 Bergamot in shadow and in light, yellow coneflowers near and far, pink coneflowers with friend and on fire -- the wonders of a summer day.      
0 Comments
 Two weeks ago on Sunday, I had a day to chew on all that I had been learning and receiving in the first week of EMS' Summer Institute for Spiritual Formation. I was up early enough to watch the sun rise. During the morning I sat out on my cousin's patio, watching the play of sunshine and shadow over the rolling hills, while my heart mourned with the community of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina and the devastations of generations of racism. (To get a taste of the sunshine and shadows, watch the slideshow immediately below. These were recorded at 30-60 second intervals. If you're viewing this on a mobile device, you may need to go to the actual website in order to see the series.) After time with relatives in the afternoon, I returned to the patio at sunset, watching the slow unfurling of clouds on the mountains, and the glow of the setting sun on them. In retrospect, it seems a highly appropriate way to have spent the longest day of the year -- even if I didn't realize it was the summer solstice until I looked at online news late that night.      After a series of gray, cloudy days, the sunshine on Wednesday came at a good time. I had some free time and headed over to Witmer Woods, near the dam. I visited these woods regularly last spring, watching the green emerge. It was well hidden this time and I found myself focusing on patterns and shapes instead.      
The prairie plantings on campus are full of color. Earlier this summer, the campus staff mowed the plantings by the music center and the dorms, hoping to delay the blooming so that students -- most of whom aren't around in July -- would be able to enjoy the show when they return to campus. The plantings by the railroad are tall and exuberantly in full bloom; the mowed areas are shorter but still splashed with color, and catching the light in their own quiet way. 
We visited the Defries Calendar Garden in the bright sunlight of a June midday. Here's a glowing desert flower, and an echo in two glowing pond flowers. And the golden eye of a tiny amphibian half hidden by a water lily leaf, sitting in a puddle and reflecting sparks of light. (It looks as big as the water lilies in these photos, but was about half the size of one of the petals). Then there's the sunlight glow of arched clematis leaves and the peculiar squiggles of an allium head. 
I had a retreat day at the cottage at Pathways Retreat this week and had the good fortune to be there on a breezy, sun-soaked spring day. I was surrounded by green woods, leaves dancing between light and shadow, the rustle of the breeze in the trees, bright bursts of pine scent, and a few white blossoms. 
 For the past few weeks I have been busy with the final stages of helping edit a collection of essays on Assembly Mennonite's history, too busy to get to my blog. With a warmer week, our snow is melting fast, so it is time to post these before they are completely out of date. Snow and shadows and such.   Check out the avian snow angel on the lower right in the photo above. A telephoto lens would have been handy, but I did what I could before the shadow covered it entirely. And below, the date on the paper is January 25. I found it this past Saturday, March 15, on the front lawn, after the massive pile up of snow it had been in for the past several weeks melted -- still in its plastic bag and quite readable. I thought it was an appropriate headline. We broke the previous record of 100 inches of snow back before the most recent six inch snow dump.  
Here's a mystery. Most of the tracks in our yard are easy to figure out -- the patterns of bird feet under the feeder, the rabbit crossing from here to there, the squirrel bounding from the maple to the feeder and back again, the cat that prowls the edges. But what is the story behind the photo above? Apparently one night a rabbit hopped out to the middle of the yard, danced crazily for a few moments and then lopped away to the protective cover of the privet. And then there's sunshine and shadow on snow, and the light-catching crystals of hoarfrost on dried plants. 
 It snowed and it snowed and it snowed. And then, the next morning, January 6, the sun shone bright in a clear, cold sky. I chose to enjoy the warmth of our house instead of heading out with my camera, given wind chills of 40 below. Even so, there was an ever-changing show from our windows, with intriguing play of light and shadow and snowy shapes as the day went on.         
Today rain fell mistily all day, and the skies stayed gray. Earlier in the week, though, there was a mix of sun and rain, resulting in more light-filled raindrops to be found. Our leaves are just starting to turn colorful, but on the dry days, other colorful things held the light. 
This weekend was Assembly Mennonite's annual retreat at Camp Friedenswald. John and I went up early, enjoying the drive through the countryside at sunrise, and getting to the fen before the sun had risen over the hill. Neither words nor photos can communicate the wonder of watching the play of light and mist over the wetlands, with trees and grasses slowly coming into view and then lit into fall colors, reflected in the water. Other leaves caught the sunlight later in the day -- by the lake shore, sumac with tamarac, and a fiery fern. I sat on a pier and watched the nearly transparent minnows drifting in the lake, and then realized what I was mostly seeing was their shadows on the sandy lake bottom. 
Here's some color to store up for the gray winter days ahead -- yellow highlights spotted amidst the prairie plantings on campus this past week. 
 This month a friend and I have regularly been making the circle from my house down along the millrace to the dam pond and back through campus. We found a family of swans has established itself at the foot of the boat launch. They don't seem to be at all bothered when we sit for awhile on a nearby bench and watch them. There are five young ones, two white and three brown. From what I've read the color has nothing to do with gender (despite my stereotypical expectations), and they will all be white when they mature. Sometimes we found them sleeping, sometimes gliding swan-like through the water (fancy that!), sometimes lifting their wings slightly and sailing with the breeze. Some even managed to sleep while afloat. But mostly we found them preening, leaving a scattering of swan feathers all around. Some days a small fleet of swan feathers sailed away across the pond, thanks to a passing breeze, while the swans themselves stood and preened.           
Looking down or looking up, I'm finding sparks of light these sunny fall days. Rippling in water, reflecting from the dam pond, rimming clouds and flowers and leaves, when the sun shines, we're all soaking it in, storing up memories of light and color for the gray days that are just around the corner. And yet even those days will have their own subtle ways of catching the light. 
