the question “when does it cease being a peony?” never occurs to me. because it never ceases being a peony. it is intrinsic, even as its extrinsic identity falls – petal by petal – to the ground.
the storms came. and wind and heavy rain. and the peonies bowed to them. the blooms were large – triumphant pink – but couldn’t withstand and, though some blossoms remained intact, many began to lose their velvet petals as the deluge let up and the sun came out.
there was not a peony on that entire plant, though, that was not still a beautiful peony. even with pistil exposed, with stamen missing, with wrinkled or missing petals. through the storm – and after – it remained – drumroll – a peony.
the storm has been brewing. apparently, there is more to the storm than i understood – as i now realize that there has been much in the history of our country i did not learn – so much was about teaching to the test we missed the dualistic humanity of the narrative. the story is not so innocent; the intentions are not so magnanimous. there is much malevolence in the story of this country and current events are mimicking the evil of earlier times.
but the democracy has been in place now for two hundred and fifty years.
yet, devastatingly, we celebrate america’s birthday just as we are watching the takedown of america’s freedoms, laws, its very constitution.
when does it cease being a democracy?
that question had never before occurred to me with such a sense of urgency. until now.
now i am worried.
the peony is a peony any and all times because it has the heart of a peony. it is nothing else. it hasn’t been anything else. it won’t be anything else.
it isn’t hard to clean and fill the birdbath so that the birds in the area can count on a drink of fresh, clean water.
it isn’t hard to clean and fill the birdfeeders – or the hummingbird feeder – or the oriole feeder – so that, if necessary, the birds in the area can count on accessible, clean food.
it isn’t hard to sweep the driveway and clear off the seedshells on the top of barney so that the birds in the area aren’t sickened by wet, moldy seed or bits of bread that have become sodden and mildewed.
it just isn’t hard.
but neither is it hard to be concerned – to wrap your heart around – those people in our country who are hungry, who do not have enough food, enough clean water, who are suffering from hunger-related or poor food issues.
yet, the government of this country – the administration that is gluttonous even beyond our imagination – has eliminated millions of dollars funding yet another source of food for the hungry, for the downtrodden, those who can ill afford food yet face peril without it.
i am truly sick of it.
what is so hard about this?
ours is a government in charge of a large country filled with people of phenomenal potential – yet they are limiting the most basic element of need for those very people – so that they might fund a garish ballroom and its associated bunker, an ill-intentioned war and its apparently-coveted weapons of mass destruction, vanity projects, payola to criminals pardoned by a narcissistic hand, wildly expansive tax cuts for the wealthiest, crude corruption never before witnessed on such a cavalier, widescale plane, the slicing and dicing of healthcare, education, global health, medical research, climate change programs that actually help people, mass deportation sans conscience, and the elimination of lawful rights of people who fall under the machete of bigotry.
but, you say, what about the people…how does this government view the everyday, everysingleperson people?
a couple weeks ago, on friday night’s date-night, we had no plan – as is often the case. we so enjoy the sanctuary of our backyard that it, more than not, wins over going out anywhere. it was quiet and the sun was waning, a little cool. we added a layer and talked about watching a movie outside or taking a walk.
we hadn’t yet been – this season – to the marina in a town down the road where they sponsor live music at a biergarten on the harbor. and so we decided to jaunt down there for just a bit, walk on the boardwalk along the lake, listen to the band.
it was a stunning evening – between 7:30 and 8:30 the star of the show. the sun was setting on the western swale horizon of sand prairie grasses and fen. little to no wind, perfect temperatures, boats lining the docks, guitar strains in the air, a paramotorist sailing across the sky.
this past friday night, on friday night’s date-night, we left for milwaukee in humidity that made my hair into unkempt-fuzzy-curly-big-1980s. our third time to see our son perform at milwaukee pride, we were excited as ever. it was also a stunning evening – between 7:30 and 8:30 the star of the show – for us.
leading with the joy of doing what you really love, they took the stage and transformed the house. what had been a meager audience, with a complete lack of dance juju – with a lead-in karaoke non-dance-non-EDM-music performer inappropriately booked into a dance pavilion slot by someone who clearly did not understand how to shape the evening – well, they turned it around. in short order, there were hundreds and then thousands of people under the pavilion, dancing, raising their arms in the air, celebrating. i’m sure the next performers were grateful; our boys were one heck of a lead-in for that next slot.
we took photographs over by the water, the sky turning inkier as time went on. they went on to play a big nightclub gig and we drove home with lightning in the sky to our west, glad that the storm hadn’t arrived any earlier.
it’s saturday as i write this. tonight, i imagine, we’ll make some homemade pizza and a salad, maybe pour a glass of wine, turn on some music, and sit at the bistro table on our deck. our old dogga – who is worrying us a lot these days – will lay nearby and we three will watch the sky change as day moves to night.
