Monday, December 1, 2014

One thing


One thing: October.

Every day a stone of honeyed amber, warmed by a constant sun.

Was it lovely for you? Was it a topaz jewel in your heart's crown?















Grasses, trees, sky, all hopelessly beautiful.

I say "hopeless" because it is now December, and thinking about October feels like coming across a picture of an exquisite dessert made for a king, by a master pastry chef who died before you were born. It is a dessert decorated with gold leaf and sugared violets, thick with cream—so bewitching that your mouth waters just looking at it.

But the receipt is lost, and winter has come. May our memories and a good fire keep us warm, though still we long for that lost taste.



Since I last wrote here, I've been growing flowers. 






Since I last wrote, I've been traveling.







I've gone walking on a floodplain island, where white-tailed deer run on pathways that weave in and out of the Otherworld and cottonwoods...and where two rivers meet.










I came home to watch goldfinches raiding my garden for hyssop seeds. The leaves of snowberry, juneberry and chokeberry glowed brighter and brighter, reflecting back the long hours of sunlight they'd collected all summer. Gladdening my heart.





In my memory, I spent days watching bees drink from asters.


My list of goals shrank. I let a lot of things slide. I had nothing to say.

Under a waxing moon, I wonder. Will a reading of the astrological transits cast some light on this sense of obstacles, unknown thresholds? Sometimes the mystery is too mysterious. Sometimes peace is sought, and sought. It is worth a try.



7 comments:

  1. absolutely gorgeous pictures :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks so much, sarah, Feel good to be sharing some beauties (and taking a little wee Pinning break).

      Delete
  2. I think I noticed that you stopped by my blog earlier tonight (maybe I was wrong, but you use a browser I think few Mac owners use), and so I had just published a new post because of those who’ve been ‘stopping by’ lately and not seeing anything. There are some interesting pics there you might enjoy.
    I have been hoping you’d post again sometimes. Reading this is like reading Gia Fu Feng and Jane English’s version of the Dao De Jing. I’m glad you’ve been travelling.
    Yes, this autumn I have indeed appreciated quite a few things I hadn’t let sink into me as much in the past. Not the least of which is falling in love with autumn colours, like burnt orange and saffron.
    Still have MN on my mind, and am hoping I get up there. Just to see a real winter for once since seemingly forever, would be something special for me. I miss proper seasons and having more beautiful wild places around me. Not to mention different people, and ‘change of my illusions’.
    I know what you mean Carmine about missing bygone things, some of which one has experienced, and some not. For me it is often people that I feel I came so close to having met before they left the world. But I am trying to embrace all seasons of life equally (or in their own turn I should say). It is hard to live deliberately in this particular society, and I marvel at the fact that you seem to do so, getting what good you can from any environment and see the magic in the mudane.
    Really we inhabit all of our days at once, even the ‘past’ and ‘future’ ones; at least, that’s how I see it. So we understand that all the things or people we miss are ever-present and in a sense never-present too. Like only keeping those we let go. ~R.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh I agree about embracing all seasons. The transition from autumn to winter is the one that usually throws me for a loop. I love the fall so much, and the winter is so very long...but as usual, it's really my resistance that's the issue, not reality. :) I'm sorry you didn't make it up here yet, but you will...I wish I could send you some winter in a box. You'd open it up and a frosty north wind would whip your hair back, chill your eyeballs until they water, nip your nose and blue-ify your lips.

      Delete
  3. Oh, your Octobera photos are gorgeous. We still have hints of topaz here, but December has almost set in. I spent Thanksgiving in your neck of the woods up there, in a frigid, white wonderland. It was beautiful in its own way, despite what darkness winter brings.

    Nice to see your words and photos, again, Carmine. I agree... it is worth a try. <3

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. typo, but Octobera is a great name...

      Delete
    2. Yes, and how cute do you look in your red coat and blue scarf in the snow? :) Winter is both more and less dark...the snow makes every night full-moon bright, ambient light is magnified. Maybe this will be the year I go snowshoeing by moonlight in one of the parks, just silence and a crunch of snow. I need a better coat and snow pants. What kind of Minnesotan doesn't own snow pants?

      Delete