May Day, May 1
May Day, continued, May 3
Flowers and Friends, May 13
Lilac Time, May 20
Divine Messages, May 27
May Day
One of my fondest and most enduring memories of kindergarten is making May Day baskets. Created in construction paper and decorated with nature images, the baskets honored the first day of May and the warmer weather and abundant blooms of mid-spring.
With no construction paper on hand and a late morning doctor’s appointment today, my May Day celebration this year took the form of an afternoon visit to one of my favorite places, the Morton Arboretum. It turned out to be a perfect choice, as the weather was just right (73 degrees and overcast, so not too hot) and nearly every spring flower was at the height of its blooming beauty.
On the west side, hundreds of thousands of daffodils cut great swaths of yellow across the meadows. Tiny wild violets dotted the grass, and numerous miniscule flowers around several trees gave the appearance of pale lavender snow. At one of the arboretum’s lakes, a row of redbuds in bloom on the shore opposite me colored the center of the lake’s surface a soft pink. Everywhere, birds flew and hopped and twittered and chirped as an often robust breeze carried flower scents to my most appreciative nose.
After making my way completely around the lake, more flowering trees in the central meadow near the education center caught my fancy. Five yellow fever magnolias with flowers just having opened upstaged their white magnolia sisters, whose blossoms had begun to brown at the edges and drop from their branches. More daffodils echoed the yellow magnolias’ rich color and rivaled their light but heady scent.
The last part of my wanderings took me down a path planted with yet more magnolias and some pink and white tulips that resembled peppermint candy. Viburnum just starting to flower offered mostly coral buds, with the few that had opened softened to pale peach petals. And here and there stood peonies, grown tall but not ready to flower. Their fat, tightly wound buds held the promise of future pleasures long after May Day passes.
- Thursday, May 1, 2008
May Day, continued
My May Day outing to the arboretum two days ago continues to inspire me with just how lush and fertile the earth becomes when the Sun makes its annual trek through Taurus. Besides the vision of so many flowers in bloom, that visit gave me a wealth of memorable encounters with wildlife.
While eating my lunch on a bench in the Fragrance Garden, two little birds kept me company as they hopped around on the paving stones and pecked at fallen petals, dropped seeds from nearby trees, and the earthen spaces in between the stones.
Later, while walking by the lake, geese were gliding through the water, and ducks were quacking quietly in the distance. Taking the way around the lake brought me face to beak with a Canada goose that stood in the middle of the path. After slowing my footsteps, it let me continue on and pass by about four feet from where it stood. Its unperturbed presence inspired me to stop and watch its mate, who was in the water, and another pair of geese swimming nearby.
With me standing absolutely still, the goose on the path went back to its business. It walked about on enormous webbed feet whose green-black color reminded me of army gear. Its spindly legs seemed inadequate to carry its copious torso, which wobbled widely to and fro as the goose walked, like a woman of the 19th century wearing a huge bustle. Suddenly the goose twitched its tail feathers three or four times, defecated, and then continued walking down the path. Joined by its mate, the two geese gorged on green plants growing near the water’s edge. Then one put its beak in the water and breathed out, stirring up the water, most likely in search of interesting edibles. After a few more underwater outbreaths, the pair plopped back into the water and glided away.
Continuing my walk after that brought me around a bend and into a clearing. In the distance, a little island appeared decked out in big oval beads because of all the turtles sitting there and sunning themselves.
After returning to the car, it was time to close my visit with a drive through both the west and east grounds before heading to the exit. On the west side, as the terrain shifted from prairie to woods, an adult white-tailed deer bounded in front of my car to join another adult deer and then looked back where it had come. Something prompted me to stop…and sure enough, a third deer appeared. This one was small, probably the child of the other two, and after it reached its parents safely, its worried mama relaxed and settled in to plucking up an enormous green plant, its leafy ends protruding two feet on either side of her mouth as she munched. All three continued their feast, their tails flapping.
Through the open windows, birdsong of all types reached my ears, and after a time the deer walked off into the woods. Resuming my drive through the grounds, a robin stood like a sentinel by the side of the road. For the rest of my tour, robin after robin appeared, either flying in front of the car or hopping right at the side of the road. The only break in my red-breasted company came from two bluebirds zooming together through the sky near a stand of magnolias.