“in contrast to our frenetic, saturated lives, the earth offers a calming stillness. movement and growth in nature takes time. … there is something in our clay nature that needs to continually experience this ancient, outer ease of the world. it helps us remember who we are and why we are here.” (john o’donohue)
this must be what’s missing. as we get besieged with new news – all pretty horrible, the stuff of gluttony, haughty entitlement and bigotry truly beyond belief – i have wondered what it is in these people that is missing, what it is in these people that doesn’t grok the evanescence of life, what it is in these people that drives them to push for – or cheer for – a world without natural beauty, a world that seems twisted, that convolutes nature – botoxing faces and bodies, annihilating parks and resources, canyons and forests, waterways, wildlife, wildflowers that will never bloom.
if you never stand in nature – still – never even for a moment in the tiny – or vast – space just outside wherever it is you hang your hat, you miss the air that swirls around you, the recognition of another-day, the exquisite velvet softness of a peony petal in the growth stage of a bloom when it has just begun to open.
how can you carry that – the grace, the scent, the unbelievable creation of peony pink – and be anything but awed? how can you watch the play of light on tight buds opening before your very eyes and consider your self-serving dystopian game more important? how can you ignore the explosions of color, the frequencies of sound, the vibrations under your feet and all around your body even when you are still? how can your gaze glance over beauty and not have any pondering about who you are and how you – a humble minute being of clay and stardust – fit in with all the rest? how can you breathe air – feeling the world in your lungs – and be unconcerned about the air and the world future generations will breathe? what is missing in these people?
“when you take the time to travel with reverence, a richer life unfolds before you. moments of beauty begin to braid your days.” (john o’donohue)
it is with great anticipation that i wait for the peonies. it’s a long process, from the ground up. from the tiniest maroon sprouts to buds just waiting to burst furth into the world – it’s glorious and wonder-full, and each year now i am thrilled to see the arc of these beautiful blooms.
my son said something in a social media post the other day that really stopped me. i went back and listened again. and again. he said that music waits for you…it waits for you to “come to it on your timeline”…it waits for you to come back…”it waits to accept you, ready to understand you.” it’s “never gonna go away and it’s always going to be there for you.”
and in those words, he brought tears to my eyes. not only because what he was sharing in that post about himself was vulnerable, not only because part of what he was sharing made me very sad to hear. but because his joy in the journey back to music – his music – was so clearly buoying, so very triumphant, a mighty trajectory of his creating.
i’ve been turning on the salt lamp in my studio lately. it’s like i want it to stoke up good energy in there.
standing next to my piano, i held the crystal divinatory pendulum in my hand, thinking about what questions to ask it…understanding that my subconscious would likely dictate what the answers would be. there are times that one is not really sure of one’s own subconscious thoughts or biases, the ability to translate from desire or idea into reality, into do-ing. times when pain pushes aside artistry.
i purchased this pendulum in a cool hippie store in northport, my hometown. on purpose. i thought it was striking – even in its simplicity – but i also wanted to bring home a bit of the internal-intuitive-wisdom and lighthearted belief-in-the-universe i had lost in that place decades ago. in these days of falling back in love with that harbor town, i wanted ways to surround myself with what i remembered about myself from the olden days of being in love with that water, that sand, that place. twelve dollars wasn’t too much.
and so, the other day i took it out of the small suede bag and held it first in my hand, reminding it who i was. and then i held it up and asked it to show me yes – it circled around. i asked it to show me no – it moved in a straight line back and forth.
and in the following minutes i asked it – words to the effect because sharing my exact words is just a bit too much right now – whether i would return to the music that was waiting for me.
it was still and then – i suppose after accessing my heart, the wistful tendrils of hope, the very tentative wisps of maybe-it-can-be-so, it circled wildly.
i thanked it and quietly put it away, not wishing to go any further right then. it was enough. we’ll see. the arc is not closed. the peony is going to bloom.
“music…it’ll be waiting there, ya know,” my wise son said.
we’ve gotten a few plants now. a couple sweet potato vines, a couple licorice plants. we also have our basil, chives, parsley, cilantro, jalapeños, cherry tomatoes and lavender. in the last few days we transplanted them into clay pots for our potting stand or their new home on our deck or patio.
our first day at the nursery was completely about reconnaissance. the second – at a different nursery – was to be wowed and make a few purchases…four to be exact. we were directly behind someone who had ridiculously-loaded carts of plants and flowers, along with a ridiculously-loaded price tag. we were just as excited as she was, only our joy was about our four plants, not a multitude. there is a reality to budgeting and we try to plan our purchases wisely, particularly in these times.
