to me and it was a very old song.  How perplexing that such a tune would occupy my mind.  Then it occurred to me that it was a tune from an old movie that my father had taken me to as a young child - "Moonlight Bay".  One of the lines was "... you have stolen my heart, now don't go 'way ...". 

And then the penny dropped.  My father did "go 'way" permanently when I was young.  Humming this song now during this period of mild depression was about a longing for my father - NOT about my current life situation.  I did not have to reconstruct my life, I had to do another level of grief work around the loss of a parent. The melody was from a movie I attended with my father and it pleaded 'don't go away'.  Thank you psyche!!  What an important message.  The little girl in me still had more grieving to do.  I cued into its prompt, did the psychological work required, and the blues evaporated.

After a few such messages from my psyche I now pay close attention to songs I hum.  Of course, if you just heard a song played and start humming it, it is probably not particularly significant.  But if a tune arises seemingly of its own accord - stop and take note.  What are the lyrics?  Is there a message there that your mind is using to get your attention - to console you - to elucidate you - to remind you - to warn you?

I occasionally find myself humming the old Eagles hit "Desperado".  There are so many good 'messages' in that song, and different ones have hit home to me at different times.   Last week, I found myself humming it and it was the line about 'coming down from the fences and opening the gate' that was so applicable to a current psychological impasse.  Here are the lyrics - perhaps they will resonate with you too. 

(The photograph below is of a stone gate on our property.  I have overlayed it with other photographs - one is blue beads - which gives it a rather ethereal look.)

"Desperado"

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?

You been out ridin' fences for so long now

Oh, you're a hard one

I know that you got your reasons

These things that are pleasin' you

Can hurt you somehow.

Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy

She'll beat you if she's able

You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet.

Now it seems to me, some fine things

Have been laid upon your table

But you only want the ones that you can't get.

Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger

Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home

And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'

Your prison is walking through this world all alone.

Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?

The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine

It's hard to tell the night time from the day

You're losin' all your highs and lows

Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?

Come down from your fences, open the gate

It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you

You better let somebody love you, before it's too late.

~Don Henley; Glenn Frey

The Eagles 

let the world tickle your heart

Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness.
It comes from letting the world tickle your heart,
your raw and beautiful heart.
You are willing to open up,
without resistance or shyness
and face the world.
You are willing to share your heart with others.

~Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

~~~~~~~

The teachings mean what they say:
that mind, experience, and phenomena are one;
that pleasure and pain,
existence and non-existence,
life and death
are inseparable;
that there are no limits to intelligence;
and that any negative circumstance whatever
can be transformed into wisdom
and used as a means of further realization...
We are saying to all the demons of chaos:
"Come and visit me,
if you like.
Since there is no one for you to harm,
there is no reason for me to fear.
Your presence just inspires me to wake up."
In Buddhist tradition
this is called the lion's roar,
the fearless proclamation
that egoless intelligence
is unborn and undying
and cannot be defeated or destroyed.

~Stephen T. Butterfield

... look what a reconfiguration can do ...

 

This is a photograph of glass beads that sit in a bowl in my office.  I love this photograph as is, but look what a little photo editing can do:

  

This is the same photograph, but it has been 'embossed' and 'kaleidoscoped'.  It is so easy to do it feels like a 'cheat' - but you do have to find the right photograph to work with.  I tried it with other images and did not produce as sweet a result as this.  Well ... I am delighted by it ...

Editing photographs makes me think of how we deal with our problems and concerns:

 

Are we creative?

Do we try to see other perspectives? 

Do we approach the concern from different angles? 

Do we shake things up?

Do we reconfigure the way we have mentally constructed the issue?

Or do we always approach our problems at the same level at which they occur? 

Why not shift an issue around the same way a kaleidoscope reconfigures all the little pieces of glass? 

Perhaps a new angle or perspective will allow a beautiful opportunity,

hidden in the perceived problem or concern, to emerge.

 It's all about perspective ...

How can you look at a problem today with fresh eyes

and find order, symmetry and beauty where you thought there was none?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

a walk through a northern garden

Time for an inspection of the garden with camera in hand.  Please join me.  Let's see how the garden grows!

A peek at a deck (we call it a 'belvedere') that hangs overlooking the creek.

Looking in the other direction, you can see that much of our land slopes down to the creek.

Look at these beautiful round buds on an old apple tree - still producing!

Here I am standing on one little foot bridge looking down at another.  The grass is still in need of more sunshine to grow thick and green after a long winter.

Pure spring water gushes down from the mountain on its way eventually to the sea (creek to Richelieu River to The St. Lawrence River to the Atlantic Ocean).

Long blackberry bush tendrils ready to scratch if you get too close!

Peonies reaching for the sun.

Delphiniums

Day Lilies

Heuchera

Brunnera ready to offer up its tiny periwinkle blue flowers.

New green grass (just seeded last year) - especially for bare toes climbing down from a hammock.

My boyfriend serenades us as we walk.

Tiny fern fronds about one half inch in height right now.

I am lying on the ground to get this shot of fragile tendrils emerging from moss on a stepping stone - some red, some green.  They are probably between 1/4 and 1/2 an inch high. 

I cannot bear to clear the moss and tendrils off of the stepping stone.

Sedum and moss in a rock garden.

Can you see the tiny green tendrils coming out of the moss?

He does like to pretend he is not following me.  What a beauty - and he knows it!

Little pink buds all over this bush (Euonymous) that are not being picked up by the camera.

And to finish our little tour, a lonely 'columbine' viola to bid you adieu.


(P.S.  Thank you to Amy for helping me with the spelling of Euonymous!)