Wandering out of the studio door, I am gently hushed as the stories of the morning
fall like leaves to the soft forest floor. My traveling companion beckons me to the
fallen hemlock with a glance and a swish of his feathery tail.
Closeby, a hermit thrush sings his magnificient song, while the calls of the tree frogs
transport me to another realm. Pasha is content to stroll along the mossy trunk while
I bend low to greet a fellow wanderer.
Small bands of travelers duck under sticks and clamber up steep mossy inclines on
the way to somewhere. 
One small mushroom gets my attention... all alone on the edge of a cliff.
Orange and green is a theme today, so unlikely yet exactly suited for here.
Thought I'd share a bit of our walk...
Back in the clearing, the California Poppies are another orange focal point,
while the tiny geraniums add a touch of pink.
Further afield at the river, a stone face magically appears to me,
while the enchantment of the evening is offered by the luna moths.
I send the magic and healing of the forest creatures to my mother, who is recovering from surgery in the hospital. (feel better Mum!) Just at the moment I type this, a luna moth begins to flutter at the screen behind me. I have never had so many luna moths in one season. They gather, three at a time at the front door or careen around the windows in the evenings. I shut off the light in hopes they will wander off to the woodlands, to hide away amongst the green leaves and sweeping hemlock boughs.
72 comments:
Lovely walk...thanks for sharing with us. Love getting a chance to hear your walk too!
They are magnificent, your lovely luna moths. Thank you for sharing your walk with Pasha.
could you send one luna moth in Finland too?
thank you for the woodland video, such a peaceful place it looks. where those trees hemlocks? I like to eat those new growths of pine needles too, in Finland people do make syrup of them and candies too. many times i have been thinking of filming a woodland wander video in here, i am sure people would like to see the nature in here in that way.
i do love californian poppies, they are just little seedlings in the garden.
Those luna moths are wonderful... but the red eft had me jumping for joy - they are so very beautiful! Don't their golden eyes seem full of wisdom? Lucky you to live in such an enchanted place. Thank you for sharing your walk with Pasha - his purr is just as I expected - soft spoken; much like you, I would imagine.
Thanks for taking me with you on your woodland walk. It is amazing all the little forms of wildlife that appear around the forest. All you have to do is keep your eyes open. Thank you again for sharing. I really enjoyed this post, Connie :)
The walk was lovely , thank you, as are the beautiful Luna moths. Pasha is wonderful... such a great walking companion.
Wishing your mother well.
Much love
Whaw what a video! What a forest, I can feel it!! So much light and presence... Our mother cat Akinobu was sitting here with me and when you whistled for Pasha, she looked up and turned her ears and face to me in fullest attention, like knowing this was a her-kind-of-cat-whistle :) Great! Blessings.
VA- what a magical wander; and I love how you found or were found by the stone face. Go well. B
What a wonderful ending to your video. I enjoyed it all but the whistling for Pasha, seeing him run to you and hearing him purr his appreciation just made my day. Beautiful luna moths!
Hi Nancy, glad you came along... next I want to record some of the night sounds in the forest, they are so very magical!! Hope to share that soon.
Hi Charlotte - the lunas are magnificent, and that I have had so many of them this spring has been such a joy!
Hi Delila - I'll work on getting a luna over to you!! And most of my forest is hemlock, such ancient, magical trees. I'd love to go on a video wander with you in your woodlands!
Hi Stregata - the efts are one of my favorite creatures here... so slow as if they are just here from another dimension (which I think is true!!) I finally figured out how to upload a film in a shortere amount of time, so there might be more short videos of our wanders.
Glad you enjoyed this post, Connie, I'm expecting to take a few more short videos to share here.
Thanks for the well wishes for my Mum, Trish! Pasha is a great walking companion who always comes when called....
Love that name, Akinobu, and that she heard me across the oceans, how cool is that?
Barry, it was so funny about that stone face. I was looking around for a stone for my stone stack and saw that stone looking back at me. It was surely saying, I am NOT to be moved!!
Hi Robyn - Glad you enjoyed the Pasha-purr... !