our third day out was crowded with people, the nursery was messy and the plants were picked over, but we still managed to find some herbs and tomatoes, lavender, salvia and sweet purple flowers whose name escapes me. our fourth day we filled in the gaps. the nursery had resupplied and we picked up the mint, jalapeños, and little white with purple flowers to contrast with the purples we had already gotten.
d lined up all the pots and planters on the patio and i took out my gloves from the old cabinet we had placed on the deck. and then it started.
from individual elements – these small (though not inexpensive) plastic pots of baby plants – turning into our own backyard sanctuary, filled with potential of beautiful flowers and edible produce. exquisite. each morning we look out the window – in the earliest morning light – to see these new residents of our home. each morning they are enchanting.
one day – over a century ago – all the pieces of barney were put together into an upright piano. where he went from there is unknown, but we found him in the church’s basement boiler room, not exactly a prime location for this musicmaking instrument.
after we managed to have him delivered to our backyard instead of to the junkman, we were thrilled with his presence. his aging might have been preserved by some marine wax, but we chose to go organic with barney. he’s way more of a granola piano than a botox piano.
through the years we have now had him, he has become more and more gorgeous, more and more a part of our backyard, offering shelter to the wee critters, a landing pad for those who fly or scamper. barney’s higher-purpose presence is grounding and part of the peace we feel when we step out our back door.
it’s hard to believe that it is almost june again. already. summer is at the edges.
the last two nights we have had dinner outside on the deck. as the sun just begins to slightly wane – to fall off into acute angles with the horizon – we sit and chat while the garden lights reflect in the pond. we wait for hummingbirds to zoom to our feeder. we watch breck quake in the breeze, marvel at the play of birds and squirrels, adore our dogga laying on the deck in the shade. it is all enchanting.
as the dark begins to settle into the alcoves of our yard – the ferns breathe deeply, the peonies stretch – we yawn and make our way inside. as we settle in under our quilt we talk about our day. we talk about the delights of new plants, marvel at the perennials we are astounded to see again. we are grateful for plastic adirondack chairs, a tiny bistro set, two old gravity chairs and a couple round rugs – the trappings of our deck – a place we truly find enchanting.
as it turns out, we don’t require much to be enchanted.
as close as we are, as much of a presence it is for us, we sometimes forget that this giant lake is right there.
we walk along it, we drive past, we linger – staring at it. but we still forget the magnitude of lake michigan, its oft-seemingly-own weather pattern, the big-water force it has on us.
i’ve never not lived near water, big water. my growing-up town on long island is between the atlantic ocean and the long island sound. i lived in florida a hop, skip and a jump to the gulf of mexico. on island we were right on water’s edge on the lake michigan side. and here – a block or so off the lake. i don’t know what it is like to live in an area that doesn’t have big water, that’s land-locked. i suspect i could find it difficult. so, near or on a lake will have to be the future minimum standard. somehow, big water all makes me feel closer to the far horizon, closer to the universe, closer to a two-way with god.
valerie bertinelli in her book enough already wrote, “i [] had long since lapsed in terms of structured religion. but i [] had develop[ed] a recipe for my own spiritual soup. it still included a belief in god, a higher power who accepted collect calls in emergencies.”
i, too, have lapsed in terms of structured religion and i, too, have my own spiritual soup. after thirty-five years of working for churches plus all the rest of being at churches, i have had enough of it all. i realize now that my last church job did me a favor when they fired me. they broke the continuity, making it possible to NOT do that which seems obvious TO do. i am grateful. it was a long time and i endured much at churches that you would likely rather not know. it was time to stop.
but my faith has not stopped. and as i stood at the edge of the sound a couple times in last months, as i stand at the edge of our lake michigan, i can feel the tidal strength of the universe. i can feel the days sink into nights into days into nights. i can start to understand the stars and the vast-ness. i can feel the connection to that which is so much bigger than me.
maybe that is what big water does for me: a place that brings the divine closer, just across the waves, just beyond the shore, just brushing the sand and leaving shells and rocks in its wake, just right here for me. a place to gaze and stare, a place to ponder and pray.
early in spring, the markings on jumpseed in the underbrush look like hearts. they capture my attention because, well, hearts.
as jumpseed matures, it is said that these markings either fade or disappear entirely. so, no more wearing its heart on its sleeve…so to speak.
before settling in to write today we watched three john denver videos – of his song for you, his song the wings that fly us home and his annie’s song. we leaned back against a stack of pillows, snugged under a quilt on what has been a rainy day so far, linked arms and listened.
i am married to a man who is not afraid of weeping. he is not afraid of the tears that come to his eyes as he sees or hears something beautiful. he is not afraid to feel or show how he is feeling. his heart is emblazoned on his outer leaves. and i hope that no amount of maturing will change that.
