Autumn Days Come Quickly

Autumn days come quickly, 
like the running of a hound on the moor. 
–Irish proverb

If, in the fall of the leaves in October, 
many of them wither on the boughs and hang there,
 it betokens a frosty winter and much snow.

Spring rain damps;
Autumn rain soaks.

Of autumn’s wine, now drink your fill; 
the frost’s on the pumpkin, and snow’s on the hill.
–The Old Farmer’s Almanac, 1993

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
~ Albert Camus

There is a harmony in autumn, 
and a luster in its sky, 
which through the summer is not heard or seen, 
as if it could not be, 
as if it had not been! 
~Percy Bysshe Shelley

“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” 
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“Fall has always been my favorite season. 
The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, 
as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.” 
― Lauren DeStefano, Wither

Wishing YOU well and much joy!


Willy Nilly Friday

Mosaic Monday

SaveSave

Let's Party!

"Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!'"

~ Robin Williams

My Freesia are blooming.
I have them in pots on the balcony.
I know spring is here when they start to bloom.

I love the yellow ... such a happy color!

I found some more freesia bulbs well after the season last year.
Such a small little bulb to make pretty flowers.
I bought them and added them to the pots.
The pretty red is one of the new ones.

"Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! 
I must get out and breathe the air deeply again."
~ Gustav Mahler

Freesias are strongly scented. 
They have five to 10 single or double flowers.
Stems are usually 10 to 18 inches long with little or no foliage.
The bell-shaped freesia blooms up to seven days and comes in
white, golden yellow, orange, red, pink, mauve, lavender, purple and bicolors.

I'm joining Sun Lit Sunday

and 

Mosaic Monday.


Wishing YOU well and much joy!

The Tropical Version of Christmas!

This is what Christmas looks like on my street.

The neighbors are ready for Christmas

and 80 degree weather!

"One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore.
"Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't
get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books."
-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Love the simplicity!

"I have always thought of Christmas time,
when it has come round, as a good time;
a kind, forgiving, charitable time;
the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year,
when men and women seem by one consent to open their
shut-up hearts freely,
and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow
passengers to the grave,
and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."
~ Charles Dickens





"Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, 
and we are better throughout the year for having,
in spirit,
become a child again at Christmas-time."
-Laura Ingalls Wilder





"I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow




Wishing YOU well and much joy this Christmas season.

A Happy Yule and Solstice to you,too!

I'm joining Sandi at
No Place Like Home

and

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

"Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house,
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse."
~Clement Clarke Moore

"Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind.
To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy,
is to have the real spirit of Christmas."
~ Calvin Coolidge

"Christmas is the day that holds all time together."
~Alexander Smith

"Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold,
everything is softer and more beautiful."
~Norman Vincent Peale

Wishing YOU well and much joy!

(All the images were taken during a shopping trip with one of my sisters by choice.)
(No, I didn't buy anything! It was hard to pass up the skates!)

All Through The House

"Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house,
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse."
~Clement Clarke Moore

"Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind.
To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy,
is to have the real spirit of Christmas."
~ Calvin Coolidge

"Christmas is the day that holds all time together."
~Alexander Smith

"Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold,
everything is softer and more beautiful."
~Norman Vincent Peale

Wishing YOU a Cozy Christmas
and a New Year
that's warm and bright.

I'm joining the lovely Judith for Mosaic Monday.

Good Morning!

Wednesday Wisdom

Good Morning!

Good Morning!

"There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly-lit front porch."

                                            ~Robert Brault

Enjoy the Little Things

Mina in her favorite toy, enjoying the sun.

 

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” ~Robert Brault

Living

“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.” 

~Eckhart Tolle

A Soul HIdden In Everything

“How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.”  - Frances Hodgson Burnett (from A Little Princess)

Japanese Garden

"Photography is not like painting. There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative. Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."

~Henri Cartier-Bresson

Engaging Your Creativity

Today the group at The Next Chapter is talking about Engaging Your Creativity, Chapter 3 in the book 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women by Gail McMeekin. I read a few of the comments this morning that my fellow members made, and found that I wasn't the only one who wasn't turned on by this chapter. Some of this may be my age. I'll be 60 this year and I've been through the pains of working in jobs that didn't interest me and spent a lot of time wondering where I'd gone wrong. I just fell into my profession. I worked in a hospital while I was going to university and once I graduated I just continued in the medical profession. I made a living wage and met Mr. Dragon - so not all was bad. And, it wasn't bad, just didn't *turn me on*. But I was successful enough to be able to retire (thank you Mr. Dragon), became a professional volunteer, which I really enjoyed, working with Ronald McDonald House, art centers, humane shelters. It really wasn't until the last 10 years that I've been able to do what I really wanted to do -- Asian art. Again, it's volunteer (mostly) -- doing research for the curators in asian art and is especially exciting right now because the galleries are moving into larger space. Lot's of research to do and I love it. I get to "lecture" (with a very little L) to the docents and try to teach them why I am so excited by this art -- ancient and modern.