Like an echo, my wildlife encounters continued after returning home. Two rabbits greeted me in my backyard, and like the goose on the path, they stayed put despite my arrival. They moved only when my footsteps brought me near the back door, and even then they simply moved off a few feet and then planted themselves in the garden. Seeing them there, so uncharacteristically confident of their place in the world and their right to be in the yard, made me smile. My heart sent them thoughts of peace and welcome and thanks for extending my adventurous afternoon with so many of the earth’s creatures.
- Saturday, May 3, 2008
Flowers and Friends
Last Friday, a friend came over to paint with me in my studio. She was kind enough to bring some flowers she had just cut from her garden, which she arranged in an orange glass vase she had brought, alternating two sprigs of old fashioned lilacs with three orange tulips and three cuttings of bleeding hearts. She put the flowers on the dining room table, where we enjoyed their colors and rich scents with our lunch later in the day.
That evening, a cold that had been coming on reached full bloom, and by the next day it had blunted my sense of smell so much that it denied me any pleasure from the flowers’ perfumes. It also has kept me housebound the past three days, longing to be outside in fresh air and sunshine. So the flowers have become my little link to nature, keeping me company three times daily when we sit down to eat and cheering me with every pass by the dining room.
Lacking the ability to smell most things has given me an opportunity to savor the flowers’ visual beauty. The lilacs’ dark green leaves showcase the flowers’ delicate, powdery, pale purple color. Over the past few days, they reminded me of their brief bloom time—even when left on the bush—as they began to droop and turn a more intense and dark shade of purple in a final show of color before they eventually dry up and fall off the branches. The tulips, meanwhile, have come into their own, morphing from a modest cup shape into a freeform structure as their petals push outward and flatten more each day. That change has revealed their vibrant yellow centers containing six black stamens surrounding a pale yellow pistil. It also has shown off the petals, which are not a uniform orange but a swirly, watercolor blend of yellow, orange, and red marked here and there with bold pen-and-ink strokes of deep green. As the petals free themselves and stretch out, their jagged, feather-like edges become much more visible, in keeping with their ongoing liberation.
The long branches of bleeding hearts continue to drape quietly, apparently unchanging next to their more dramatic sisters. Spiky medium green leaves contrast with the softly rounded pink hearts that bleed white drops. Their peacefulness and the obvious symbolism of their shape have made it easier to endure my forced time indoors by inspiring uplifting thoughts. They also have comforted me while thinking about a friend who died five years ago today…remembering his sideways sense of humor, endlessly loving heart, and fondness for cigars.
This morning, some of my sense of smell has returned, just in time to enjoy the lilacs and tulips before their scents disappear. Although my spirit feels grateful for this unexpected gift of fading spring pleasure, the unscented little hearts now touch me far more deeply, fueling meditations about the human heart and its miraculous resilience. Today, my heart feels full, stout and strong enough to hold memories of friends now gone and mingle them with thoughts of so many friends who continue to enrich my life.
- Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Lilac Time
Last Thursday my day included an outing to Lilacia Park in the western suburb of Lombard, IL, which holds a festival every May to showcase the park’s numerous varieties of lilacs. With the weather too chilly to eat my lunch outside, my visit began with munching on French bread and half of a stuffed pepper in the warmth of my car while admiring the wall of lilacs planted on the park’s east perimeter.
Afterward, a stroll into the park showed me the cool weather had preserved nearly all the flowers at the height of their blooming. Only a handful of lilac bushes had gone past their prime; a few others remained in bud, waiting for their turn to shine. The blooms on all the rest ranged in color from white to pale lilac to bluish lavender and on through pinkish lavender to mauve to deep purple. Wandering along the park’s paths, the flowers’ sharp-sweet scent filled the air and filled my heart with nostalgia for my childhood delight at the huge lilacs in our family’s yard.
Spring bulbs surrounded the lilac bushes and offered contrast in both color and height. Although nearly all the daffodils were spent, the tulips had reached their full glory: some presented softly rounded petals on elegant stems nearly three feet tall, while their shorter sisters commanded attention with spiky or feathery “parrot” flowers. Massed together in artful color combinations, the tulips formed a sea of Easter purple, pink, and white in one area of the park, with another zone warmed with a mix of red, orange, and medium pink. Other sections blended yellow and purple tulips, white and purple ones, and yellow and pink ones. A combination of yellow, pink, and nearly black tulips completely filled the area beneath an enormous tree.
Labels heightened the tulips’ beautiful mystique by sharing names such as Elegant Lady, White Triumphator, Westpoint, and Cum Laude. Others boldly announced themselves as Big Smile, Kingsblood, Texas Gold, Blue Heron, Flaming Parrot, and Fancy Frills. As for the lilacs, several honored public figures with names including Frederick Douglass and Presidents Lincoln and Monroe. Many of the white lilacs evoked the modesty of bygone days with both their color and names such as Miss Ellen Willmotte, Madame Lemoine, and Annabel.
