tranquil
bird
BELTANE
seven collected thoughts...
...from the letters and diaries of Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
end-of-winter thoughts.
Dynamics between beauty and danger in winter landscapes.
Shimmering wonderlands contain low temperatures often not conducive to human life.
This sublimity is also seen in fog; within expansive whiteness, I am able to hide, but I may also be hopelessly lost. (Reminds me of Ken Kesey's Chief Bromden.)
Humans, weather, nature, metaphor, subjectivity. The way a human responds to nature reveals the nature of the human. Landscapes can be translated through the lens of the self.
Nature and humans are not two disparate things.
swans.
One winter month is left.
I am here to dust off this blog a bit, and will update more regularly as I begin to thaw.
This week I will plant seeds in the garden. I hope my world will bloom in parallel. This year feels very important, but also precarious. Transformation will not come easily.
“Gardens are not made by singing “Oh, how beautiful!” and sitting in the shade.”
long shadows.
The best is cool wind in ambient heat – a signifier of autumn.
Seasonal shifts affect the mind in dramatic ways; I am a different person in September than I am in June. This month I will write more, and think more, and fixate. I will become the forest floor.
Exploration of both land and self will define and punctuate this time, for me. These events will likely happen simultaneously, and involve wooden instruments like pencils and guitars.
The video at the end of this post is my new favorite thing – one of the most beautiful captured moments I have seen and heard in a long time. Let us too go sit by a lake, singing and strumming in the low and golden sunlight, as green becomes red.
the wolf.
I never intended to wait so long to write this entry, but sometimes words are hard to come by when there is more action than there is time for introspection. July has been filled. July is overflowing. Now, on the eve of its final day, I have a moment to back away from the canvas. A moment, in the twilight of the month: the blue hour.
Back in April, I saw a lecture by inspiring writer Rebecca Solnit, who said that the twilight is the hour when the dog becomes the wolf. This idea has lingered within me ever since. In the blue hour—a time of alchemy and metamorphosis—I become feral. Wild. What will August bring, I wonder?
This year has been transformative for me, so far. I have been trying to improve my awareness of the energy I feel, project, and absorb. I have tried to be less afraid, less avoidant, and more open to the possibility of genuine connection and sincere personal experience. Perhaps, one day, the trying will dissipate into being.
(my sister and I three days ago at the transformational festival Faerieworlds -- photo by Roger Rix)
Outermost.
I like to watch glacier calving videos. I find glaciers to be supremely beautiful, and I often imagine exploring the distant places where these giants live. Ultima Thule, a Latin term for “the farthest place,” refers to the northernmost habitable regions of the earth, but also to a concept of desire to reach beyond what is known, and to achieve distant or remote goals and ideals. Ancient Scandinavia and far nothern islands were known as Thule by Greeks and Britains—distant, mysterious lands, nearly unreachable—and thereafter, inspired poets adopted the term Ultima Thule, referencing their emotional responses to the concept of the farthest reaches of the earth. This connection between physical and conceptual landscapes reveals the desire to explore the unknown, and expresses a need for the romance of mystery and hidden potential. Through the metaphor of land and the Ultima Thule, the nature of oneself can be expressed and communicated in a unique, rich and effective way.
