Thursday, July 29, 2010

My enchanted window

Delicious window, I love to see my world through you… summer is at your feet, buzzling insets and birds wonder beyond your enchanted sill...
This is our bedroom window, it faces south... the roses that have climbed our outside wall have become a nature curtain. Waking up to this every morning is pure bliss. The perfume is intoxicating. Soon they will be climbing into bed with us.  Is like sleeping in Wonderland.
 Oh Mother Nature you lovely thing!
 

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

White Wednesday

Pale white, bright white, creamy white, blue tinted white and especially the old faded white of everything antique. And I'm standing firm. White is still my favorite color and I'm not going to be changing my mind anytime soon. Just look at this beautiful rainbow of white. Absolutely lovely!
 

I'm joining "White Wednesday" for the first time!

Monday, July 26, 2010

Sprinklers

I love rain and rainy days, but here in our highland climate rain is sporadic and unusual in summer. So I just have to enjoy and appreciate what I have....
Sprinklers! They’re a delightful note in the early morning, a daily celebration of shiny silvery drops... I do not want to miss a single cycle... It’s an enchanted time of day. Water pours forth like a rainbow against the sun’s shiny rays, playing on the lilies, making puddles among the tall gladiolus, which by the way, are deliciously starting to bloom in magical colors of carmine and soft lime green... I love the misty gray rainbow that water forms against the greenery of the garden, making it look somewhat obscure and mystical, almost sacred... this picture in particular reminds me of the garden with the famous "Bird Girl" statue at "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", although I like to think that my garden is a garden of good, and that has nothing to do with evil. Although each picture might look the same to you, if you look closely and pay attention to details you'll see that each water pattern is different and that no droplet is the same... each one has a proper name, and a personality all of their own... I love hearing the water making beautiful music, tapping on the roses, splattering on the windowpane... Magic lingers a little bit longer every morning after the sprinkler celebration ceases... the garden is swathed in tiny shinny stars, and wet grasses whisper softly as they sway and lean against each other under the morning sun....
I tell you, it’s pure bliss walking on this deliciously wet green floor covering of grass and flowers!
What delightful things have you experienced or enjoyed lately?

Friday, July 16, 2010

In the garden on a Pink Saturday

I am truly enjoying summer in the garden. Most of the roses are putting new shoots again; new buds are forming and soon they will be embellishing the garden for the second time around. In the meantime the summer bloomers are here; getting ready to go on stage... it’s their time to glow, time for the butterfly bushes, and hollyhocks and the glorious gladiolus to reign. It’s the time of the butterflies—the winged fairies that I so love seeing floating from tree to tree, from bud to bud; from flower to flower atop the waves of the wind...
Beverly, at How Sweet the Sound is celebrating another "Pink Saturday", and I'm joining in. I love playing with shades of pink... How about you, what's your favorite color?
Have a lovely weekend everyone!

And don't forget to come back on Monday for another

"SHOW OFF YOUR COTTAGE MONDAY"!

Photobucket

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

In the woods

Magic has always fascinated me... but not just any kind of magic. I’m talking about stories woven in the threads of myths and legends of various cultures around the world that contain elements of nature in them... especially the woods.
 

Perhaps my fascination with the woods comes from sensing in their darkness and, sometimes inhuman uniqueness suggestions of our precarious existence. Or perhaps it is the mysteries the forest hides in itself, or the trees standing undaunted, permanently providing shelter and visions of mysterious forms and exotic sounds and rare birds, and children lost in the thickets stumbling into the hands of evil witches...

I suppose I’m also drawn by the mystery found in the woods because I enjoy the use of the imagination. And so, whenever I go to the forest I set out to weave my stories... stories that go back to the old good days of childhood living in a far faraway country in a far faraway land where woods and its mysteries were an intricate part of our heritage.
 
As a child living in the Hollow I would ride on my father’s cart to Hollow Market. Yawning, I would nestle among the sheepskins; the eggs and milk, still warm, beside me. The back of the cart would carry the animals we took to sell. Such was our way of life. Childhood passed slowly, and life was carefree and wonderful. I used to love those early Saturday morning rides to the Market. Only one thing troubled me: Having to cross the dark mysterious woods! For as much as I loved the woods (and still do), crossing the terrible “Culhollow” could only mean bizarre encounters amidst distorted bushes and cramped, twisted knotted by time old trees. Their mossy limbs, low spread, served as home for pixies and ghosts of all sorts.
 
