Nature’s art and nature’s artists.

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Just before the weekend linked May to June, I drove north to see two of my children’s families and to be with Annie on the day of her graduation from high school. Her brother is graduating from college this month, too, so the afternoon barbecue was in his honor as well.

In the northern parts of the state winter was having its last fling all the way until Sunday; only a week before, Pippin had to put off her planting on account of snow, and I drove through a thunderstorm on my way up. When one downpour ended, the wind would blow the pine pollen around wildly, so that while Ivy and I lay on the grass birdwatching into the oak tree, a fine yellow blizzard suddenly whirled above and around us.

I stayed at Pippin’s. The morning of the graduation party, before I piled in the van with their family to drive up into Oregon, Ivy and I took a walk down the road and back. We saw strawberry flowers and the carcasses of wild animals, and some strange natural art.

It appeared that the same pine pollen that was plastered all over my car and lay as yellow dust on Pippin’s iris flowers had fallen on a driveway and then been washed by the rain into an intriguing design. We’ve been trying to imagine who or what prepared the asphalt “canvas” beforehand in such a way that the natural events could form these patterns.

Just a bit later, after Ivy had washed her hair for the party, she and Scout showed me their collection of artwork from the past school year. It was hard to choose which of several dozen pieces to take away on my camera, but here is a little gallery:

mermaid and squid
wolf

Bouquet of flowers including book-, pencil- and butterfly-flowers,
in a detailed and highly narrative and symbolic vase.

Self portraits by Ivy; note the pony tail at left.
Klimt style by Scout

And then, Pippin’s picture of the last storm Saturday evening, and Jamie:

 

I’ll be showing you more of nature’s art in another post, but here’s a bit more human artwork — clever and beautiful use of natural wood — which I saw just as I was leaving town to come home. I put my car in reverse and backed up a hundred feet to the side of the road so I could take this picture for Pom Pom especially, but I know there are lots of other art and mushroom lovers out there.

❤

 

Lifting the eyes without horror.

books, history, quotes, , , ,

In White Road, Olga Ilyin writes her memoirs of the years 1919-1923 in Russia. I am not very far into the book, but I want to share a short passage describing one Siberian winter morning as she was fleeing eastward with the White Army and some members of their families. Each night they would billet with sympathetic peasants, and move on the next day.

“It was one of those windless mornings…when the air is frozen to the crispness of glass and every sound engraves itself on the darkness with such precision that you can trace its outline with a pencil.

“I had just come on the porch of our cottage. I loved to be the first one to come outside with Bibik [her baby] to steal a moment of quiet before the noise and movement of departing troops, to gaze at the stars overhead, and listen to my footsteps on hard-packed snow fall into silence like notes of music.

“And yet, how could I? For these were the same stars I had watched with horrified eyes on the night when I fled from home; the same stars at which my father had looked from an open truck just a week later when a firing squad drove him to where he was shot. Never again, I had felt, could I lift my eyes without horror to this unyielding gulf between God and man, hammered in by myriads of frightful metallic nails. So, why should I come out to catch a moment to be alone with them? How was it possible that again the stars should reassure me of the wonder of life, telling me that nothing great could really be broken or vanquished? At least within us.”

It was tangled up all through her, too.

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In this article “Science fiction, and what Jesus said to the woman at the well,” Fr. Jonathan Tobias discusses the possibility of extra-terrestrial life, what human nature is like, and the meaning of worship.

My favorite line is, “Wherever there is beauty, Christ the Word is speaking to your heart of the Love the Holy Trinity has for you.”

Many portions of the article are to me extra-rich soul food, but I will share just a little here. I hope you will like to read more on Fr. Jonathan’s site.

It is interesting that everyone “worships.” You can’t help worshiping some god or another one. If it isn’t the true God, then a human being will construct his own version. He may not call it “god” and will probably even deny that his invention is a “god,” but it occupies the place of “god” in his thoughts and emotions. The very people that claim that God does not exist, but that there is only stuff that you can scientifically observe are the people who have ended up making this “stuff” their god.

Human beings cannot get away from their human nature. Worshiping “god” is a necessary part of what makes us human (and I suggest here that “worship” is the highest act of being human). You and I are going to worship something: “You’re gonna have to serve somebody,” as Dylan once sang. You can deny the true God, but you cannot deny worship. Worship is tangled up all through your psychology: seeking god is not part of your consciousness … it is your consciousness.

Let me say that again.

Seeking God IS your consciousness. It is the essence of your rationality. Seeking God is your life. Seeking God is the air that you breathe.

Let’s just hope that the “god” you seek is the true God, the Holy Trinity, of Which Jesus is the only Word.

-Father Jonathan Tobias

The Samaritan woman at the well. Mosaic, 6th century, Ravenna

Fava beans, and moving on.

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It’s convenient that my next-door neighbor has gone camping this weekend, because I need his yard waste can. I forgot to ask him but I am pretty sure he will be okay with me using it to load up with all of the garden clippings I’ve collected in just two days. He has his dragster parked long-term and rent-free on a few inches of my driveway so he likes to feel that he is doing things for me, too.

The fava beans were a big job! Yesterday I cut all the pods off the 30-something plants that grew from two packets of seeds I’d bought online. I might have started the harvest earlier if it hadn’t been so rainy. As it was, I got caught in a surprise shower in the  middle of the process. Before the last week of rain the beans were overflowing their planter, thus:

But by the time I got to picking them, they had grown a few more inches and were  getting infested with insects and maybe disease, and were just a mess generally. Here are a few shots showing how the project developed over the day. By the evening I was sitting under the wisteria shelling the creamy green beans out of their pods, which I dropped on to the patio at my feet. Just the plants and the pods of these Vicia faba — also known as broad beans or horse beans — filled most of my own large green waste bin.

It was slow going, but I shelled a couple of quarts of beans. That didn’t make much of a dent in the tubful, and I needed to do some other kinds of work still before bed; the thought occurred to me that I could offer them on a county freesharing Facebook group I belong to, so I took pictures and posted them, and this morning  a woman came and took half of the remainder. Tomorrow another member is coming and maybe she will clean me out. I could eat all the beans myself eventually, but I have so many things needing doing right now besides shelling favas… like cooking the ones I did shell!

While I was waiting for the lady I thought I’d do a little deadheading – ha! I ended up spending hours on the front garden, yanking out the poppies that want to cover every other plant, shearing one wallflower bush, cleaning up the irises, weeding. Oh, yes, and taking pictures of pretty flower pairings, or trios, and the asparagus in its ferny state with Johnny Jump-ups. I dragged the neighbor’s can over to my driveway and started piling in the green and flowery trimmings.

A Painted Lady butterfly was drinking at the chive flowers, and making me think that she was showing off for the camera. Unlike most butterflies, she did not flutter away as I drew near, but did pirouettes, and flew from bloom to bloom striking different poses. Perhaps the strong drink was making her lose all inhibitions. All the while I slowly came closer…  and then she came closer to me, spread her wings on the flower right in front of me and let me watch and admire her at her work.

Her wings are a bit tattered, I can see now in the closeups. I wonder if a bird tried to make lunch out of her… Speaking of birds, I think I may have made friends with a certain chickadee. I will tell you about him later; right now I have to head to rest and sleep so that I can tackle more garden tasks tomorrow.