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I walked along the sidewalk to the supermarket this morning, and overhead the birds were flying back and forth in the trees, and the sunlight was shining through their wing feathers and their tail feathers, and those wings and tails were looking like sunlit fans.
No sooner did I think that than at my feet, a feather with a golden shaft (photographed here not in situ but back at home).
So pretty. ( the goldenness of it )
At the supermarket, I walked alongside the canal-like ditch that runs beside the parking lot. There were frogs singing there, sounding like plucked rubber bands. (Also one bullfrog, whose song sounds like very, very deep bagpipe notes.)( 42-second video of frogsong )
Then, home through some long grass. Walking through long grass that's thick with dew is like wading in a stream--it was as fresh and cool and, in the end, got me as wet as walking up a stream.
There are levels of thickness of water, I think:
Water in still lakes and becalmed oceans is the thickest of all.
Water in fast rivers and streams, or on stormy seas, is somewhat thinner. The speed at which it's moving thins it. Also, it's not just water; it's water + tumult.
Next is dew on long grass: the water and grass and wildflowers together make waterlace, waternets.
And then last is water in clouds--the thinest water of all.
I feel...:  happy I hear...: ceili, Sephfire: Shadow of the Colossus Snowfall on Forbidden Lands (OC ReMix) |
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at the edge of a driveway, two pairs of rain boots, left out. Small ones, with handles to help the wearers pull them on. But now they've got water at the bottom. Frogs may hop inside these boots next, or herons may fish in them.I hear...: Jean Ritchie: The Cool of the Day |
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Some of the sky was blue, but some was dark gray--there were billowing clouds of white and gray, and blowing in front of them, fragments of clouds of darker gray. I was walking along, and from a patch of deep gray cloud, across a patch of white cloud, I saw a sharp flash.
I thought, it's like a shooting star, but it's bright daytime, so it can't be that. But it's too fast and disappeary for an airplane.
And then there was a thunderclap, and I knew I'd seen a lightning arrow--a sharp, straight dart of lightning that flashed not from earth to sky or sky to earth, but straight from cloud to cloud.
I took a picture, after the fact, of the origin cloud:
Then there was the sound of rain before the sight or feel of rain, and then down it came, and for a few seconds I could walk between the raindrops, but then there were too many of them. Then there was a torrential downpour, and now, it's stopped, and in a minute it will be sunny again. It's an exciting day for weather. The power's gone out twice as I try to write this.
The rain makes me think of this lovely part in Cloud & Ashes, which I just read:
She stooped and flicked a pebble up the stream. It skipped and started, skipped and sank. And at each leap--O wonderful, beyond all hooping--worlds began. As in her glass, enhaloing and interlaced. A skein of stories.
She was happy; and in shadow.
And yet more worlds, unbidden, came. There. And there. Outspreading. How--? Ah, rain. She heard the pattering on leaves. The river dimpled with the dint of rain.
Greer Gilman, Cloud & Ashes (Easthampton, MA: Small Beer Press, 2009), 169.
I read, first, "beyond all hoping"--heart soars as worlds are created. But "hooping" is right, too.
I hear...: The Decemberists: The Abduction of Margaret |
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These tiny flowers, smaller than a child's pinky fingernail, which have chosen to grow and bloom in my garden, are scarlet pimpernel
Harboring this cluster of flowers makes me feel like an accomplice of the dashing undercover aristocrat, who gets props for derring-do even if he was hopelessly right wing.
Smaller than the scarlet pimpernel flower are the flowers of foxtail grass, in bloom now:
Come the autumnal equinox, this grass will be foxy colored. Not yet. Now is a green time.
Up on Bare Mountain, yesterday, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) teenybuffalo, the healing angel, and I saw ravens. They were not small at all. They were huge, and looked capable of giving small children a ride on their backs. We also saw a milk snake (I think that's what it was) that had recently swallowed something about twice its normal girth.
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| » up the stairs |
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Here is the balcony and exterior staircase I was shy to photograph before...
The person in the apartment under the roof comes down the stairs and spends time with the couple with all the plants and the wind chimes. He brings his guitar; they fix supper. They grow tomatoes and herbs on their balcony, and they cook with them. He daydreams about fishing and bringing them his catch. But reality is that he brings just the guitar, and sometimes snacks and beer.
For good measure, here is another exterior stair, for the building across the parking lot. This building houses the laundromat.
There is a couple living at the top of these stairs, too, only this couple has a baby. The wife works in the office of a paving company in the town to the south, the husband works for buildings and grounds at the university in the town to the west. When the wife is home in the evening in the summer, she puts the door open so the baby can hear the guitar from across the way.