Passing through the park’s center, the aroma of pipe smoke reached me and mingled with the smell of damp earth, grass, tulips, and lilacs. At that moment, bells in a nearby church rang 60 times in succession, as if to call everyone within earshot to attention. A glance at my watch told me it was 3 p.m. Then the bells pealed out a hymn, but a freight train on the tracks just past the park’s northern boundary drowned out the melody. The hymn ended just as the train did, and then the bells sounded out “Faith of Our Fathers.”
The entire experience gave me a feeling of being outside of actual time…and fully immersed in eternity thanks to Lilac Time. Every year, nature gives us a few weeks of Lilac Time, when a whiff of lilacs in bloom lets us travel back to our childhood, to our collective history (President Lincoln…and “when lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed”), and to an imagined past that can comfort us even as it inspires us to hold fast to our dreams and ideals as we create the future.
- Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Divine Messages
The Sun moved out of Taurus and into airy Gemini on May 20, a shift that invites us to focus on our minds, new ideas, and all things associated with communication and transportation. The call to attend to these areas actually began May 2, when Mercury—which rules Gemini—entered the sign of the Twins, and it gained more urgency on May 24, when lovely Venus joined the fray by entering Gemini as well.
Yesterday, the planetary energies grew more complex when Mercury went retrograde (meaning that from our perspective on Earth it appears to be moving backward, even though it actually continues its forward movement through the sky). On the same day, Neptune, which rules our spirituality and oneness with all creation (and our addictions and escapism, in its negative expression), also went retrograde. Jupiter and Pluto are adding their energies to this trend, as both already are retrograde.
When planets go retrograde, the areas of life associated with them slow down, become more challenging, and sometimes even go haywire. In the case of Mercury, computers and cell phones may stop working, miscommunication can become common, and travel plans (and plans in general) tend to go awry. With Neptune, our logical minds seem to fail us, as the world of dreams, illusion, and spirituality takes center stage. Jupiter retrograde halts our outward expansion, may force us to make do with less, and encourages us to contemplate philosophy, beliefs, and higher truth. When Pluto goes retrograde, forces beyond our control may affect our lives, and we may have to face issues about control and witness life changes associated with birth and death—and transformation.
Many people react to the often frustrating delays, changes, and losses that retrogrades bring by pushing harder and forcing their lives to stay on track with their carefully made plans and stubbornly held beliefs. That approach typically intensifies the retrograde period’s already stressful energy and brings us more forceful demonstrations of our need to let go and relax into nature’s flow. By contrast, if we can accept the natural cycles of breakdown and even destruction that retrogrades bring, we have a powerful opportunity to rid ourselves of what no longer works so we can move forward on firmer ground once the retrograde period ends.
Although the other planets mentioned here will remain retrograde for a few months, Mercury resumes its forward motion on June 19. So we have just a few weeks to step back from our overscheduled lives, review our thoughts and communications, and consider new and better ways to use our minds, communicate with others, and transport ourselves and our belongings.
Mercury’s retrograde period offers an even greater opportunity, however, if we move beyond material considerations to focus on our spiritual lives. In general, retrogrades invite us to go inward to explore our spirituality and to consider how we can achieve the highest potential represented by the planet and the astrological sign involved in the retrograde. These periods of apparently backward planetary motion also point us backward toward the past, allowing us to review prior actions, relationships, jobs—even prior lives.
With Mercury (the mind) and Neptune (spirituality) going retrograde on the same day, our call to the inward, spiritual way sounds even louder. From now until June 19, remember Mercury’s role in mythology as the Divine Messenger—a conduit for information between humans and the gods. When delays or other obstacles seem to block your progress, ask yourself what important message lies within the seeming chaos. Does a change in plans end up working out to save you from greater inconvenience? Does a canceled engagement allow you time for meditation or a walk in nature? Does a missed phone call mean you need to review and reflect before having that conversation?
We can make the most of this brief retrograde by slowing down and giving ourselves time every day for silent reflection and meditation. That way, we can hear the messages being sent to us by the Divine through that “still, small voice” that speaks to us in feelings, hunches, or a sense of inner knowing. So listen well, for when Mercury moves direct again, we will become messengers ourselves, with opportunities to share what we receive with others.
- Tuesday, May 27, 2008
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