"Spring is all things at once. Creation and destruction. Spring has no time for stillness. That was for the depth of winter. Now is the energy of emergence, the energy of creation creating itself."
Northern Evergreens
With drooping, graceful sleeves, evergreen branches are designed with downward swoops to easily shed snow build up, and with waxy needles, moisture stays within instead of being lost to biting winter air.
Winter Twilight Blues
Ultramarine, sapphire, indigo, cyan, amethyst, violet. Velvety and rich, these colours arrive in that magical moment when the rotation of the planet holds light between the day and the night. It is that moment of the day when we get a chance to be steeped like raw material in this vat of twilight dye.
Snow Moon Teachings
Snowfall. A time of peace and stillness. Snowfall changes time and space. There is more room, more space for silence to expand. It cloaks and hides the details. Your eye is allowed to range further and there are less distractions as they are hidden under a blanket of white. Your horizon is swept away, flake upon flake until the edges of where you are and where you came from are lost in white.
My best advice is to seek out where woods meet a field, in the country or a city park, it doesn't matter because when you walk out you will be changed by the snowfall.
The trees of the forests will be your guardians.
So.
Walk to the center of that field and listen.
Really
listen.
You won't be the same after.
At the Seashore
Sun and warmth. A lovely afternoon. Drop everything to get to the water's edge. Hallo Kingfisher, I haven't seen you in some days. Hallo Ants, yes, you are still here and crawling up my pant legs. Ah well. It is good to be here.
Golden-crowned Kinglet
I'm not the fastest gardener or do-er outside. I tend to take long pauses between things and simply stare off. (It can take me 45 minutes just to dig in a couple of plants.) And so, there I was, standing and staring off into the distance when I notice a fluttering in the tangled mess of shrub, lower branches and the like. I assume it is an acrobatic Chickadee hanging onto a milk thistle gathering seeds when I see a flash of yellow. Something isn't right. My feet are already in motion before my brain catches up. Sure enough, it is a Golden-crowned Kinglet caught up in the burrs of the burdock plant gone to winter seed.
Kinglets are gleaners of the high tree-tops and to see one fluttering two feet above ground is not so normal.
Inside now, I cut, with tiny manicure scissors, the spurs of the burdock seed head away from feathers and downy underside. He is still with fear and exhaustion. I take the opportunity to remove the fine splinter-like shafts as best as I can and gently nudge a tissue into what I am guessing is the wound area.
Not sure what to do next, we both just sit quietly, my hands covering such a tiny thing. His heartbeat I can feel and my hands, having come in from the cold, are tingling with a rush of blood and now they have that strange firey heat. And so we sit, neither of us moving, just feeling blood, heat and heartbeat.
And then he stirs, the smallest amount of softness in my hands. Then a bit more. I take a peek in my cupped hands, his eyes are open. We sit quietly.
Then, true movement. He sits up and his world changes and so we move into action. I go upstairs and ask my husband to call the wildlife rescue. Their office, it turns out, is not far from us. As he is on the phone, I take another peek, he is so small in my hands, but he is looking up at me with such a spark in his eye and he ruffles a bit of red-orange under his golden crown. "I'm good to go", he says but I am not listening. I am still back with the bloodied leg, the burr, the awful upside down fluttering and I am in the future, worrying about the wound and how he will survive the night.
But my legs are walking me to the door and outside now, I crouch low to the ground and open my hands. He is attentive to the sunshine and the air. His intensity is not focused on me but out there. He's off. A few feet. Sits in the driveway, a tiny thing, no bigger than a leaf. And then, flying he settles on the lower branches of a hemlock. He pauses for several minutes. The orientation of what was into the now. He's away and gleaning the tops of the shrubs.
He is correct. We continue. This intermission is over, how long in all, I do not know. But now, I turn and cut down all the burdock seed heads on my property and set a fire in the firepit. There aren't many to burn, but enough to be able to sit in the sun with the dog and enjoy the afternoon light.
Iris
This one had to get up early to bear the numerous messages of the gods to each other and to the humans below. In Greek mythology, Iris was the constant, reliable faithful messenger. A goddess of both sea and sky, she appears time and time again as helper to Zeus, handmaiden to Hera, bearer of the water from the River Styx to keep the oaths of gods truthful, and appearing in the form of a rainbow, she would span heaven and earth, delivering what was bidden to mortals. Her name contains a double meaning, being connected both with iris, "the rainbow," and eiris, "messenger."
She is often depicted with golden wings, water pitcher, and a herald's staff and has nothing to do with this garden flower that I have painted.
Feather
A little painting before I start the day...
It's always good to have a feather collection for instant inspiration.
Desert Lands
I am back from two weeks of amethyst canyons and red sands, snow storms and sun burns, ravens and coyotes, lizards and cactus = Utah and Arizona.
Right now it is all a wonderful jumble of images in my head, of colour fragments and textures.
Snow in Cedars
A few days ago we had a lovely snowfall here. Lovely, if you didn't have to work or drive in it. Lovely, if you could trudge along in the snow and head for the forest to see the updraft and swirls playing against the dark greens and burnt siennas of the woods.
The woods near me are an afterthought, an overgrown quarry left to its own devices. It's very close to the main highway and as such, the din of the traffic is incessant. On snowy days, however, the noise is muffled and not as intrusive.
It is a small wood, but interesting and quite strong in its own energy. Sitting and tapping into this energy is always restorative. Once, while sitting quietly, I watched a white coyote make its way through the woods. I was sitting higher up and could watch his progress. He stopped once, to figure out where I was as he had picked up my scent. I cleared my throat to let him see me. That startled him no end, to find me sitting ten feet from him amongst the ferns. He took off in a blur.
This little painting will be developed into something bigger in oil and a little more subdued with greys and greens.