Sometimes, she comes to stand in the doorway to listen. The guitar player has an unusual repertoire; he often plays classical pieces. Sometimes he summons a matching sky.
Jun. 30th, 2009 @ 05:37 pm
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| » around the corner, elsewhere |
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The sky was many different colors of blue and gray and white this morning, and the air smelled like a tapestry of wet fragrances hung out to dry. Even the road smelled like hot, wet road, though it wasn't wet.
( ZZ Top, King Midas, two types of blue )
Jun. 29th, 2009 @ 07:59 am
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| » volunteer music, gold dust |
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An old friend visited over the weekend (core_opsis on LJ), with her sweetheart, and they were joined by two young musicians in their Scandinavian fiddle group.
As a consequence, there was live, wild music in these four walls. Music played live! They made it happen. They moved their arms and hands, and out came wonderful tunes, crazy harmonies. Dancing music.
It is a marvelous thing if you go outside and discover, growing in your own patch of ground, a plant--like black raspberries, for instance, or wild strawberries--that you've always yearned for. You've longed for it, and here it is! It has just come of its own accord.
That's what it was like with the music: it came here of its own accord.
On Saturday, I took core_opsis and her sweetheart (whom I'll call Quixote, because it's not his name) to gather cattail pollen for pancakes.
We collected this much golden pollen:
core_opsis made the pancakes. They were delicious. We're golden inside now.
There was an orchestra of frogs near the cattails, and Quixote caught one. (In other news--if cucumberseed should happen to read this--wakanomori saw a monstrously huge toad, surely a relation of Bufo rex. It was bigger than his fist.)
There were also masses of marsh forget-me-nots, which have a sweet, sweet scent, in among the cattails.
Also?
The garlic is twirling...
...and I found a heart, discarded but unbroken.
Jun. 28th, 2009 @ 01:34 pm
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| » land without shadows |
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Yesterday the sun came out, and today, for a few minutes, it shone, but now we've gone back to the dim land without shadows. It's a land without shadows because it, itself, is a shadow. The sky is a shadow, the earth is overcast.
I think of sovay's shadowless scholar, Justin Saint-Etain. He would be comfortable right now--no bright light to make him self-conscious about his lack.
Some questions:
Where do angels fear to tread?
By the grace of God, where go you?
Jun. 26th, 2009 @ 02:10 pm
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| » Man on Wire |
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If I die, what a beautiful death, to die in the exercise of your passion
--Philippe Petit
I got to see Man on Wire tonight. It’s the story of Philippe Petit’s planning and executing a walk between the Twin Towers on August 7, 1974. He spent 45 minutes in the air above New York City and made eight crossings back and forth between the towers.
( Read more... )
Jun. 25th, 2009 @ 01:04 am
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| » the squirrel and the fox, by littlemetaldrop |
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"Once upon a time, there was a squirrel. This squirrel was happy because he had a pretty tail."
( Read more... )
Jun. 23rd, 2009 @ 07:02 pm
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| » the door is open: you must enter |
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In some place I once wandered (it may have been a place I only dreamed, or else some place alongside this one), they have a custom that at certain hours on certain days, you must enter every open door you come across. The hour and the day vary from person to person, but if, on a summer evening, you have your door ajar to let the breeze in, and someone you don't know enters, it is no doubt because the hour and day are right.
The hour and day were right, but I just stood on the threshold. The roof is cascading down in slow time; for swallows and other birds, the hour and day are always right, and a hole in the roof is a door. (I apologize for the blurry photo)
Jun. 23rd, 2009 @ 08:52 am
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| » ferns for wings |
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There are giant ferns at the edge of the swamp behind the wanderer's hut. You can't tell from this photo how giant they are.
How giant? Up to my waist or higher, and longer than my arm.
When I was four, I picked ones like these--they were bigger on me then--two for each hand, and tried to fly with them.
.....
( Heian lovers and fairy lovers )
Jun. 20th, 2009 @ 09:40 pm
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| » reading The Four Quartets |
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Prompted by sovay, I'm rereading--or perhaps reading for the first time--through T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. Please feel free to skip this entry. It is long and more for myself than anything else. It contains no analysis and almost no reflection on the text--it's just a collection of sections I especially liked.( just a collection of quoted lines )
Jun. 19th, 2009 @ 09:58 pm
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| » (playing with words and thorns) |
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A Tree of Nails
I am a tree of nails
My tips a-bristle with needles and pins
Each pin a butterfly impales
The needles sew up shrouds and veils
And trace designs on blank-slate skins
But oh my nails, my hard, sharp nails
They seal the coffin while death grins
They know the hammer strike prevails
And what the tempering fire entails
They bore the sacrifice for sins
And ask themselves if faith avails
Jun. 19th, 2009 @ 02:06 am
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| » A Heian mystery |
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I don't read nearly as much of anything as I would like to or as I should, but I have to say that every time I've visited Beneath Ceaseless Skies, I've been treated to a wonderful tale or two.
