The Haudenosaunee Confederacy of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations in what is now upstate New York has been meeting for 1,000 years. United by a common goal to live in harmony, each meeting, large and small, is opened with the beautiful and incantatory Thanksgiving Address. This enfolds each gathering in a culture of …
Blue is light seen through a veil. ~ Henry David Thoreau ~ I have tens of thousands of photos in my files, the vast majority flowers. They are often of the same flowers, taken in different years and at different places, so the numbers don’t reflect the number of species. But still, in all those …
It is such a foundational act, to give name to. But not all naming is good naming. Naming can be an appropriative act of conquest and overwriting. ~ Robert Macfarlane ~ Before 1735, if a European botanist wanted to specify the plant we know as a tomato, he would write, in Latin: Solanum caule inerme …
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention… ~ Mary Oliver, The Summer Day ~ Attention is the gateway to love and awe. There is no wonder without it, whether it’s attending that stops us in our tracks or the kind we carefully make time for and nurture. …
Attention is reverence: celebrating the Season of Creation Read More »
When I started my landscape design business in the 1980s the staff at plant nurseries nicknamed me ‘the weed lady’ because I kept asking for plants that most people were removing. As much as I could, I wanted to plant the grasses and wildflowers, trees and shrubs native to the glacial moraine known as Long …
One early May day some years ago I was walking with a friend in a preserve near her home. I had discovered the trail the day before and was so delighted with the abundance of wildflowers I wanted to share them with her. She was equally delighted. And then, as we finished the trail, said, …
I am a star that has grown out of the earth, created from the gifts of my celestial sisters and the rich ground at my roots. I hover above the soil I grow from, luminous in constellations of white and rare, palest yellow in quiet, dappled forests. A vibrant sea of purple, royal in exuberant, …
Vision is an art, and nature an old master painter teaching us how to see the underlying reality of things to be — before they actually are. ~ Monica Gagliano ~ In 1977 the Museum of Modern Art in New York City had a major exhibit of Paul Cezanne’s paintings. On my first visit, I …
Cezanne, shamans, and the intelligence of plants Read More »
The act of looking, of paying attention, is akin to prayer for me. It can be transporting….Plants are my doorways to wonder. ~Robin Wall Kimmerer~ The first year I saw nothing but handsome, corrugated leaves with irregular brown markings. They reminded me of the trout lilies in my native northeast forests, so I looked forward …
When my partner George died in October one of the things I dreaded was the coming rainy season. After my brother’s death in June, I was consoled by the beautiful blue and yellow days, the long soft evenings, the silken roses in overflowing gardens. By October I feared I had only darkness and storms ahead. …