Just a lazy summer day

What’s one to do on a lazy summer day when the house is quiet and no one around? It's such a pleasure to be so pleased, to be at ease on a summer's day! So I go out to the garden. I was alone in the garden, thinking about the heat of the end of August, about the blue sky, about the need for a good rain… “Ssssh… listen! Can you hear it?” Certainly, summer is a season of sounds: bumblebees buzzing, bird singing among the branches of the callery pear and on the table the ice clinking in glasses of fresh lemonade.

With absolutely nothing to do but to daydream I soon fell asleep.... It wasn't too long though before out of the heat haze that hung over the garden something appeared... A mirage I thought! Or was it more like a fairy? Can fairies hypnotize you with their eyes? “Do you seek the road to Fairyland”?--this vision asked. “It's quite easy, wait till a yellow moon gets up and if you know the very words to cast a spell of might, you get upon a thistledown, and, if the breeze is right, you’d sail away to Fairyland along a track of light”.

That's what the fairy said to me. But oh what were the words to cast the spell? “Dance with me”!--the fairy said. “You must first learn to play the game of light and shadows”… And there I was, and there she was dancing, fluttering among the roses, showering herself with all the petals. She was so happy and free in her spirit... Her cherry-red fairy tunic reminded me of soft wings, and of little tiny red flowers, little sprinkles of flowers like a poppy meadow, like a field of Queen Anne's lace in the sunlight…. “Dance, dance in the month of August… dance, dance for the Queen of F'ey, oh my Sisters dance and sing, dance around the fairy ring.... La la la la la la la la”. Her hair wild in the afternoon breeze as she sang and dance and fluttered around the roses...

All the little butterflies danced around her... a colored joy to my sleepy eyes they flicker-flack as they flutter around… one of them, posed on the very tip of her toe, moved along with her and although the fairy danced, and flapped her wings ever so graciously, the butterfly stood there, like a pretty ring on the tip of her toe...

Oh how I love to dream of fairies can you imagine my delight? So unlike me, the fairy moved with such grace and ease, as if one with nature she floated with the breeze...

“But oh I had to dance even if I lack her grace… after all I needed to learn the spell that would take me straight to Fairyland... So dance I did… poor clumsy me dashed off behind the fairy and danced along the fairy dance of light and shadows... My feet hard on the grown, trippin', stumblin', flippin', fumblin'......

Until something marvelous happened: Dancing ever towards the center that is right here, nature enveloped us... away, together, the way dreams walk the earth and haunts the heart and find movement in our feet in the shape of wings... her shadow went in and out with her, and what I saw was very very like me from the heels up to the head... My shadow became her shadow, we were one and two and all the same... she stayed so close behind me, she's a fairy you can see; I'd think shame to think it was just a dream as that shadow became my own… It was such a wonderful and realistic dream after all...

Higher higher ever higher reaching to the sky she flew... then slowly drifting down as the wind began to sigh... at once she crossed the clearing with such gracious leaps and bounds and disappeared… her music was a symphony all the forest sounds.... I woke after that... her song still lingering on my mind: "fly away with me release the ground below there's everything to see and everywhere to go.. take my hand within your hand and watch our wings appear, the hidden world is seen, the distant world is near"... There are fairies at the bottom of my garden, you know! If you ever want to meet them let me know... my garden is not so very, very far away; you pass the gardener’s shed and you just keep straight ahead. I do so hope you could come... in the mean time, I’m learning, playing, having the time of my life in the garden… living is one third effort and one third just living… but of course, to make living fun we also need one third of imagination… Visit Susan, at A southern daydreamer for more "Outdoor Wednesday" delight.

Ah, morning!

Ah, morning... my favorite time of day. Especially early morning. I love to wake up early after a good night's sleep in this room on the second floor. Waking up here it's like a fresh burst of golden sunshine that dissolves the gloomy fog and makes the glistening grass sparkle with a green sheen... that lovely!

A day in my life...

I’ve been busy these past couple of days… yesterday we had some friends over for dinner in the garden… we had such a lovely time. The hot afternoon weather finally bowed before the cool evening, and as the day waned the garden took on a new persona…

We ate and talked and laughed and talked some more until the moon came out and the scent of petunias filled the night air and the garden became a magical world... As we enjoyed the beauty of the night, we watched the fireflies turn on their lights… one of nature's best shows features for sure: the signals that fireflies exchange as they search for mates on warm summer nights. I can just but marvel and wonder how these little bugs turn their belly lanterns on and off so quickly...

The morning brough a new beginning... it was cleaning day today… It is always a wonderful feeling when your house is clean, don't you think? And, of course, as I clean, I enjoy my things as I go along...

