Here And Now

October 24, 2024October 24, 2024 / Hermionejh / 1 Comment

The yard is frosted over this morning, late autumn is tip-toeing over the land. The maple in the side yard is nearly naked – its yellow leaves left a skirt around its base.

Everything is quiet as I breathe in the chilled air. Nothing disturbs the break of day.

It’s good to be here now and to be alive to witness this.

I know many are suffering all through our Country and all through the world. There is no taking a moment to breathe in the quiet morning air. There is work to do.

Mud needs to be dug out – in some places it’s three or four feet deep. They need helping hands, a kind word, food, and rest.

I’m sorry that there are people who believe that officials are holding back funds or national guard workers when those officials are there to assess what’s needed. I wish we weren’t easy prey for mis- and dis-information.

There are good people everywhere but there are also those who delight in causing harm.

Maybe we’ll lose this experiment we’ve been privileged to have the last few hundred years, and maybe a dictatorship with the censorship and grueling conditions of such rulers will cause regret in those who welcomed it and helped usher it in, but it will be too late then. There will be no more speaking out.

History and living examples of authoritarianism are begging us to see what happens under those conditions, but sometimes something set in motion has to play out.

Much like the season turning, leaves falling, and frost deadening the bright summer growth, spring will come again. I just hope it’s not before years of winter.

Aww, Nuts!

August 28, 2023 / Hermionejh

https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/1/horse-chestnut-tree-martine-murphy.jpg

The birds are quieter in the morning now, but the crickets fill the void with a steady, almost electric, hum. The frenzied morning calling and flurried activity of mating and then feeding their young has turned to the yearly southerly retreat for several bird species, while many others fly deeper into the woods to find their colder weather shelters.

Now the nut trees are burgeoning with their fruit, and the squirrels are busy harvesting them by scavenging or chewing them off of the tree branches where the nuts might crack on the street below, or at least entertain the squirrels by pinging unsuspecting walkers.

There was a huge horse chestnut tree outside the last apartment I lived in with my son, and the weekend I was driving him to college, I heard him yell out an “Ahhhh!” in mild distress a few times while he loaded the car with his belongings.

It seemed that several squirrels were chewing off a load of the nuts right over the car and onto the sidewalk next to car, and my son had been hit with several of the spiky nuts while bringing some boxes to the car.

“I think they’re targeting me,” he said.

“Maybe you look like a nutcracker,” I offered.

“Hilarious, Mom.”

Just then, another barrage beaned me on the head.

“Ow!” I called out as I took off for the shelter of the porch. Several more nuts had thudded onto the car, bouncing off onto the street.

“I told you!” he said, as though I hadn’t believed him.

After that we went around to the street side of the car to avoid any more nut bombs, but the squirrels had probably chewed them all off at that spot by then.

I think about that day this time of year on my daily walk when the squirrels – or gravity – start unloading the horse chestnuts, black walnuts, or acorns from the trees that line our country roadside. I’m more careful to give those trees a wider berth this time of year.

Season’s Greetings

September 4, 2015October 6, 2019 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

August is the beginning of Druid autumn, I found out several years ago when telling a friend that I feel mournful in August, even though it’s still summer. Learning that the Druids considered August the beginning of autumn resonated with me, and gave me a place for my sadness this time of year.

It’s now September, and the physical signs of change are showing. Red and yellow veined green leaves began spotting the road under the maples about a week ago. Some are fully red now, and although a harbinger of the coming cold season, they are so pretty.

I picked up several of my favorites, and as my mother showed me when I was little, I placed them between sheets of waxed paper and ironed them together. I put a rag underneath and on top of the waxed paper, and kept checking to make sure it was working.

Pressed autumn maple leaves

My S.O. wasn’t all that impressed when I showed him later, but its a simple craft helping me ease into autumn. I’m sure I could have created something more sophisticated, but I also enjoyed its childhood link.

