Fires are beginning to be needed, now and again, as the colder weather slowly
creeps over the land. Its a funny time of year, this transition. One day it is cold
and raw, air scented with woodsmoke as I walk out in the early morning, the next
it is warm and slightly humid, dragonflies flitting about. The forest is still full
of late summer crickets, and squirrels and chipmunks busy with foraging. The oak
trees are dropping acorns that ping off the metal roof as loud as gunfire. With
the first few weeks of teaching and winter preparation, the most I've managed in
the studio is a few more teeny tiny paintings.
I enjoy these small, dreamy forest paintings. I like taking time with them, creating
tiny worlds that invite me deep inside to explore their mysterious realms. Two are
framed and sitting by my dining room table offering me somewhere to travel as
I eat my meals.
Outside, I wander close to the house, looking at the layers of green
textures and finding great joy in the small moments of beauty here.
Its the time of black-eyed susans, and fall-blooming asters and perennial
sunflowers and obedient plant practically obscuring the old studio.
There is still plenty of magic to be found if I bend down and look inside things,
and the dragonflies and phoebes continue to patrol the garden looking for prey.
Some flowers have gone to seed,
while others are still offering up their pollen.
Crumbling, dried flowers begin to top the stalks, and
hopeful seeds fly away on the wind. Hints of the last
blast of color are beginning to show - I mourn the flowers,
and celebrate the decay, too.
Autumn work is upon me, this pile is almost stacked in the shed, but another
one was just delivered. This Equinox weekend will find me working outside
with the squirrels, stacking my winter heat away.
And today I'm reflecting on a life - today would have been
my mother's 77th birthday. In a month, a day before my
fiftieth birthday, it will be a year since her death.
After I post this, I will go the moss garden, and sit
with the full harvest moon
and maybe hum a bit
- close the earth -
where my mother's ashes
have become
the land.
