A winter garden in an alder swamp,
Where conies now come out to sun and romp,
As near a paradise as it can be
And not melt snow or start a dormant tree.

A feather-hammer gives a double knock.
This Eden day is done at two o’clock.
An hour of winter day might seem too short
To make it worth life’s while to wake and sport.

Robert Frost

There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.

In one well
You have just a few precious cups of water,
That “love” is literally something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as a diamond
If it is lost.

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

There are different wells within us.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far, far too deep
For that

From “The Gift” by Daniel Ladinsky.

Four seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring’s honey’d cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness- to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

- John Keats-

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.”

“Take up our quarrel with the foe,
To you from failing hands we throw
the torch.
Be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep though poppies grow
in Flanders Field.”

Colonel John McRae, In Flanders Fields
November 11th – Veteran’s Day in America, Armistice Day, 1918, Remembered

Lately I have been struggling with what to say.   My blogs sit gathering dust while I wonder what it is all about. My reason for blogging was to write for myself, and for one other. This is the only reason I have come this far and stayed this long. These past few months have been a carousel of new blogs and old blogs, changing and then staying the same. Somewhere deep in my heart I think my blogging days are numbered.  It is time to write the ideas that keep coming over and over, the words filling my head. They are getting larger and more insistent.

Nothing is certain this morning and by the end of the day I may find myself back at it as if nothing had happened. It could be the fatigue speaking after a night of normally benign asthma descending on me with a ferocity I have not experienced more than a handful of times. My body aches and my muscles are sore from the work of breathing but all is well.

Halloween has come and now November is here. I have yet to sit with my candles. Like everything, my path feels uncertain as well and I wonder at times that I did not turn my back on it all.  The spiritual world is yet another battleground it seems, a battleground larger than most. Each person strives  to be better than the next, judging others and deciding who is worthy and who is not.  How can we allow ourselves to be so arrogant, thinking we can understand the experience of another.  Is it any wonder the people of the world are constantly in conflict.

My words are tired this morning, scattered and filled with some strong emotions. I know things will all fall into place but my mind cannot figure it out at the moment. Funny how things come to you at such times,  turning as I did to see the moon huge and golden shining in the window, almost with a smile on her face. She has seen me like this before and no doubt will again. I am off to bed now and hopefully she will send me dreams. I need dreams soft and soothing to be with me today.

It must be an unwritten law that the days you need tranquility the most are the ones where it cannot be found. Today is such a day for me. I woke up edgy, edgy being a rather kind choice of words. Today the new bed was arriving and I had much to do, cleaning and taking down the old one. Moving slowly and managing to argue with all who got in my way, I did eventually the old be down, after the new one arrived. They were early, something I should not complain about, however it was just another thing to upset my apple cart. Now the sheets have arrived, and I have only to finish vacuuming and I can put the bed back together. Alas, I am out of detergent and to the store I must go.

Today will get better. they always do.  The universe has a way of bringing things to you just when you need them the most. It has been working all week, the invitation from a long absent friend, the unexpected shooting star display on Tuesday morning and the loving note forwarded by another. Last night is was the moonbeams shining through my bedroom window.  I knew each time one of those things happened that all was well and despite the insanity surrounding me the world was quite beautiful.

We have been fortunate this week to have some sun and clear skies, the moon glorious as it waxes on the way to full moon beauty next week. The Halloween celebration is planned and though my sons’ lack of planning is starting to make me worry, I know it will all turn out fine in the end.  The energy of this time  of year is present and with it many interesting things have been happening. Dusting off the bedroom I find things out place, odd little things here and there.  Perhaps I will light a candle or two tonight, and weave a bit of peace around this house, and myself. For now I need to get back to the tasks at hand. Unfortunately, if I do have unexplained visitors they are not volunteering to do my work for me.  Perhaps the moon will grace me with her light again tonight.

“A child looking at ruins grows younger
but cold
and wants to wake to a new name
I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring
walnut and may leaves the color
of shoulders at the end of summer
a month that has been to the mountain
and become light there
the long grass lies pointing uphill
even in death for a reason
that none of us knows
and the wren laughs in the early shade now
come again shining glance in your good time
naked air late morning
my love is for lightness
of touch foot feather
the day is yet one more yellow leaf
and without turning I kiss the light
by an old well on the last of the month
gathering wild rose hips
in the sun.”

W. S. Merwin

It has been a bit slow getting things back to where I want them here. I have been working and am now stricken with the latest bug going around. This will be a good time to sit and putz with the blog and decide what I am going to do. I have had some ideas for the new one and hope to get that in shape as well.

Summer gave way to fall and that changed over to a brief taste of winter, all in a two week time span. The rainy blustery days were accompanied by falling temps and one night of snow fall, coating the trees with a beautiful white glaze. It is gone now and the weekend boasts more seasonal weather to come. The trees are losing their beautiful leaves now, falling at an  unusually fast rate. My tree outside the kitchen turned a beautiful red overnight and two days later it was down, the ground a carpet of crimson.  What was once a landscape filled with color, is now the silhouette of trees truly announcing the coming of winter.

My mind is a bit dull today so I will stop my post here. I just wanted to touch base so those of you visiting did not think I had once again fallen off the face of the earth.

Tonight is one of those rare moments where I am alone.  The hours of this night belong to me and it is a blissful quiet I claim so seldom. The stars are glorious and though I have yet to see a shooting star I have decided it is time to study the sky and the beautiful constellations I am so lucky to view.

I have loved stars since I was a small child, sparkling ones left on the well done paper at school to the ones in the sky. If I had my way my room would have been papered in the constellations and my bedding more of it.  Don’t get me wrong. I loved pink but stars held a fascination like nothing else. Halloween brought my love of stars out the most and it was as if I could see them on the shades of my windows, shimmering against their dark backdrop. I used to think it went away with as that special day ended with a sorrow in my heart I could not name.  I suppose it was a part of me I did not know, even then trying to get my attention, the call of something defining, telling me who I was.  Autumn and Halloween, brought strong connections to me so many years ago. I remember my mother remarking about it and wondering that I never lost my appreciation of the season. Of course I was a busy child  and did not pay as much attention to things. Then I was a busy student, a busy wife and mother and then a student again. Perhaps it is not until we reach a certain point in life when time becomes real, the hands on the clock moving at a different pace, that we stop and take notice.

Tonight the stars are mine, the distractions of the day gone and those around me slumbering.  There is a voice with me tonight telling me to sleep and dream, heard while standing under the stars, carried on the Autumn wind. A  journey with the stars through the night sky is a voice I cannot ignore.