Golden Garden Spider

A golden garden spider (argiope aurantia) drifts on a breeze-blown string, drops to the deck; a surprise too large to ignore.  

Legs, mostly black turn red near her egg-shaped body, golden yellow markings on her shiny black back, carapace covered in short, silvery hairs ... she holds herself motionless.  It is impossible to stop looking at her one-inch body and elegant legs. 

Soon, she climbs a strand of light, returns to her web under the leafy shadows.

Visiting Your New Home

 

Visiting Your New Home

In your new home, I wake each morning to the murmur of leaves.  Dappled shade and rippled sunlight play, gifts from trees that stretch upward over 200 feet.  Black Locust, Black Oak, Cherry and Chestnut, these trees are centuries old.  I lie in bed and feel the cool morning breeze, hear the whisper of fresh leaves on ancient trees and I breathe in, breathe in summer.  I wake canopied and cradled in a tree house.

The songs of trees chorus throughout the day.  Steel-framed windows hug the light, invite the light into every corner, and shine the light onto every pale wall inside.  Outside each window, there are sturdy trunks clothed in every possible shade of green. Inside this home, the outside is made welcome.

Inside of me, the outside is welcome, too.  The quiet, verdant world fills me.  I see green, breathe green; I feel green expand inside me.

Green enters my ears as birdsong and bright breeze gossiping in the leaves.  Green enters my eyes when sunlight calls on the shadows to dance.  Green enters my heart, peels it wide open to trade anxiety for attention and awe, to trade responsibility for joy in the present moment, to trade cares for being astonished and carefree.  Green enters my lungs, as I inhale wind and rain, sunlight and rainbow, fog and dew.  I breathe anew, easy and deep.

Green cradles me and comforts me in this new home.  Green draws me to a place where boundaries don’t exist, where doorways out and doorways in are translucent pathways, where every living thing is part of the same breathing and growing earth.

The leaves whisper, “Peace, peace, peace,” morning and night.  Under this canopy of trees, all’s well with the world and I am fresh and whole.

So, I offer my blessings on your home and to you, who live under this great green canopy of ancient trees.

And remind you:

All shall be well,

and all shall be well,

and all manner of things shall be well. *

* Quote from Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) English Christian Mystic

All photos are mine.

To learn more about this wonderful property, click here and go to Super Granny, a blog site written by Sally Wendkos Olds.

Autumn Moves

We've lived in this house for 6 years; that's the longest time I've spent in one place since my first marriage ended, over 21 years ago.  Between then and now, I've moved ten times.  I suppose I've become used to making a home, "pulling up stakes", moving again and starting over.

I love this home we're in now.  It's become more "us" with each passing season.  This home cradles us in its cozy spaces and offers peace and shelter and comfort.  I do love living here.

There are times when I feel overwhelmed by all the yardwork that needs attention, or walls that need painting, or collections of "stuff" that need sorting...but I know that this dissatisfaction rises within me; it is of my own making.

The house itself doesn't demand any of this from me.  All the house requires is to be maintained and be clean and be tidy.

Most of the times I've moved in the past, it has been in the autumn.  Perhaps there is something about this season that stirs me to dream of moving, of changes, of starting over, of making a new nest.  Perhaps it is some ancient animal instinct about preparing a solid nest for winter, for hibernation, readying a safe, warm space to live a different life.  A life that is hibernation, that is restful, that is more interior, more creative.

I don't know. I don't know why I feel this way when the air begins to cool, the morning mists appear and the leaves, a few at a time, begin to display their bright colours.

Something, unseen and nomadic, in me longs to go, to be somewhere else, to start again as the days grow shorter and the nights grow crisp.

It is my personal mystery!