I'm home healing from surgery and this post was balm for my soul. Hemlock is my favorite of all the forests, and I miss them terribly. I haven't seen a luna moth in Illinois ever, though I find them every trip I take to the Carolinas. I would cry tears of joy if I saw as many at once as you have this year, as it would fill me with hope that their numbers are strong.
Your Pasha is my dream cat, in both looks and personality. You are lucky to have him in your magical world. Thank you so much for sharing.
as always, so very soothing and beautiful... so very much bright orange in your world, along with the ever present glow of green...
i appreciate the time you take to share it all, to allow us to transport there in spirit...
the luna moths are quite something - i have only ever seen one as an adult...
Is the red eft the same as a salamander? What riches, all those lunas! Sending well wishes to your mom
xx
julie
I always love seeing your forest walks...
I love the video of you two! As I followed you around the forest, I saw your perspective of the trees! It was like the 3D version of your beautiful paintings, V! :)
Ha! The stone-head. I hope you adopted him!?! ;)
Blessing, healing and peace to your mum as she recovers.
Hi Mel - Speedy recovery to you!! I wanted to post a woodland wander so my mum could have some forest medicine in her recovery - and some of Pasha purrs - glad you enjoyed it!! And I seem to be getting more and more lunas each year, but this year is truly astounding!
Hi Maire - glad to share and to spread the luna magic!! Love the green and orange.
Hi Julie - yes, red eft is a salamander. It hatches in the water where it lives for a while, then comes out, transforms to its orange color and loses its gills, lives 3 or 4 years on land, then, for its adult years, heads back to the pond and turns olive green. Cool, hun?
Thanks, Sylvanna!!
Hi Sandra - no, didn't adopt him, he was quite stern in his need to stay right where I found him!! Mom is doing well, thanks for the well wishes!
what a beautiful post, totally transporting & Ariel loved your whistle too!
namaste Valerianna!
These woods you live in are so beautiful (and Pascha the master of it all ;-) !)
The luna moths .... amazing !
Does Ariel come to whistling? I don't know how it started, but both my cats do (or did -Sophia has been dead for a few years now) When I lived in the city and went outside to gather them, people walking on the stree thought I was calling dogs. When both cats came running from different directions, the walkers would all say they'd never seen the likes of that before!
hello,
that is a wonderful stone face, reminds me of a clay sculpture that was in my house growing up.
loved taking a walk with you, so many lovely glimpses of life.
'Tis a good time of year for the forest - green in the mosses and populated by hoards of red efts and luna moths!
Hi Tammie Lee- Thanks... its amazing we live in the same country. From the majesty of the mountains in your place, to the quiet embrace of the forest here - amazing!
thank you for the lovely catwalk
A lovely walk through your forest - and a cat that comes when you whistle - now that is really something:) The luna moths are really beautiful, moths and butterflies are in short supply here because of the cold and rain. I hope your mum is recovering quickly from her surgery and will soon be home again.
What a beautiful place you live in, Valerianna.
I didn't realize just how big those Luna moths are until I saw the one in your hand.
Wishing your mum a speedy recovery.
What beautiful photos you have taken and such wonderful places you have gone to, enjoyed and experienced.....
:}
Hi Rowan - Yes, both Pasha and Sophia (gone for a few years) come/came to whistling. Its been a great comfort cause there is a cat curfew of before dusk in the forest here because of all the predators. Pasha comes running from up the road, I hear him meowing all the way... I still can't decide if he's letting me know he's coming or mumbling that he wishes I'd stop whistling and embarassing him!
Hi Lynn - yes, they are quite enormous!! I think that's what makes them so utterly amazing.
HI Raggle Taggle - glad you enjoyed your visit!
I love the woods, they are so alive! And your phrase: ...as the stories of the morning fall like leaves to the soft forest floor...
Beautiful creatures too, the unearthly moths, and are those newts or lizards clambering through the leafmold?
Get well wishes to your Mum, hope shes feels better :)
Carrie... :)
Hi Carrie - Yes, salamanders... red efts. If you google them, you'll get quite a story about them!! Or go up to my response to Julie Whitmore above for the abbreviated story. Thanks for the well wishes for my Mum... day by day she is better. I am heading down to hot and humid Florida to help out when she gets out of the hospital. Summer in the tropics, thank goodness for air conditioning!!
