Moon and manzanita.

my garden, nature, trees, , , ,

My manzanita tree started blooming in January; this always surprises me. It remains sweetly dotted with clusters of pink flowers. Underneath, the sundrops have begun to open, too.

[Update: That’s all I wrote about the manzanita. The tree below is an Atlas Cedar, Cedrus atlantica, native to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco.]

When I took a walk the other morning I passed by this tree (above), and looked more closely than usual. The droopy form doesn’t normally appeal to me, but this time I noticed the scrunchy way the short needles congregated on the branches, and liked that part very much.

Granny Marigold mentioned that tonight was the Snow (Full) Moon. When I saw that on her blog, the sun was still out, so I noted the time of moonrise and set an alarm to remind myself to go look. It was supposed to be “partly cloudy” tonight so maybe I’d see a moon, maybe not…

When I shut the front door behind me, there she was, just rising over my neighbors’ rooftops. I was wearing two wool sweaters, so I stood leaning against my house for a while, because it seemed a shame to say only a brief Hello and go back to closed-in walls. I walked around the front garden a bit. The street light shone down and made sparklelights of the raindrops that remained on the teucrium from today’s earlier downpours.

It occurs to me now that I should have taken a chair out there, so I could have sat a while with the Snow Moon. Though I was all alone, it made me feel close to all my fellow humans who were looking at the moon tonight, or who through the ages have admired her journey up the heavens. The next full moon will be March 7th –I will try to love that one better.

From the Internet

If space is what I want… (update)

beauty, creativity, home, quotes, , ,

It is worthwhile to remember that space
is the most precious and also the most pleasing thing
in a house or room; and that even a small room
becomes spacious if it is not crowded
with useless objects.

-Charlotte Mason

I’ve noticed many quotes in my collections that might pertain to my Project of the Year, which is to accomplish a thorough thinning out and re-ordering of my belongings so as to beautify the indoor landscape, and thereby make it a more peaceful place for me and for my guests. This principle that Charlotte Mason sets down so perfectly may be the Number One, most foundational truth of the vision I have. Maybe space is to the visual sense what quiet is to the auditory. Certainly, if space is what I want, I have to create it, and constantly recreate it. Is this real creativity? I believe it is.

by Carl Larsson

We all know that a busy household such as Carl Larsson was living in, and of which he painted so many elegant scenes, would typically be filled with busy people cooking and sewing, with the children’s toys and the costumes that the woman of the home made for them, and of course, the books, and artwork in process. All of that is contained within my vision, and I understand in my bones how the creative impulse is hindered by clutter physical and mental. I need to begin again and again to carve out more of that most pleasing spaciousness, beautiful in itself, and often unfolding into more and diverse created things. I’m greatly thankful to the Larssons for their coordinated work of Life and Art, which continues to inspire us year after year with its Beauty.

Update to original post: It’s funny how this post about space had accidentally been published, while I slept, with extra space at the end where there was supposed to be more text! I fixed it now….

Saving the mystery women.

history, women,

Last year I spent quite a few hours sorting through photos of several generations of ancestors, my late husband’s family and mine, plus those of our own immediate family, children and grandchildren. I barely made a dent in the collections!

My husband’s family seems to have taken more photographs of their relations, and saved many more than people on my side have done. And while my siblings keep and store some of our relatives’ pictures, I am the sole curator of those that were passed to us from my in-laws and their in-laws, and so forth.

It wasn’t too hard to find at least a thousand pictures that could be put in the trash. It pains me to say that, because an image of a human made in the image of God feels like it retains something of the holiness of that connection, and it doesn’t seem right to be disrespectful of it. That shows that I come from a generation before digital images. I discard those with abandon.

Many that I tossed, however, were of such poor quality that I couldn’t see the faces, and quite a few were superfluous, because of there being much better or identical pictures of those people in existence. I have many more to purge, hopefully this year, but I have sifted through the oldest ones.

Among the boxes of pictures coming from my husband’s family, the third category that I needed to discard was this: Women who were unidentified, and did not match any pictures of known relations. Yes, there were also some mystery men, but they did not impress me in any way. Most didn’t look composed, or handsome. I felt differently about the women, I suppose because I am a woman.

Were they distant cousins? College friends? Maiden aunts? No one in my family knew them, no one cares about them. They all sleep in death. But — I did care about them. A hundred years ago they meant something to someone in our family, and since it is so easy to save digital images, I laid their paper pictures out on the carpet and took group photos.

I hope that each of them is known by name by someone somewhere, friends or descendants who have copies of these photos that that they won’t throw in the trash for a while yet. My curiosity about them is curious, these who represent thousands and billions who no longer walk the earth, most of whom never had their picture taken. But even if they are all forgotten by us living humans, God does know about them. And I, briefly, knew them ever so slightly….

They come with us to Candlemas.

feasts, poetry, ,

CANDLEMAS

They came, as called, according to the Law.
Though they were poor and had to keep things simple,
They moved in grace, in quietness, in awe,
For God was coming with them to His temple.
Amidst the outer court’s commercial bustle
They’d waited hours, enduring shouts and shoves,
Buyers and sellers, sensing one more hustle,
Had made a killing on the two young doves.
They come at last with us to Candlemas
And keep the day the prophecies came true
We glimpse with them, amidst our busyness,
The peace that Simeon and Anna knew.
For Candlemas still keeps His kindled light,
Against the dark our Saviour’s face is bright.

-Malcolm Guite

Would you like to hear the poet read his sonnet? Click here: “A Sonnet for Candlemas.”