Words, Feelings, Stories

  Sleep oh sleep Rapture of the deep Unknowing Unsowing Ungoing Sweet sleep Emptiness to keep So steep So deep No peep Forever

Sitting on my porch listening to the rain. Watching the water dance in the streetlights. İ hear the birds stirring and waking on this damp and probably dreary morning. They seem to be complaining as vigorously as the "good morning sunshine" people do. İ smell coffee brewing. Been smelling it for about a half hour now. Lovely strong and warm. İ smell it most mornings when I'm out (or have my window open) at this time. İ like to think it is from the coffee shop up on the corner. They open at 6 weekdays, i think, so maybe they start brewing early for themselves. İt could be a going to work neighbor, of course, although i don't know of any who are up and about quite so early. İt is good to sit here in the Outdoor. Too bad it's not quite warm enough to sit with bare feet on the wet wood. That connection would feel so completing. Completion is what I need to earn my rest, i believe, and it has eluded me for all this night and the day before. İ am weary of the incompleti...

I need trees! The pictures just aren't doing it today. At @20 degree temps, I can admire the waterfalls from my chair, but it's just not working for trees. I need the shaded hidden green areas where the giants dwell. They needn't be green themselves, which is fairly rare in this place at this time of year, but they need to be somewhere in the verdant hidden spaces that only tree lovers can find and cherish. And touch and smell, and be immersed in. I need to put my hand on the bark, and feel in my soul the stirring of the sap as the year begins again. I want to feel the moss, live and lush from recent snowfalls, or dry and dusty from cold, and feel the incipient life therein. I want life to blossom and winter to end. I want to touch the trees that touch the stars.

This cold winter's morning, as the darkness edges away from the horizon, I find myself wishing that I was--elsewhere. And maybe elsewhen. What would I be doing, and where would I be? Sitting in a rocking chair on a porch, wearing flannels and wool, wrapped in a blanket, a quilt, a comforter. Which or how many of these would depend on the temperature of the air and the prevailing winds. In my hands a hot drink. It doesn't matter what. Tea, coffee, cocoa, a toddy, hot lemonade. The steam from the drink both warms and wets my nose. The warmth of the contents warms the cup and the hands that hold the cup. Or do the hands warm the cup, keeping the fresh warmth from escaping? No matter. It and I am warm and we hold one another in warmth. Before me are treetops. Behind me, behind my home, are trees. Layers of trees. Rows of trees. Rising solemnly in ranks and ledges and lines. They stand silent, or Not-so-silent, in the breaking of day. They rustle, they murmur, reminding me of stretc...

Tonight's the night! Put on the socks, wrap a quilt around my head and shoulders, wrap my hands around a hot cuppa (for me, coffee) and sit on the porch. It rained today, so the light is shimmering. The lowering temperature has the air smelling so clean. The clean smell of falling leaves and fading greens; of pollen-heavy goldenrod and foxtails, and all those plants. of long darkened evenings and darkening days and long nights ahead when warmth is the best aroma and even in our electric or gas or other technology age, the scent of warmth calls to mind woodfires and cooked food and family. Too soon the coming cold will be tiresome. The wet, dark evening will be an annoyance. We'll be over it. the plants will die, the greens will brown, and the trees will be bare. But for now, for tonight, we can enjoy the changes in the air. We can cherish the passing of the seasons. We can await the coming hours of darkness knowing that, one way or another, the light will come again. Eventually...

There was some magnificence in today though. It was a beautiful day with a nice breeze. The birds, bees, and butterflies were busily enjoying all factors. It's so nice that the small creatures of nature appreciate the work that I (and mostly my friend) put into creating a place for them. It is also "nice" that I can sit at my desk and look out my door or window and see them going about their lives, adding their own color to the patchwork and their own movements to nature's dance. I saw the little white butterflies that we called cabbage moths playing tag or chase, whooshing up an ascending breeze and drifting downward when it passes. They chased one another through the flower beds and across the yard for I don't know how long. It made me laugh. The magickal highlight today wasn't the white wingers playing tag together though.  The highlight of the day was a single monarch butterfly. This monarch, which looked to be as large as my hand, cruised in the center of...

İ came outside to enjoy the pleasant night, and hoping to perhaps see some of the fireworks I can hear so clearly. As i step out my door, and sit in my chair, I see, just above the treeline, the crescent moon. İ hear the pops and the bangs and the booms from all sides. İt sounds as if the village of Bethel is reenacting war between the north and south, with occasional rat-a-tats rat-a-tats from the 'far' east. All the way down the hill maybe. İ see no flashes of light from any of these noises, not even the ones that rattle my window glass. Through all the noise, the moon remains. Patient, waiting, silent. There. And the night is blessed

I hear the peepers tonight, and the little green frogs that hide in the grass, and the groggy frogs from the flat topped roofs across the street. In the trees between the main street houses and the Union St houses I hear many chattering insects. It sounds as if the treetops may be being used as pillows by an invisible giant. While he may not be seen, he can certainly be heard. He is snoring, and the sound is reverberated through the treetops. I don't know if it's different species of cicadas, or different sexes, but one group is the murmuring breath in, and then I hear the buzzing exhale until it finally peters out. The quiet mumble again, and then the loud breathy buzz. It may be that there are Other insects - grasshoppers, katydids, mantises - that I no longer recognize easily. Bats are zipping and dipping around, as fast as a blink. Black shadow's against an orange sky. Occasionally two will dance together for a moment before vanishing. Yes, nightfall is a ...

It's been a grayish rainish day today and now that night is creeping in, the sunlight has taken on a misty mystic haze of almost-but-not-quite-a-rainbow light. The air glows like golden dust. The sun is behind the trees now. The trees are haloed in the diffused light. Not quite colors quiver as leaves tremble. Along the alley, a long lazy ray of white light makes its way down the pavement, perfectly placed evenly with the edges. At those edges, where the light meets the grass, the color blossoms into golden fizz, dancing above the ground. I reach for my phone, my only camera, and try to capture this ethereal moment that was already fading. I cannot, of course. The magic is beyond both my skill and the phone cameras abilities. I hope my words have helped you to see it. A slice of time such as this is meant to be shared,and i am sharing it with you.

It's an eerie night out here tonight on my porch. The frogs are there, and The crickets, and the locusts, but there's something different. The night sky glowers pink-orange. . Not really strange, because there are pink street lights beyond The trees, but it's not The usual color, even when clouds are hanging low. There are strange Shadows flickering throughout the yard. In the flower beds right in front of me. Along the front of the building on the left side of the yard. On The cars in The parking lot to my right. The Shadow's wander The alley and appear from behind and alongside the houses. They peek. They scamper. They scurry from here to there. Lights and reflections wink and blink. Things move. Things rock, wiggle, twitch. The wind blows gently but not unusually. It seems a night like many others. And yet. The night choir sings on and on. The pink sky outlines the trees clearly. And Shadows creep across the street and dart through the yard. It may be The...