Tag Archives: roses

Winter!

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fullsizeoutput_4aceThere is a beauty that comes with a blanket of white snow that is wondrous. I was able to take a snowshoe hike from my home on the recently opened snowmobile paths. There are thousands of miles of trails across Vermont and other northern states that open in the winter. Farmers agree to open their fences and gates to allow the snowmobile riders free access to zoom across their fields. There are also miles upon miles of groomed cross country ski trails in the town where I live. I have not taken up that challenge yet..you have to know and purchase different kinds of skiis for different conditions. It is more work than snow shoeing so I have stayed with that for now. My grandson has racing skate skiis as well as regular cross country skiis as part of his ski club training. It looks like fun and  perhaps at some point I will make all the purchases and take lessons but for now the snow shoes fit my budget and desires.

IMG_0144As I was snowshoeing along, I thought of friends that I wished were there with me. I miss having friends to take walks with. I have my family and enjoy time outside with them, especially my grandson who keeps me young, by sledding and tumbling in the snow with him. Yet, I was craving a peer to enjoy the beauty with. Then I realized how I enjoy the silence in the woods, the sound of my breath, the movement of the branches as snow weights them down, the freedom to choose my path forward. I imagined a friend with me, felt her heart and knew that she was walking next to me. I can have the silence and the companionship!

Today is sunny and very cold. -14 degrees with a wind chill that brings it down another 10 degrees. Brrr! I had a dentist appointment this morning in the next town over but cancelled it. It simply is too cold to be out and about unless it is a necessity. I will take a short walk to get some sun on my face but no lingering outside. My fingertips and toes grow numb quickly in these temperatures despite good gear.

fullsizeoutput_4ac8I have a sewing project to do today and have gotten out my knitting needles and yarn to see if I can take it up again. It has been decades but I discovered that youtube has tutorials that may help me get back into the rhythm of it. Lovely that folks take the time to share their expertise with others. A different world than what I grew up in or even raised my kids in. It was libraries and card catalogs to find out any information.

Flower websites are a lovely distraction in this cold. I have been searching for old fashioned roses that grow in this zone 3B climate. Not a lot but there are some available. I used to have a rose garden, that was added to every Mother’s Day by my kids. I had only very fragrant roses….pinks and peaches and creams. It was my delight. It is time to have that in my life once again. I do not own property but live here at my son and daughter-in-love’s place and they have room for roses. The bigger property of my former hubby that holds the rest of the family, has acres of meadow space to grow in. It is sandy soil so we are intending to try lavender plants this year. There are a few old fashioned red roses on the place that offer a lovely fragrance. It will be wonderful to add in some more plants in the pink-cream range that I love.

fullsizeoutput_4ac9We live in a time of little permanence as all changes so quickly. Yet, there is the energy of creation and beauty that calls. I think of folks eating all the delicious citrus and stone fruit that we planted in California. They are enjoying the fruits of our efforts and it is time to dig in here in Vermont and see what we can create. Even with a shorter growing season, there is so much beauty that is possible. I am amazed at the vibrancy of plants that return each spring to dazzle the senses. After a monochromatic landscape, the flowers’ colors seem richer in their impact on my senses.

There is a layer of ice under the snow that makes walking outside treacherous. I have grippers to wear on my boots and a dear son who salts and clears my walkway each morning. We took a walk yesterday late in the afternoon up the hill to see a neighbor’s cow and pony that he keeps for his young daughter. My granddaughter, at almost one year’s old, can say “moo” and likes to go visit the cow and listen to his moo. She rides high in her backpack on one of her parents’ shoulders, her round rosy face poking out as she looks about. Once she is older, winter will be a magical time for her.  My grandson, at six years old is in love with it. He gets to help clear trails in the woods with his grandfather, go sledding with friends, build forts and snowmen, cross country ski, skate on a neighbor’s pond with bonfires and treats. Outdoors is a paradise.

A deer statue peeking out at the local cemetery that I can snowshoe to.

A deer statue peeking out at the local cemetery that I can snowshoe to.

I am grateful to see it all through these young ones’ eyes. Everything is a discovery and there is enjoyment in it all. It helps me keep my sense of wonder as I see the patterns of frost on the windows in the mornings, the icicles dripping as the sun hits them, the magic of the trees coated in snow, the ponds and creeks frozen over with layers of ice, with currents of water rushing under and through. May the magic of nature fill our hearts and keep us warmly glowing.

Opening to Our Wildness

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Pink blossoms that I could sleep in, what a dreamy bed!

Pink blossoms that I could sleep in, what a dreamy bed!

