Moon Talk and Spring Talk

Okay, I'm a moon person...and it's no wonder...I was born in the sign of Moonchild on the full moon, slap in the middle of hurricane season.  Yes, these lunar facts have shaped my personality. I'm not a superstitious person...not very superstitious, that is.  I plant by the moon phases, but that's nature.

  This is a little piñata I bought from an Etsy shop.  I had to have this creative little moon...

I don't/can't sleep much when the moon is full.  I watch the moonbeams and moonlight as it softly glows through my gauzy curtains onto the floor.  I inevitably get up and stand at the window and search the bright night sky until I spot the Moonlady, and only then do I feel comforted and lie back down to doze.

Ah, my Angel Trumpets feed my soul...sweetly scented night bloomers...

As Summer nears and Spring winds down, I marvel at creation and nature:  the Moon, seeds, flowers, the weather, and the joyous, perfect synchronicity of it all.  When the frogs start croaking and singing in the middle of a cloudless, warm afternoon, I know it'll be raining soon.  Frogs don't lie.  It's clouding up right now and I heard the toads/frogs talking to me just this morning.

I've been outside a lot this week watering my container garden, planting kale and lettuce, meeting turtles, listening to frogs and communing with the dragonflies.  I will always be in awe of these creatures of water, earth and air.  Dragonflies are born and then live a year under water before climbing out to earth to spread their wings and fly.  It's magical.

It took 15 shots to get this picture today. He patiently waited....

                         My Siberian and Red Russiak Kale was up in 2 days!!!

                 Same with my Queen Lime Red Zinnias.  I'll be transplanting these...

Found an old garden journal from 1997.  Every herb I planted is still thriving 19 YEARS later!

Red Dinner Plate Hibiscus, so easy to grow & returns every year!

New Hibiscus, grown from last year's seeds. 🌱💚

My first Early Girl tomato lives up to her name...

Moonflowers are climbing up, up, up toward the sun...

I made a seed trade with a lady I met on Instagram.  Planted two days ago & it's already sprouting!

..and, of course, some beautiful words to inspire from poet C. D. Wright's "Deepstep Comes Shining".

Indigo Blu (Blythe) arrived from Hong Kong with that amazing blue hair!

                My new favorite coloring book...

                        Colored with gel pens...

Dragonfly love---colored with gel pens & Prismacolor pencils.

xo,

~Marion~

Do something you love that brings you joy!  Gardening feeds the body and the soul! 🌱💚🌱💚

Who Am I?

                I am a lifelong bookaholic...

Daughter, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, wife, cousin, niece, sister-in-law, friend, Christian, Zen, seeker...

writer, poet, reader, diarist, giver, lover, book reviewer, book collector, collage artist, jewelry maker, doll maker, crafter, crocheter, nature photographer, gardener, Moonchild, doll collector, artist, cook, baker, herbalist, seamstress, quilter, bird watcher, Hummingbird caretaker, music lover, tarot reader, I Ching student, rune reader, dream interpreter, tree planter, cat-rescuer, homemaker, notary public, bookkeeper, legal secretary, blogger...and more, so much, much more... I've spent all my life learning and growing.  I've taught myself 90% of the things I know:  the arts, crafts, gardening, photography, etc. through reading books and trial and error.  A new friend recently said to me about gardening:  you must be a Ninja to garden because you'll kill more plants than you grow.  I knew this from my own accidental Ninja kills, but I loved the way she worded it.  Many people give up after the first few plants don't sprout or bloom or are eaten by bugs.  Never give up!  Gardening is a metaphor for all of life...

Being a Mother has been the most rewarding, challenging, exciting, frustrating, creative thing I've ever done.  I have no regrets about the sacrifices I made to raise my children.  Mothers must put their children first...they didn't ask to come here, we brought them...we chose to give them life... They are our own beating hearts... Being a grandmother is the second most rewarding thing on earth.  Grandchildren are our future...they are life begatting life...and the epitome of joy.

Life is not about merely standing still (although there is a time to stand still), but about growing, experiencing, discovering, laughing at yourself, forgiving yourself, loving with all your heart and soul and being broken...then picking up the pieces and carrying on.  An old proverb says, "Fall seven times; stand up eight."  It's my motto along with, "This, too, shall pass."  

Wishing all you mothers out there a very Happy Mother's Day!!  xo, Marion

              My baby Moonflowers...just starting to vine

Gerbera Daisies, revived with organic sea kelp, a super fertilizer.

My Canna in the late afternoon sun.  Magical!!!!!!!

Night to Dawn by Marion

       Molly in my Gerbera Daisy, the color of her hair.

                                The Monster High girls hanging out.  ;-)

                              Blythe Doll sisters

   A visitor to our yard yesterday.  I think he's pretty old.  We put him back in the woods.