Today, for instance, there is a great mystery and ghost story, set in Heian Japan (win!), by Richard Parks. It features a minor noble, Lord Yamada, who deals with the supernatural and handles Heian era detective work. "The Mansion of Bones" features a cursed mansion, ghosts, a bandit village, enchantments, trickery, devotion, and justice. And it's very entertainingly written:
“Lord Yamada, you’re a moody sort in the best of times, and I know you don’t like ghosts,” Kenji the scruffy priest said. “I’ll exorcise them if you wish, but you’ll have to hold the lantern.”
I sighed. “First, no one asked you to do so. Second, you charge exorbitant rates for such services. Third...tell me again why you’ve insisted on accompanying me? I didn’t believe your story about wanting to see the countryside, you know.”
Kenji smiled a rueful smile. “If you must know, matters are a bit unsettled for me in the Capital at this time. Therefore I felt it prudent to make this journey with you.”
“You could contain the abundance of my surprise in the husk of one grain of rice, with room to spare. Who was she?”
Kenji looked at the moon. “The wife of a minor palace official. You wouldn’t know her.”
“Neither should you.”
This entry started out longer. I started writing about a couple of other stories I'd read recently, but then I realized that there was no end to it--I'd be here all day, writing about stories--there is so much good, clever, interesting, funny, moving, scary, weird, exciting, thought-provoking, spine-tingling, poignant, marvelous stuff out there. One could devote a blog to it all ^_^
Jun. 18th, 2009 @ 11:27 am
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| » photos from Sunday's adventure |
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Courtesy of wakanomori.
Comments off just because I'm tired today--enjoy the scenery :-) (don't forget to check the rollover text)
( here be photos )
Jun. 15th, 2009 @ 07:55 pm
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| » Adventure |
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wakanomori took me on adventure this evening, out in the wilderness beside and underneath the high-tension wires. We could hear them buzzing overhead. It was a wilderness that alternated heath and marshland. Up high it was heath; down low it was marsh.
( Read more... )
Jun. 14th, 2009 @ 11:36 pm
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| » by clover navigate the stars and other small thoughts |
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I let the lawn be wild for many reasons, and here is one: so that by clover I can navigate the stars, though earthbound. The clover seems to bloom in constellations, and if I knew more than three or four constellations, I'm sure I'd recognize them as I looked across the lawn. I'm sure I'd see Aquila, Lyra, Draco, Bootes, and the astrological ones--Cancer, Leo, and Virgo. Instead I look at this clover flower or that one and think: around the corresponding star, are there planets? and on those planets, is there clover?
And here is another reason: lawn strawberries (not yet ripe)
( a tail without a squirrel )
( travels Elsewhere )
Jun. 13th, 2009 @ 01:39 pm
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| » photos from atomicat |
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atomicat lives out in the wilds of Manitoba, somewhere close to one of Manitoba's many lakes.
In the winter, he takes glorious photos of ice... in the summer, he takes photos of grass and birds and light on water. The photos are always breathtaking. I sent him a little money and asked him to surprise me with one, and he sent me this glorious shot:
But not only that, he included extra photos! glossy 8 x 6 inch shots of...
a flash of the sun amid hoarfrost flowers,
eyelash-thin stalks of grass in a world of ice,
a creamy plume of grass against a pale blue sky,
and others that aren't up in his gallery, but that are wonderful, like one of a pelican flying through the mist, and another of smooth smooth rocks, bathed in water frozen clear.
More and more photos came spilling out of the package--as shikuchi said, it was like a magic present. Not like; simply was.
Like all artists, he can always do with patronage, so take a look at his gallery, if you get a chance. It's here, at http://atomicat.com.
ETA And--a little something extra, from the man himself:
I'd like to add a couple of things and the first is always hard, hard to mention that I'm on disability without it sounding like a pity plea or anything like that. It's not of course, I live very well but this is my only extra source of income so it's much more than a hobby to me. Also I am trying to set up an artists collective here, kind of free-form drop-in center for people who just want to live and create without the pressures of the "real world" so any sales go to a good cause (paying back me mum!) and help meeting others who might be interested in something like this would be more than greatly appreciated. Hell, I'll sculpt you in bronze! Well, probably ice as we don't get much bronze up here.
So, keep atomicat in mind, for if you have a need for a cool present for someone.
Jun. 10th, 2009 @ 12:20 pm
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