Night sky or swan feather?
Fall is here, hard as it is to believe that today, with the temperature hitting a high of 97. It may feel summer-hot, but we've made the turn into fall. Everything seems to be going to seed, or doing its best to soak up all the sunlight in can. Autumn is in the air -- and so are the geese. And harvestman and daddy longlegs are both delightful names for the same creature, which is not actually a spider, despite appearances. 
Lavender
Lavender's blue, dilly, dilly, lavender's green. Or so the song goes. To me, lavender looks, well, lavender -- a light purple, on gray green stems. A very soothing combination of colors, and one that is thriving in my garden at the moment. Several bouquets are drying on my porch as well, filling the air with soothing scents. Sunflowers and daylilies cast bright golden notes, and play with sunshine and shadow. I'm taken with the mix of blooms and buds on my spikey purple plants, and with their fragrance -- lavender, sage, and mint in these photos. Mint and lavender are cool and elegant, but the sage is more fuzzy and amusing. 
Sunflower
Sage
Daylily
Laughing sage
Mint
The prairie plantings on campus are full of golden sunshine right now -- the golden yellows of coreopsis, or tickseed, and the bright light of June sunshine through green leaves. There are green flames everywhere and in an amazing variety of shapes. 
Sunshine and shadow
While there were still golden remnants from last fall in the Calendar Garden this week, spring is also tiptoeing in, with yellows and purples -- witch hazel tassels, a few timid windflowers, more crocus, and lots of excited bees. The saying "busy as a bee" must have come from someone watching spring bees at work -- a still photo doesn't begin to capture the energy. 
Witch hazel tassels
One of the enthusiastic bees, britches loaded with pollen
windflower
Wings catching the light, abdomen looking drenched in honey...
A little sunshine works wonders. Saturday the sun shone on the huddled crocus from my last post, and this was the result -- Easter eggs. Now today they are covered with snow again, so I don't know if they will actually last until Easter, but they were a nice splash of color before the snow fell. I spent Saturday morning leading a retreat for Assembly and Assembly North, drawing together some of the themes of Lent -- being a beloved child of God, from Assembly's work with shame and healing, and Extravagant Living, Reckless Grace, the theme from Assembly North. I provided written and sensory resources for three areas: In a Dry and Weary Land; Coming to our Senses; and All-surrounding Grace. The retreatants had an hour and a half block to spend time alone with God, praying, using their senses, reflecting. One retreatant enthusiastically showed me his discoveries afterward. He had chosen to spend time with a dried fig leaf, gazing at it closely, drawing it and letting it speak to him about a dry and weary land. These dry fig leafs are definitely dessicated and crumpled, but they have their own sculptural beauty. He went on to put the stem of the leaf in a small pitcher of water, where it soaked up enough liquid to soften it just enough that he could gently spread it open. The sun was streaming in the window just beside him and he discovered that the dried leaf, seen in sunlight, had a jewel-like beauty. And when held at just the right angle in the sunlight, it was full of an inner fire. What a beautiful image of the transforming power of grace! 
Adjusting to the change back to Daylight Savings Time may be a nuisance, but early evening sunshine is a joy, and creates some fascinating light and shadow play in the corner of our living room. 
The Brothers Grimm needed the help of a dwarf with a funny name to spin straw into gold, but around here, all we need is a good dose of sunshine and suddenly, behold, the old is given new life. 
The view from our front steps is a prosaic one most of the time -- houses, trees, telephone poles, college buildings, a busy street or traffic backed up waiting for a train. The sky is still there though, and in recent days, the transition times have been full of color. This morning it was lavender and pink, turning the whole sky rosy. As I walked over to campus to meet my sister for our morning walk, the refrain from Fiddler on the Roof kept running through my head, quite in keeping with the seasonal metaphor I've been exploring the last while. Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset, swiftly fly the years, One season following another, laden with happiness and tears. And with light and shadow, dark and light. And color. 
Ivy-covered walls and morning light and shadows....
Leafless ivy, wizened berries -- the seasons turn again.
Tuesday evening's sunset, looking west from our front yard -- glory in the midst of the ordinary, and hopes for a clear day to follow.
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. 
Salvia's jester caps
Anise hyssop in sunshine and shadow
Fragrant lavender
Apparently this is not the hyssop that they suggest planting with cabbage, so as to deter Cabbage White butterflies.
Fireworks for the 4th -- the only kind we'll see around here. We're in Colorado for a niece's wedding this weekend and between the drought and the fires Colorado is already fighting, there are burn and fireworks bans everywhere. We came to Colorado by a round-about route -- driving to Harrisonburg for a Weaver family reunion at Highland Retreat last weekend, spending a few days in Pittsburgh where our daughter lives, and then flying out to Denver. We'll be in Westcliffe for the wedding and then camp for a few days. I hear there are mountains around here, but so far the smoke haze has kept them obscure. Even so, there's sunlight on the fauna and flora, and I'm enjoying the variety. 
An avocet in the lake near where we are staying in Lakewood.
Tickseed in sunshine and shadow
Dew -- what a concept! And a welcome one after several weeks with hardly any rain. Yesterday afternoon there was a brief, heavy downpour, a lovely sight in itself. And then this morning, when I went out to get a few leaves of Swiss chard to have with my poached egg, the grass was wet with dew, and all the plants were sparkling. 
Dewy cucumber leaves
Sugar snap peas
An onion seedhead in bloom
An exuberance of bee balm
|
My approach to contemplative photography --
"Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." Mary Oliver in "Sometimes" Categories
All
Archives
August 2020
|
RSS Feed