           My old insomnia personification poem...

Courage by Anne Sexton and Flower Miracles

Poem: "Courage," by Anne Sexton, from The Awful Rowing Toward God

Courage

It is in the small things we see it.
The child’s first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off our heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you’ll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you’ll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you’ll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.

------------------

      This exact flower was yellow yesterday...a miracle in the rain.

Angel Trumpets (Brugmansia) yesterday. They need fertile soil to bloom. I use sea kelp.

  Godlight, shining within the flower...NO SMALL THING!

Earth Day, Every Day!

After ten days of clouds and rain, the sun came out today and the flowers bloomed with joy.  It's a certain kind of Eden, for sure... xo

A CERTAIN KIND OF EDEN

By Kay Ryan

It seems like you could, but

you can’t go back and pull

the roots and runners and replant.

It’s all too deep for that.

You’ve overprized intention,

have mistaken any bent you’re given

for control. You thought you chose

the bean and chose the soil.

You even thought you abandoned

one or two gardens. But those things

keep growing where we put them—

if we put them at all.

A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall.

Even the one vine that tendrils out alone

in time turns on its own impulse,

twisting back down its upward course

a strong and then a stronger rope,

the greenest saddest strongest

kind of hope.

Kay Ryan, "A Certain Kind of Eden" from Flamingo Watching.

      Angel Trumpet bloomed today...Earth Day 2016!

          Passionflowers...Indigo blooming...

       Wild Blackberries preparing to be jam...

       A wasp friend eating a bad bug & pollinating...

                         Hello, blue sky!!!

I Grew Her Under My Heart...

      My gorgeous baby girl and her sweet husband going to a party.

THE SPIRIT IS TOO BLUNT AN INSTRUMENT

By Anne Stevenson

The spirit is too blunt an instrument 

to have made this baby. 

Nothing so unskilful as human passions 

could have managed the intricate 

exacting particulars: the tiny 

blind bones with their manipulating tendons, 

the knee and the knucklebones, the resilient 

fine meshings of ganglia and vertebrae, 

the chain of the difficult spine. 

Observe the distinct eyelashes and sharp crescent 

fingernails, the shell-like complexity 

of the ear, with its firm involutions 

concentric in miniature to minute 

ossicles. Imagine the 

infinitesimal capillaries, the flawless connections 

of the lungs, the invisible neural filaments 

through which the completed body 

already answers to the brain. 

Then name any passion or sentiment 

possessed of the simplest accuracy. 

No, no desire or affection could have done 

with practice what habit 

has done perfectly, indifferently, 

through the body's ignorant precision. 

It is left to the vagaries of the mind to invent 

love and despair and anxiety 

and their pain.

Anne Stevenson, "The Spirit is Too Blunt an Instrument" from Poems 1955-2005. 

Rock Me, Mercy by Yusef Komunyakaa

Rock Me, Mercy

BY YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA

The river stones are listening

because we have something to say.

The trees lean closer today.

The singing in the electrical woods

has gone dumb. It looks like rain

because it is too warm to snow.

Guardian angels, wherever you're hiding,

we know you can't be everywhere at once.

Have you corralled all the pretty wild

horses? The memory of ants asleep

in daylilies, roses, holly, & larkspur.

The magpies gaze at us, still

waiting. River stones are listening.

But all we can say now is,

Mercy, please, rock me.

Yusef Komunyakaa, "Rock Me, Mercy" from The Emperor of Water

    

    My favorite tea cup that I found at Etsy.  So pretty!

    After two rainy days, my Roses are wildly blooming!

       Nothing on earth is as beautiful as a red Rose...

                 This is a Knockout Rose...nowhere near as pretty as a regular Rose.

                                        Brilliant yellow Squash blossom...

         Sunflower painting by my husband.

             Five Moonflowers, ready for planting.

How to Kill a Living Thing by Eibhlín Nic Eochaidh

                        Moonflower seeds sprouting in a sunny window---

How to Kill a Living Thing

Neglect it
Criticize it to its face
Say how it kills the light
Traps all the rubbish
Bores you with its green

Continually
Harden your heart
Then
Cut it down close
To the root as possible

Forget it
For a week or a month
Return with an axe
Split it with one blow
Insert a stone

To keep the wound wide open.

—Eibhlín Nic Eochaidh

Spring by Edna St. Vincent Millay

SPRING

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

To what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

The spikes of the crocus.

The smell of the earth is good.

It is apparent that there is no death.

But what does that signify?

Not only under ground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots.

Life in itself

Is nothing,

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Flowers Paint the Sky...

                                                God, the greatest Artist & Poet...

                                                     A Rose is a Rose is a Rose.