Can you tell yet how much I love tarnished silver? Is everywhere in my house...

I'm ready to go to bed now... I'm so tired. Remember when you were a little girl, or a little boy and you knelt beside your bed at night: "Dear Lord, hear my evening prayer. Thank you for your loving care. Bless all those I love tonight. Keep us safe till morning light, and make tomorrow a wonderful day".

Good night every one!

Last of lazy summer - Tablescape Thursday

Warm days and comfortably cool evenings made for entertaining outdoors are slowly fading away into the autumn horizon. So I'm sending off the season with a gathering in my garden…

The sun is beginning to set earlier and nights are getting cooler. It is hard to overlook that our sunny season is coming to an end. Why not make the most of lazy summer weekends by hosting an unhurried buffet, relaxed birthday celebration, or casual get together...

Visit Susan, at Between naps on the porch for more Tablescape Thursday!

Steal the idea!

In the cottage garden, there is no more lovely combination than pink and blue… soft pink roses mixed with blue delphiniums are one of my all-time favorites… blue retreats into the landscape, while pinks sparkles with cheerfulness. I guess that’s why I love this simple arrangement of faux pink roses in dazzling blue vase…. it makes such a bold statement!

I savor every single detail of the things I love, and ever since I saw this photograph on the Internet I envicioned a blue vase overflowing with my fragrant pink Chicago Peace roses…

No wonder the moment I saw this pretty blue vase at a second hand store, I knew I had to bring it home with me… and it only cost me $1! My pink Chicago Peace roses are waiting for the perfect moment to adorn our garden table in this pretty blue vase…. Come back soon to see!

The mystery of the woods

I love the woods… the deep woods hold a mystery that cannot be explained… is a sacred space, the sky’s almost without defect there, and like the flowers beside them, trees chill and shiver, embraced by mystifying breezes…

On its flooring, here and there, leaves coil and hiss and little tiny flowers fall like confetti in the grass… like little puffball-pink clover flowers, scattered all over...

I love these little sprinkles of flowers, I love to walk there and imagine I'm in a magical place... like a field of Queen Anne's lace in the sunlight and fireflies glittering above the pasture… sometimes, when I walk these fairy paths, I can see wood fairies around me, like teeny tiny specks of dust in sunshine… fairies either fly or else troop along special paths that belong to them. They can fly on winged insects or plant stalks, or they can simply fly through the air of their own volition...

The woods hold something greater than you and I... rivers of sunlight and pools of shade combine to form enchanted pathways…

Woods lie in a twlight place where magic and mystery have their own space... and I love being part of that mystery...

If I close my eyes, I can hear and feel the inaudible “hummmm” of the earth... It is not really a sound but a faint vibration. It is the ever present ‘humming” of the plants and earth and their energetic frequency... It is the heartbeat of nature and what I attune to when I'm in the woods...

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything in nature would appear to man as it is: Infinite, and marvelous…

Outdoor Wednesday

Which do you prefer, the sea or the mountains? Do you see yourself in a porch with a view to the ocean, or does your soul dwells in lush fields of poppies and sunflowers? Ok, let's find out!

Take a look at the following photograph and picture yourself sitting in that porch... the salty smell of the sea, the warm breeze, the feel of the waves... at low tide you can walk down to the beach and the sandbar would be teeming with horseshoe crabs, and seaweed, you would ask questions like: What things lie on the other side, what wonders does the ocean hold in its deeps?

Or perhaps you see yourself sitting in a shady porch facing the mountains, or you dream of a home hidden in the deep woods...

Ok, have you decided yet? As for me, I’m sitting in a chair swallowed by nature… no sound of waves hitting the beach; no sound but the calming effect of a soft breeze playing amidth the leaves of the big ficus trees. I have a garden –a cottage garden with generous blooms of hybrid tea roses climbing old stone walls and yellow-tinted petal roses with a scent reminiscent of violets-- but beyond this garden, farther off the roses and the blue hydrangeas and coral bells, I see a little creek steaming with life…. Nature changes here suddenly, from this point on there are no tended flower beds or grapevines carefully twisted along white painted arbors… only myriads of wild flowers and lush grasses under the lush tree canopies. From my chair I can hear the alluring sound of water murmuring secrets… I can see a frog leaping from one smooth stones to another, and fishes are catching the insects buzzing atop the water….

What's do you see in your dreams of home and happy days spent in that special place of your? What's the cost of dreaming? Whatever your dreams are, don’t stop dreaming… dreams are the force behind each happy palpitation of the heart….

Happy Outdoor Wednesday!

Visit Susan at A Southern Daydreamer for more Outdoor Wednesday delight!