A Road always beckoning – Start close in – David Whyte

Start Close In Start close in, don’t take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don’t want to take. Start with the ground you know, the pale ground beneath your feet, your own way to begin the conversation. Start with your own question, give up on Read more about A Road always beckoning – Start close in – David Whyte[…]

Goddess of the dry spell – Danna Faulds

This spring and early summer were unusually wet in our part of the Shenandoah Valley. It rained and rained, resulting in lush lawns and uncommon garden growth through the first part of August. Now though, we are in a dry spell. I spend the first part of every morning out in our vegetable garden with Read more about Goddess of the dry spell – Danna Faulds[…]

The peace of wild things – Wendell Berry

The Peace of Wild Things” Written and read by Wendell BerryListen When despair for the world grows in meand I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and the great Read more about The peace of wild things – Wendell Berry[…]

Heaven

It is early morning,before the world wakes up. I open the front door. And here is heavensitting waiting for me to remember it. Geese and gulls fly across the sky sounding their distinct calls through the valley. Giant hydrangea blooms and tiny jasmine flowers abound. Up the garden, the first aquilegia seeds and a single Read more about Heaven[…]

Purple and Orange

Here is midsummer. The time of purple and orange. Out of a Jurassic forest of foliage rise the polemonium spears. holding aloft their beautiful-blue purple flower clusters. While pink-purple rockets burst forth on the buddleia bush. And Orange hawkbit waft their devil’s paintbrushes highamong the tall spears of lucifers Crosimia and the low snaking tendrils Read more about Purple and Orange[…]

First seeds

Drying Aquilegia seedpods. Clover flowers floating like miniature lotus flowers on a pool of green.Seas of mint and pink geranium, Pale yellow stars of the lady’s mantle Spears of LavenderAnd tiny orchids of the dead nettle. Foxgloves trumpets held on high. Soft leaves, spiky leaves, furry alchemilla leaves, leathery leaves of the peony and hydrangea. Read more about First seeds[…]

The Return

For a moment we hover at the Peak, the pinnacle, the turning point. And then the seasons turn once more. The sun begins to waneImperceptibly at first, the morning and then the evening, quietly begin to draw in. The slow descent into winter begins. So here we are. The hum of the distant motorway is Read more about The Return[…]