Spring is in the air; new buds about to burst all about me, lovely shots of color in the blossoming trees, birds singing gaily in the gentle breeze, the sun rising higher in the sky, allowing my clothesline to receive its warmth and dry my sheets once again. It is a magical time as I savor the ground warming beneath my toes and the tiny violets poking their velvety heads above their green leaves. My spirit is responding by opening to the energies of newness, to the quickening of sap rising in my veins, mimicking the trees. I am ready to burst forth in radiant bloom. I am a rose woman, love the fragrance, the enfolding, unfurling petals, the rich colors. It is my protection, a gift from the Creator some years ago, a pink rose. Its perfume is associated with Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene, and being a Mary, I resonate deeply with it. My idea of heaven in my thirties and forties involved living in a rose garden surrounded by faeries and angels. I tended a rose garden of old fashioned fragrant blooms for years.

Today I am desiring to burst forth like a poppy, translucent petals, flowing like a gossamer gown, the sun’s rays clearly shining through. Exuberant is the word I feel when I look at them, dancing with the breeze, responsive to every lift and puff. The blossoms only last a short while, yet they are so alive in that time! I want to open myself to that wildness, that level of play with the elements. I am ready for the bees to burrow into my center and gather my scent to trail out into the world. I am tired of being tame and controlled. It is time for us to burst out of our old ways and let our instinctive nature take over. I want to live each now moment fully and suck the juice out of it. If it is a moment of anger, I want to feel its fire in my veins, scorching if need be.  If of joy, I want to sing it out in notes so colorful that the birds look up to discover the source. I want to breathe in the sylphs of the air and play with them as variations of the in and out breath arise. The undines of the water caress my body in the shower, cleansing me each day of the old and renewing me with their touch. All can be more sensual, more intoxicating as I open to it. I run out barefoot on the ground and my feet feel delight in connecting fully to my mother earth. I twirl about until dizziness spins me flat on her surface to feel her heartbeat, to attune my own.

I watched a fat bubble bee dive into this center with an intensity that was sensual in its wholeheartedness.

I watched a fat bubble bee dive into this center with an intensity that was sensual in its wholeheartedness.

The elementals are asking me to play with them, allow them a richer connection. Through this connection, I am able to delve deep into myself with love, discovering pools of it inside. In so doing,  I become more fully my truth. I want to swim in the seas of love for myself, be on the lookout for more aspects of myself arising to claim themselves as love. I am allowing the force of love I am to flow through my heart into whatever my hands touch, my breath moves, my body dances, my eyes land upon.  My desire is to so be love that it is radiated for miles from my being. To be shining in form, to have golden sparkles on my skin and the scent of roses arising from my body. Truly, the outer forms are not the goal, rather playthings to envision and delight in.

As humans, we are gifted the ability to express emotions, one of the delightful aspects of our beings. We have been taught that many of our feelings were unacceptable, that they were to be tamped down or hidden away. By suppressing them, we created a shadow self. We were taught to keep that hidden at all costs or we would be exiled from the group. We concluded that we were unacceptable, unworthy of love. Our bodies have become toxic dumping grounds that have served to keep us tethered to what we cannot own, holding self love in abeyance. How can I claim myself as a being of love when all this darkness is hidden inside? What would happen if my shadow self was revealed?

I want to dance the colors, sounds, scents out into the earth with all that I am.

I want to dance the colors, sounds, scents out into the earth with all that I am.

We were not taught the freedom of feeling everything deeply. We were taught to fear what in truth is our path to freedom. We throw up walls to the low notes and the high, prefering to live in the “safety” of a middle tone. We have given up our wildness, our fiery hearts to live in the confines of a single tone. The repetition, the isolation of that one note, became soul numbing. Isn’t that what makes us depressed, the sameness of the routines we have been locked into? The 9-5 routine that forces part of ourselves underground, as it would be a disruptive force to that lifestyle based on productivity at all costs. We give up parts of our soul as we are programmed to believe that our value comes from the work that we do. When we meet someone, one of the first questions is what do you do? Your value is constructed by your position in society and the amount of money that you make.  All contrived structures that keep us from a natural rhythm. When we see expressions of wildness, we sedate them, lock them away, idolize them, or damn them. In doing so, we separate ourselves from our own wildness that desires to be lived.

Every blossom a bell to be rung, my heart is in each one.

Every blossom a bell to be rung, my heart is in each one.

Spring is asking my wildness to come out to play. She is encouraging me to re-imagine my idea of heaven and to trust that I can bring that vision to life. I am breathing that in as I see myself in the spider web glittering in the sunlight by my door, as I feel myself dancing in the diamond sparkles skittering across the pool’s water, as I inhale the fragrance of the pink hyacinth that asked to come home with me from the store, as I feel myself in the center of the heart rock that I finger in my bathrobe pocket. All are nudging me into the inner planes where I know myself as a tone that can hold the deep notes in love and yet burst forth in trills that spark hearts alight. All of nature is calling me home to the knowing of myself as a magical being, in oneness with the all that is. We are being asked to come out and play in the fullness that we are. How delightful! Bring your wild heart to the fore. Let us become little children once more, romping through the wonder land that this earth truly is.