The combination of morning light, a heavy dew, and fall flowers makes for some glory-filled moments, thanks be to God.
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This seems to be the season for spiky purple plants in my garden -- salvia, sage, lavender, hyssop, butterfly bush. The butterflies are loving it. While the overall effect is spires of purple, when you focus in on the shapes of the individual blossoms, what a variety of shapes! Butterfly bush has a fanfare of trumpets with fire at their hearts -- and the underside of this swallowtail butterfly echoes the fire with its own refrain of orange and blue.
When Beth and Jesse got married last year, they wanted lots of colorful summer flowers for their decorations. I planted sunflowers, and we knew there would be black-eyed susans, queen anne's lace and other roadside flowers. Several friends allowed us to sow seeds in their gardens in various locations around town, which we figured increased our chances that some would be in bloom when we needed them.
Our plans worked well, and there were bucket-loads of colorful flowers to put in pint jars for table decorations. This included lots of bright zinnias. I had never been very interested in zinnias. They always seemed stiff and rather boring, and I generally have preferred perennials to annuals. But last summer I realized zinnias did a good job of bringing color to the late summer garden, and this year I planted zinnia seeds. And I've discovered that zinnias are not only full of color -- if you take a close look, they are downright zany. I found a magnificent stand of pokeweed in a corner near the old barn at Maple Tree Meadows. Pokeweed, as its name makes no attempt to hide, is a weed. The plant itself can grow up to nine feet tall, and produces lots of berries.
This one had pendants at all stages from flower to berry, making for an intriguing continuum from pastels to rich, dark colors. They look luscious, but pokeweed berries are poisonous, though I've read that the early spring shoots are edible. During the Soul and Soil retreat on Thursday, I spent the contemplative prayer time roaming with my camera. The last ten or fifteen minutes of that I slowly circled Karla's herb bed, focusing in on some of the intriguing shapes and patterns. Until I slowed down and looked, and looked again, none of them had made even a tiny "blip" on my consciousness, even though we had gone past the bed several times.
Later, as we gathered around the dining table for lunch, one of the other retreatants told me she had discovered a new contemplative practice. She had ended her prayer time sitting quietly on the porch, sheltered from the light rain, looking out over the yard and the herb bed, and watching me contemplate the plants with the help of the camera. She discovered that it can also be contemplative to watch someone else in the midst of going slowly, looking, trying other angles, looking again. I've been finding a photo visit to the coneflowers in the campus prairie plantings a bit like that old potato chip commercial that proclaimed "No one can eat just one." I haven't tried eating any of the coneflowers yet, but I also have not been able to take just one photo.
Fortunately, this habit is less fattening. I'm fascinated by the subtle variations of color in the centers -- from green to rose to orange to prickly-looking gold tips on the cones that give the flower its name. And all of these to be found at the same time, on a sunny late summer afternoon. A second cloudy, rainy morning. What a delight! And what a delight to find this delightful -- a month of no rain creates a completely different receptive spirit than, say, what we are likely to experience come November. (Cloudy wet day after cloudy wet day, for those who are not familiar with Northern Indiana weather).
After yesterday's rain, Judy and I walked along the race. There was a familiar late summer mix of Queen Anne's Lace and cornflowers, bejeweled by raindrops. Familiar -- and yet how amazing and unusual when you start focusing in for a close view. Churches that follow the liturgical calendar generally reflect that in some way with the colors of their visuals -- green for ordinary time, purple for Lent and Advent, white for Eastertide, reds and oranges for Pentecost.
Our garden has its own cycle of colors. In early spring it is the yellows of daffodils and forsythia, then a blaze of orange poppies, and the greens of growing grass and new leaves. Right now we're in the second round of spring, with the purples and whites of iris, salvia, daisies, and kousa dogwood. And there is plenty of new life -- bees and wasps and spiders, and the neighborly baby bunny that hops through our backyard, nibbling on clover and eyeing the peas in the garden. Purple and green are liturgical colors -- the purple of seasons of the church calendar like Lent and Advent, the green of "ordinary time." We'll soon be coming to the white of Easter, and then returning to ordinary time. But while we're still in Lent, here's the sunshine and shadows of an African violet lit by morning sunlight.
And anticipating the green of ordinary time, here's some of the spring green I've see this past week. I'm fascinated by the variety of forms, as well as enjoying the green. Frederick, in Leo Lionni's book by that name, is a small field mouse. The other mice around him are busy gathering corn and nuts and other good things for winter. When they see Frederick sitting there, staring at the meadow, they ask what he is doing.
"I gather colors," answered Frederick simply, "For winter is gray." Here, to spice up winter grayness, are some cornucopias of color, to top off our color celebration week. |
My approach to contemplative photography --
"Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." Mary Oliver in "Sometimes" Archives
August 2020
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