Just the mention of it still makes me shiver: “Culhollow”; that forbidden place. A land of sacred oak groves, druidical temples, and places of deep mystery... but there was no other way to town back then. To reach Hollow village it was necessary to enter that fearsome land of deep flora and ghosts a plenty... you headed north, out of the village, pass the cottages onto the slate-covered descent, and followed down into the woods...
 

On the south side, you’d find a spring of the clearest and the purest water. It bursts from beneath a rock, and, like most of the blessings found in Hollow village (whether we avail ourselves of them or not) it still pours its limpid fountain in fruitful abundance...
 

This river nourishes a thousand beautiful mosses and wild flowers that still today carpet the woods...
 

But for millennia these dense, mystical woodland has been held in awe and for much fear. Many villagers described it as being the most haunted place on earth, others warn that every space, tree and gnarly root is filled with merciless pixies and goblins who steal their young and hide them amidst the moss and leaf strewn tree roots. Locals will never venture near once the sun begins it slow descent over the land, for it was when the dark mantle of night drew tight that the heinous denizens of the wood stalked its paths in search of their human victims.


After a while we would reach a waterfall, where two weeping willows grew, each entwined with the other. No tree had ever grown there before, and now two weeping willows grew, trailing their leaves in the water, as though reaching after something they both had lost...


I knew the place as “The infamous lovers”, because of an illegal love affair between a beautiful maiden called Lady Adelaide and a married man... both were drastically killed by very pious and furious villagers in that same place, which it is call something different now. Lover’s Fall, they call it, the young folk. This place is only visited by the young, now. The old never do, and if they have to pass by it they make sure to make haste, and feel something cold, like a shiver. And they only glance at the mysterious willows growing there; a passing glance that says everything they need to say, and nothing more... They knew that the ghost of Lady Adelaide was known for visiting the place, and some even assured having listen to her very sad song of love, by the feet of the mysterious willows...
 
So you can imagine my fears as a youngster when crossing that part of the woods. The day I told my father that I’d seen the ghost of Lady Adelaide wondering the woods he laughed so hard he cried. “Folk stories”—he said with a click of his tongue, but I could see in his eyes certain hidden fear.... it was true; each of my words beard only truth; just as I’m telling you now. Truth as it is written and spoken...
 
The ghost of Lady Adeline wasn’t crying or seemed sad... in fact, she was glowing as she danced among the old giant trees and picked wild flowers that she would then graciously place in her hair and the folds of her dress...
 

That was the day when I decided I should never again be afraid of the dark mysterious woods... The Culhollow, they call it. You would never again fear walking into that tangled web of trees if you were among the few lucky souls who came across Lady Adelaide’s ghost. I was transported into a mystical world of moss carpeted boulders, lichens of all descript, finger like oak branches, all engulfed in a wonderful smell of earth and age. That's how wonderful and enchanted it was. Unfortunately, all of a sudden she looked back and saw me...
 

Magic was broken in a flutter of thousand butterflies as she run away...
 

I remember seeing her floating atop the foliage and mossy limbs. At one point, as if she knew I was watching her, she stood and turned. I saw her led a smile that spoke volumes when only silence was needed. Then she vanished... like a streak of cinnamon light into the depths of the wood.

THE END!
OK, I’m well aware of my “soppiness” and tacky ways... but I believe I’ve already given you a hint on that fact through my profile, and about what a soppy corny girl I am... so I hope all this soppiness and tackiness haven’t offended you. Besides, listen to what my alter ego has to say:
 
Anne Shirley: Don't you ever imagine things differently from what they are? Marilla Cuthbert: No. Anne Shirley: Oh Marilla, how much you miss. In real life, those pictures were taken this weekend at our first campout of the year. Unspoiled forests and lots of wildlife are in that area as well as scenic byways. I love the incredible beauty and the diversity of the landscape. For me, it would be almost impossible not to dream and give myself to fantasize when surrounded by such beauty. I hope you take time to meet with Nature this summer as you camp and leave your worries behind. I would love to hear your own stories.