A Monday meander: Back to the gardens

Clouds at sunrise this morning.

I have come to understand my spirituality as an ongoing internal lyrical state of consciousness, semi-consciousness and unconsciousness in which I find meaning, comfort, refuge, inspiration, mystery and strength.

It seems more like the dreaming of my inner child’s creaturely heart than my rational mind – although they are both interwoven. It is somewhat like music. It is like nature. It offsets the influence of my worried contemporary self or the hard speedy material world that would overwhelm me if it were not for this nourishing sense of otherworldliness, and the lyrical wisdom and feeling that arises there in my spiritual self.

With spirit, one is able to have and hold many feelings, and live a felt life. The spirit supports and negotiates between our feelings, instincts and intuitions. It is good at conflict resolution. It supports our prophetic vision and our creativity.  With spirit and feeling we may find a way through the darkness.

~ Michael Leunig, Spirituality, Art & Innocence

Morning colors.

There are still plenty of leaves left on our trees, still plenty of colors, but the colors are changing to golds and browns and more and more leaves are letting go and flying off of the branches.  Before we go into the season of crows and bones (bare branches), I thought I’d share more photos from our trip to North Carolina when there were still blooms in the botanical gardens we visited.

Something purple.

Yesterday’s Silent Sunday post featured one of the sculptures from the North Carolina Botanical Garden.  I was excited to come across it as we meandered through the gardens.  I enjoyed all of the sculptures, of course, but this one in particular includes a snippet of the Rumi poem I borrowed from when I named this blog.

The whole.  (“Auspicious”  Artist: Theresa Arico)

As I think I’ve stated in a previous post, I would love to visit the gardens again in the spring.  Actually, having had the opportunity to do this when we lived near Longwood Gardens (in Pennsylvania), I’d love to visit in all seasons.

Some sort of mallow.

Some of the flowers were winding down for the season.  Others (asters, for instance) appeared to be at the peak of their season.  It was fun to look for the sculptures as we wandered around.  Some were quite obvious and others were well placed within the plantings of the garden so you had to look for them.

There were lots of tiny visitors in the garden exploring the flowers.

How was your weekend?  It was warm and quite humid here.  M and I decided to spend the day at the beach on Sunday.  It was lovely out there, as always, but much warmer than I’d expect for this time of year.  Much more crowded than I’d expect, too.  We rode our bicycles on the Wildlife Loop on the Virginia side of Assateague Island (the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge).  There is a 1/2 mile path off the Loop road that leads you to the beach.  There are bike racks there and we were startled to see they were almost full.  I don’t know why it was so surprising.  We are obviously not the only people to recognize a good bike and beach day.

I’m pretty sure this is another mallow.

I had the big camera in our car but didn’t bother to take it out at all during this trip to the beach.  I took a few photos with my phone and left it at that.  After parking our bikes, we went out onto the beach to take a walk.  We have never explored that section of beach (heading north, towards the Maryland border) and it was interesting to come upon an old ghost forest (dead trees) where people have been leaving offerings of shells and feathers that they find on the beach.  I left two offerings of my own.  Two of the prettiest shells I found.  If you’re going to leave an offering to the goddesses of the sea and beach, they should be good offerings, don’t you think?

One of the few remaining purple coneflowers still blooming.

Since I switched gears on you from garden to beach, here is a photo of what I mean by an old ghost forest:

Ghost forest on the beach.  You probably can’t see the shells and feathers too well in this picture.

I think it’s going to take me a while to sort through all of the photos I took over the past month or so.  I have taken a lot of hikes and walks, and visited quite a few different places.  It will be a good way to spend some of the crows and bones months (late autumn and winter).

Back in the botanical garden with the asters.

Thank you so much for dropping by and joining me on another meander.  Let’s meet out at the Point for sunset this evening.  It’s arriving early, now that we’ve done the “fall back” thing.  It’s scheduled for 4:57 PM.  Wow.  That IS early.  It’s been warm today but they say the humidity levels should be dropping.  You might want a light jacket.  It’s always cooler near the water.

Please be safe, be well, and take a little time to just Be.

Emperor Penguin (looking a little out of place in this climate). Artist: Mac McCusker

A few of the 10,000 reasons to be happy:  3,031)  Time traveling through memories via photos.  3,032)  This beautiful autumn day.  3,033)  The guy that services our septic system twice/year.  He keeps things humming right along as they should.  3,034)  Sundays at the beach.  3,035)  Puerto Rican style rice and beans.

“Cardinal Points” by Debbie Cohen, Jude Casseday, Bruce Edwards. (There were several. I’ll bring you another one or two next time.)

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