i am fortunate to be a mush married to a mush. it doesn’t take much to touch us, to really drive home something sentimental, to get lost in the wistful, to recognize goodness and wonder, to feel yearning for kindness in the world, to fight tears.
i feel – in these times – that we are walking with a perennial lump in our throats, a deep sadness that rises with each new report of corruption, of cruelty, of destruction, of extremism, of degrading of peoples, of the administration’s intentional divorcing of this country’s constitution. our own fear and disappointment – added to the utter chaos in this land and globally – make a kind of despondency close at hand. “unbearable,” a friend wrote about the news. yes. truly unbearable.
it helps in some ways to talk about it though we are finding fewer and fewer people who really want to talk about it. i’m not sure why that is. silence – or the lack of conversation – does not make it go away. centering only on other things can feel like looking through rose-colored glasses – a bit of pollyanna-ing. for me, the sharing of worries or frustrations or fears seems authentic and feels like a way to support each other through these times.
but not every plant wears its heart on its leaf.
though…in these times…wearing your heart on your sleeve – even just a bit – a heartbroken heart watching the decimation of our nation – may be the thing that can bind us together. and talking-it-out might gird us all with the fiery grit we need to push back, to reclaim goodness here and everywhere.
“…and the spirit fills the darkness of the heavens/it fills the endless yearning of the soul/it lives within a star too far to dream of/it lives within each part and is the whole/it’s the fire and the wings that fly us home.”
the snow on the mountain groundcover creeps under the fence. it tries to take over the ornamental grasses, winds its way around our peonies, fills in spaces we didn’t necessarily need filled in. it’s invasive dressed in pretty. it has even given the wild geranium a run for its money. fortunately, the geranium – particularly under barney – has survived the overbearing groundcover and its sweet pink flowers are getting ready to bloom now.
i saw a post the other day that was a gut-punch. the words on the post read: “it’s illegal to feed wildlife at national parks because they get dependent on handouts and forget how to survive. it kinda sounds familiar, doesn’t it?‘ the photograph with the post was depicting minority moms and children in line with shopping bags and grocery pushcarts.
it literally made me ill. because it was posted by a neighbor with a comment that read, “hmmmm.” just despicable. and downright hard to believe that there are people who really feel that way. haughty. sickening. overbearing. uncaring. bigoted.
creepy and invasive.
that kind of bullshit post enrages me. it’s unconscionable. the hatred is just exhausting. how dare he/they be so righteous, so pompous, so entitled? with clearly no heart at all – no empathy – no love-one-another in their soul, no we-are-our-brother’s/sister’s-keeper. the judgment and demeaning attitude.
i could go on.
but i won’t.
because i am hoping that most of us in this country will be like the intrepid wild geranium. that we will bloom despite the invasive stuff that purports to be pretty.
that we will be able to spread goodness and kindness and compassion.
that we can possibly be the nation we were destined to become in a world that needs the caring interdependence of all people.
that we aren’t dreadful people who believe despicable things and then share those extreme racist views with the world, hoping for “likes”.
snow on the mountain is “incredibly invasive and will spread indefinitely if not restrained.”
*****
sorry about the language. but sometimes it fits. 🤷♀️
d just painted over a huge canvas that prominently featured a star. i asked him why he painted over it, for i like stars, the universal message of stars, just the whole thing of stars. he said he thought that the painting looked like a hotel print, so ixnay on that aintingpay.
he has since continued painting this canvas – with earth-toned hues. day is done is clearly – to me – a portrait of the end of day beyond a dramatic hill landscape, the sky glowing a pre-dusk orange, the sun setting.
“day is done/gone the sun/from the lakes, from the hills, from the sky/all is well, safely rest/god is nigh.
fading light dims the sight/and a star gems the sky, gleaming bright/from afar, drawing nigh/falls the night.
thanks and praise/for our days/’neath the sun, ‘neath the stars, ‘neath the sky/as we go/this we know/god is nigh.” (“taps”)
star-flowered lily of the valley are important pollinators and – later in the season – develop berries which are a perfect food for birds. they truly hold an important place in the ecosystem in the woods…’neath the sun, ‘neath the stars, ‘neath the sky.
the star-flowered lily of the valley is native, its white star-shaped flowers delicate. they are little constellations of beauty, nestled in the green of their frond-y leaves. they are joyful little flowers; they simply make me happy as we hike.
because stars are like that.
and we can all use a reminder of comfort and protection of the universe. particularly now.
the question “when does it cease being a peony?” never occurs to me. because it never ceases being a peony. it is intrinsic, even as its extrinsic identity falls – petal by petal – to the ground.
WEEPING MAN mixed media 48” x 36” – available for purchase
reverse threading 