After the flood...Inner Journeying, Outer Explorations, Day 3

I walked up the Desire Path (as Robert Macfarlane calls these casual foot-maintained paths created by humans and other animals in his book, The Old Ways; A Journey on Foot) to visit the Smallwood after the storm.  All looks well, if sodden.  The wet-weather rivulet sparkles and rushes down our abandoned alley, cutting a new channel as it reaches the open area in imitation of a larger river in flood.

...happily this time it stayed peacably on the east side rather than diverting to our basement; the first year I lived here the sound of rushing water was a new Niagara.  

I love the way the newborn river catches silver light in its tiny turbulence, winking bright between the overhanging leaves.  Belle helps me to inspect the rate of flow...

When I was little, I used to float leaf boats down occasional creeks like this...and a quick check with my Inner Journey guide answered "so what's stopping you, silly?"  Of course I had to try it again. 

I'd forgotten the leaf must be DRY, otherwise it immediately sinks; I'd lost the wisdom of childhood.  Finding a dry leaf in all that rain was a challenge...but we did it, Belle and I...

And then of course had to sketch it in a corner of my journal...

The new garage-sale frog was FULL of water from the downpour...I guess it really WAS a "frog-strangler" as the old farmers around here used to say!

Walking barefoot in the wet is one of life's simple pleasures...

The volunteer mulberry just beyond the bird feeders glistened with rain from crown to root...it looked as though it had been painted with transparent liquid silver.

It reminded me of a lyrical passage from Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles: "...we are loved, like all living things that Gaia sustains.  There is poetry in the canopies of forests and in the gentle roll of hills, a song in the wind and a benediction in the kiss of the sun.  There are stories in the chuckle of waters in creeks, and epics told in the tides of oceans.  There are trees...that seem sometimes like they have grown all their lives just to feel the touch of my hand upon their trunks, they are so welcoming to me...." 

And so this mulberry has always been.  I greet it daily, give it my thanks, eat of its fruit and feed it with leaves from my herbal teas...

...each moment of gratitude is a moment of Grace.   

Once more from Kevin Hearne..."you'll feel it in your toes as you walk upon the earth."  And again...
"Walk as though you are kissing the Earth with your feet," said Thich Nhat Hanh.  And so I did, mindfully, full of gratitude and paying attention to each step, ...and if I did not, my knee reminded me! 

Its roots were exposed by the hard rain...who knew they were so multicolored!

Wild grapes I didn't know lived in the Smallwood...

a last flower on the garlic mustard...

The shed tucked away safely in the lush green world...

And back inside before the next rain, my need for fire found expression with a beeswax candle magnified with a quartz crystal...

Moments of Grace indeed.

Wandering Between the Rains...Day 2

An unexpected rain storm necessitated a change of plans...which is really what this is all about, come to think of it.  Response, not plans.  And so I took a fresh juicy peach out onto the covered back porch with my coffee, my journal, and a tiny candle and enjoyed just being.

I've always loved fire and been drawn to it...this morning's rain necessitated a much smaller one!  But the scent of woodsmoke speaks to my soul, and so I found a dry twig to be my primal incense...

The hole-stone I found yesterday became a pendant to remind me of serendipity and exploration...

The wet logs, years old, are home to many things including this slug.  He moved amazingly quickly!  I'd almost lost him by the time I found my camera...

Someone's home is spangled with crystals...Grandmother Spider hides inside, wisely keeping dry.

The oldest logs wear striated Elizabethan ruffles...they feel velvety to the touch.

Boris has been doing yeoman service, directing the torrents away from our foundation...he never fails to make me smile as I brush the leaves and cobwebs from his ears. 

I am not sure why a pool in a stone always makes me think of the Eye of God...

The striped hostas make flowers that droop...they're spangled with rain as well.  Between showers I wandered through our urban wilderness to see what I could see.

It's such a pleasure to have small bits of nature nearby.  One of my first natural history books, long out of print, was called The Local Wilderness, and I love finding it still.  In truth, more now than ever.

Trumpetvine flowers remind me of my grandmother's back garden...I used to wear them on my fingers when I was a child.  Quite festive, really...Dragon Fingers!

Bright leaf shines like a beacon against the sodden soil...

It was a most satisfying day, ending with dinner out with my husband, and, right before bed, a downpour that filled rivers and streams and overran low-lying roads.  I'm very glad we got to the cabin yesterday, because when the long muddy drive is soaked it's hard getting back out!

All is well, all is well.

Small Pleasures...

...it's been a rough couple of months for me and for my family.  An unexpected and too-early death knocked the pins out from under all of us; we are cocooned in our individual lives, feelings, perceptions, stumbling about and knocking into walls that are sometimes one another. I am not feeling at all able to work on my book, it requires too much organization, for now.

A great deal has happened since my Solstice post, but for now I will just say thank God for small pleasures and the simple, everyday things.  A cup of favorite tea, a purring cat, my husband's touch, the beauty of the wild birds outside my window--the sacredness of the everyday.

...a favorite pen with a fine and flexible nib...

...the beauty of flowers...

...a bird seldom seen...I was journaling about him, above...

...and always, journaling, learning, growing, creating.

The class I'm taking is called Everyday Sacred, and it is helping...I have a focus that is letting me see more clearly and let go.