Greetings, V and Pasha - Your woods look just about as wet as our part of The Forest. How I would love to meet a Luna Moth in person. Lovely wander with you vicariously as always, sus
Hi Susan - We've been getting oodles of rain... today is warm (not hot) and sunny, though, but I must be inside mid-day to late afternoon at a seminar.... : (
enjoyed the quiet walk. I miss Was.
Ariel loved your whistle (so birdlike!) I don't whistle but Old Man Crow wrote Ariel his own little song, here's the link, hope Pasha enjoys it!
http://www.rodsshed.com/littlepussycat.html
Oh yes, I know the great emptiness that comes when a seemingly small cat-being leaves.... the energy a cat brings a space is enormous - and the space s/he occupies in our hearts.....
Great walk! Love the stone face and the lone mushroom. Your woods look so much neater than ours, which are a jumble of downed trees for the most part, but we do have the old stone walls. Pasha has such a beautiful tail :>) Thanks for sharing - enjoyed!
How magical it is to walk with you and Pasha through your forest...the Luna Moths are glorious and I so enjoyed seeing your tree paintings from your Esty shop beside the video of you moving amongst those standing ones.
well...you know.........so Good. so very very Good.
i watch the video and think how in these last days i
have thought so many times that just One tree, just one
tall shade tree would be so welcome here.
Hi Karen - someone once said that Pasha's tail looked like an ostrich feather, I quite agree!
Oh, cool, I sometimes notice things in the sidebar and how they relate to the stuff in the post. I'm scrolling back up to see that comparison, thanks!
In the middle of summer, I sometimes have 10ft sunflower envy, but when others are sweating and I'm sitting in the moss garden in the shade, cool breeze blowing, I am ever so grateful for tall trees, yes, shade is good!
i meet pasha! and lunas. thank you.
It's always so wonderful to take a walk in your forest. What a treat to see the video of Pasha! He has the deep, rumbly purr just like my first Maine Coon, (Sammy), who looked just like Pasha and who also responded to whistles.
My current Maine Coon, Julius, comes running whenever I sing. Go figure :~)
Hello, I hope your mum is feeling better too, I am very envious of your moths.
meow....
HA! Love that... good to know what they come for... cause Pasha has a pre-dusk curfew every evening. I wonder if the neighbors get tired of me out there whistling 'til the cows come home, well, at least until Pasha does! But if I were singing.... : )
Thanks for visiting!
Hi Valerie - Mum is getting better day by day, though its probably too slow for her! I think the moth month might be done now. I rescued one from the watering can yesterday, but then I think it was eaten in the night as I found a bunch of wings....
:(
the Luna are very tied for me to childhood. and
i think...what is it, that i mean by that? i guess
they are tied, one in the same in my heartmind to a
time when it never would have occured to me to worry
about the Earth. Luna's say that things are still
"good enough". that there is still enough Good to
hold balance. thank you for this...love,
Moths like that Id love to encounter!
What a gift to have them flying around...we dont get them in UK lol
dreaming state of mind now
I love the video; it's lovely to see Pasha in action, and your beautiful, peaceful forest.
It is a good idea to show your walk with your good boy through this forest of miracles. The stone-face seems coming from very old times.
Hope your mother is feeling well now after the surgery! Greetings!
Hi Grace - I'm in Florida since June 21st supporting Mom and helping Dad. Not blogging hardly at all. I know what you mean about luna's and the health of the Earth. Someone told me they are quite delicate and polution-sensitive, but I don't know. They sure seem like magical, delicate creatures who need a healthy environment, but aren't we all?
They are rare to see here, too, or at least I never saw one til I moved to the forest. Hope you see one someday... they really are exquisite and magical!
Ahhh.... yes, that happens to me sometimes in the forest!
He's a love... maybe a film of Tilly someday? ( next time I must figure out how to adjust the contrast and color cause the forest is much more vibrant than the film!)
Hi Dori - thanks for the well wishes for my Mom. I'm afraid it will be a bit before she can say she's feeling well, but better day by day, she is! And I agree, that particular stone face felt very ancient.
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