Reflecting on the Full Harvest Moon

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. 

August Abundance & Spiraling Inward

Decaying leaf forms fell at my feet the last few days. I took a few to the table to 

look at while I ate, needing to spend more time with them. Lace-like and delicate, 

they became veils for me to look through. The camera didn't always know what to 

do with them - sometimes focusing on what was behind. It took just the right angle 

for the camera to find enough form to photograph. 

There is abundance in the August garden, and I find myself feeling grateful to all
the plants and flowers that thrive here. Its not so easy, what I ask of them. Some
would prefer the prairies of the mid-west, others the wet banks of a river, still 
others want the sandy soil of the mediterranean. I know just what spots will give 
the most sun, six inches to the left or right and there might be a few more hours 
of shade than a plant wants. Most of them, save a special few, would be ever so 
grateful for a few more hours of sunshine. This time of year, I envy gardens with 
tall sunflowers, Russian sage, overflowing vegetables, and a sense of order, but 
these are not the gifts of gardening in the forest.  

After eight years of growing things here, I understand how far I can push things, 

and surrender to the truth that some plants I love just won't be happy in my garden. 

So I've begun to dig up some dear plants that have tried hard, but haven't adjusted

too well. I know this will ultimately gift the garden with better health and spots to 

try new things, and friends will get very enthusiastic plants for their sunnier plots. 

Finding a balance between the cultivated plants and the native or invasive 

species takes some experience. I once let bracken ferns take over a whole area 

thinking they would be "holding the space" until I could plant it, only to learn 

that once they are in, they do NOT intend to leave. The ferns and coltsfoot 

below are a little better at sharing space, and I love the combination of foliage, 

but I will forever be digging blackberry out of this bed...

I'm always amazed when the teasel blooms, it teases (ha!) for a few days with a 

slight tint of violet, and then bursts into a soft furriness that completely contradicts 

the incredible sharpness of the rest of the plant. 

Nothing whispers summer to me like the scent of purple petunias. Sitting by the
window in the evenings, they intoxicate me with their fragrance. No other color 
seems to smell quite the same to me. 

Flowers teach me more than I can possibly express. 

Here, a lesson in radials and points. 

 Here, points, radials and fast form. 

The perennial sunflowers have a wild center

when fully in bloom,

(do click to see details) 

and the brown eyed susans really know their 

sacred geometry!

Yesterday, I did a little drawing in a new sketchbook. It is not at ALL the right paper 

for my spirals, becoming almost translucent with the slightest bit of water. Sometimes 

its good to try out new surfaces, to see what's possible, but after a few tries, I let it 

go.. sometimes its just wrong. Though I like some of the effects, I ripped the paper 

with the nib pen most of the time. I need paper that can take a beating. 

The paper in this sketchbook is MUCH better. Its an old book from graduate school 
that I never finished and is now filling up with words and spirals. Hope to find one of these again... the paper is just right for what I am exploring with spirals at present. 

This spiral -drawn a few weeks ago -definitely moves me inward... 

Here is what is written at the bottom of the page. 

My mother visited last weekend, and while out on an adventure to the Berkshires, 

she gifted me with this necklace. It is a Sun Cross with a spirit animal on the bottom. Though I never draw faces on my spirals, to me, they are alive, so wearing this is like wearing the essence of my work. 

I've been musing about how place influences me and my work. The spirals are very

related to forms in the forest and flowers in the garden. This place asks me to be slow 

and to look and listen carefully - to lean in. Much of my life was spent living by the 

ocean, where movement and expansiveness dominated. There, my work had much 

more to do with rhythm, horizons and atmosphere. Shape, form and color, in my 

early work was much sharper. Searching around in my studio, I discovered work 

that I had done while living in Greece. It was good to look back at work from that 

time, to see where I have come from. If you missed the post about that, you can 

read it here. 

"Sea & Sky", watercolor

"Taverna", ink drawing

 "Mountain Road", watercolor

"Kalivi", ink drawing

"Dog", ink drawing

"Kalami", watercolor

I wonder if you can see seeds of my current work 

in these? 

Leaving you with pics of us... 

me and Pasha cat, 

staying cool under the oaks and hemlocks, 

and dreaming of the sea sometimes.

Well, at least I am.