I did relate to Jolen Godfrey (Independent Means, Inc.) when she said, 'For the last 20 years, I have watched when I have begun to bounce off walls, and that's real information that things are not great. Rather than put up with a really dysfunctional, unhappy life, I have at least been able to say, 'Uh-oh, things aren't right here, and I need to find something that will make me sane and more at peace with myself." Amen! That's usually when I'd start a new yarn project of some kind and escape into the meditation of the project -- calm, serene work.

I did find a few quotes that I especially liked, but have to say that my favorite was one by Dolly Parton, "The way I see it, if you want the rainbow you gotta put up with the rain."

This brings me back to last week and my list of things I love. I prepared the journal page (above) and have started to list them there (sorry,no picture -- I ran out of time today). Here they are (so far):

• teddy bears
• museums (all kinds)
• books, libraries, used book stores
• dragons, wizards, fairies, magic, science fiction, fantasy
• laughter
• art, yarn, crochet, knitting
• nature, birds, trees, critters, oceans, rivers, snow, flowers, waterfalls
• kitties,puppies, pets
• tea, tea pots
• soup
• Buddhism, meditation
• the color green
• anthropology
• the zoo
• chickens, deer
• cookies, jamoca almond fudge ice cream
• chocolate
• candles
• ceramics, hand built/thrown pots
• butterflies, dragon flies
• Chinese and Thai food, sushi
• music
• pink plastic flamingoes
• picnics
• college baseball, hot air ballooning
• champagne
• gardens
• snowmen
• walking barefoot

I'll leave you today with a quote from OFFERINGS: Buddhist Wisdom For Everyday:

"On the day that you were born, you began to die.
Do not waste a single moment more!"
~Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Gardening at the Dragon's Gate

I love January. It's the month when all the seed catalogs arrive and millions of gardeners begin to dream about the new plants that will be in their gardens. I understand that the seed companies believe this will be a big year, because of the economy, for first time gardeners who want to grow their own veggies.

My favorite seed catalogs are Cooks Garden and Seeds of Change, but I must tell you about a company I just read about --Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. It was started by a young couple in the Missouri Ozarks. The company is 12 years old and I'm just discovering them. I believe deeply in heritage preservation -- in seeds and livestock (one of the reasons we have an heirloom turkey at Thanksgiving despite the expense). I will add the Baker Creek link to my Link Mania sidebar today! You can visit them here.

I bet some of you thought, when you saw the title for this post, that I was talking about our garden. After all, the dragons do live here! Nope. Gardening at the Dragon's Gate by Wendy Johnson is about Wendy's experience as a gardener at the Green Gulch Farm and Zen Center in northern California. I read this book over the summer slowly devouring it. Everything is here from geology to preparing the soil to farmers markets to mushrooms to insects (good and bad) to, well you get the idea. All of this plus a little Zen. Johnson has spent 30 years at Green Gulch. The book is a celebration of inner and outer growth. I enjoyed the book. It was a little slow in parts -- lets say weighted down with necessary information that I wasn't interested in (even when maybe I should have been). I love the resources at the end of the book that are in chapter order and include references on books, articles, web sites from everything imaginable in the gardening and Buddhist world. It will take me years to read all of the information I have *bookmarked*.

Here are just a few of the quotes I have taken from the book that *grabbed* me.

"A day of no work is a day of no eating." ~old Zen proverb.

"You enter the garden because you love creation." ~Alan Chadwick (one of Wendy's teachers).

"Plants grow and purify the air, they clean toxins out of polluted soil, they make food and medicine that support all animal life, and they supply the world with fuel, clothing, tools, shelter, warmth and beauty from their growth and metabolism."

"Every garden is unique, quirky, distinct and disobedient, just like every gardener...".

"Watering is a form of courtship...".

"...all four seasons of the year are present in the span of one day. Thus, spring is the dawn of the day, full summer is high noon, autumn falls at dusk and father winter oversees the midnight hour."

And lastly, my favorite, "You are fine just as you are,' Suzuki Roshi used to say (another of her teachers), 'and you could use a little improvement." Me too!

I've had great fun the last couple of days visiting the folks on the gypsy caravan in the One World One Heart giveaway. There are well over 500 bloggers participating. I have almost visited each blog and once I do, I'll go back and spend more time with, I hope, each and every one. The world is full of talented and interesting people. It has been great fun to *meet* many generous souls. You can find the list by clicking on the image on the sidebar. Thank you, Lisa, for putting the gypsy caravan together!