As the earth has moved in its orbit, the garden is now burgeoning with tomatoes, green beans, squash, carrots, and late corn – harvest time well under way. Maybe I’ll learn to can food this year, but it feels too much like work… 🙂

I suppose we could dry the tomatoes, freeze some of the corn, carrots, and green beans, as well as what we’re doing, which is making as many recipes possible with all the fresh food.

It’s also nice to know where and how our food was grown, and I feel more connected to our land than before I started gardening.

The cooler breezes are more welcome than the humid dog days we’re leaving behind, and sleep is more restful with cooler air too.

I’m not ready to give up summer, and wish it lasted at least another month, but I’ll savor all the warm days ahead, and do my best to accept rather than resist – or figure out how to move to warmer climes!

Wild Wind

October 21, 2012October 22, 2012 / Hermionejh / 6 Comments

The wind has been stirred up all day. Tonight’s temperature is milder than this morning’s was, even though the wind never let up today. Today started with yesterday in its mood although not composition. It was a summer-like day yesterday, temperatures in the mid-seventies, barely any wind, and mild until after I got home around 11pm.

I had a late rehearsal for A Streetcar Named Desire, last night, and wasn’t feeling well when I got home, but attributed that to the local Pumpkin Festival’s Thai food vendor’s fare I had earlier in the evening. I woke up this morning still feeling badly, so I laid low except to retrieve some items from my car, which is when I noticed how cold it had become overnight, with the wind punctuating that discovery. I felt better as the day wore on, and studied some of my lines, and eventually got myself together to make band practice in the later afternoon.

The ride to my band mate’s house involved several enchanting moments of swirling autumn leaf showers, and a visual feast of bright and muted colors as I passed russet colored oak leaved trees, red, orange and yellow-leaved maples, yellow-leaved birches, brilliantly red-leaved sumacs, and other dazzling autumn colors in the many shrubs and vines I passed on my way.

It was fully dark outside by the time practice was over, but the wind had persisted and rushed around me as I made my way to my car. The quarter moon hung low and deeply yellow-orange in the starlit sky, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to have entered another dimension. (It would have been horrifying if I’d entered another dimension, just not surprising.)

I lingered at every stop sign on the way home tonight to hear the wind while I watched the moon. I was reminded of several nights when my son was three or four and we lived in South Portland, Maine, and I would sit in my wicker rocking chair gazing up at the moon, while listening to the night wind. I think those moments reside more potently in my memory because of how difficult my every day life was back then.

Tonight, however, was a night of power. This month represents possibility to me, even though its natural significance relates diminished, rather than increased, potential. Nothing new can start without shedding the old, and if the ancient religions had any validity, this time of year heralds the meeting of the seen and unseen worlds more strongly than at any other time of the year.

At the very least, I felt somewhat transported by the whispering winds’ incantations as I sat entranced in the glow of a bright and low quarter moon.

All Hallows

November 1, 2011November 1, 2011 / Hermionejh

Rabbit, Rabbit. The ancient Celtic year begins today, marking the start of winter. Winter was already ushered in rather harshly with our recent Nor’easter dumping thirty inches of snow in some areas. I feel lucky that my town escaped with just over a foot of the heavy, wet snow. I was only out of power for part of a day, while some of my friends are yet to get back their electricity.

Yesterday, I visited my Mom because her phone was out and I wanted to make sure she made it through the storm alright, even though I know that one of my aunts was staying with her, and the guy who works for her and lives nearby would also have checked on her and I figured I’d have gotten a call if anything bad had happened. Then I thought that all phone service in the area might be out, and I just wanted to visit regardless of anything else. I was a bit worried that fallen trees or downed wires would prevent me from making it to my mother’s house, and it might well have earlier in the day because I saw evidence of cleared trees and other debris all the way there.

It was almost evening when I arrived, and I brought a flashlight in case it was dark by the time I left. My mom doesn’t have electricity or running water, so the storm changed nothing for her except interrupted phone service.

The glow of the kerosene lamps, and warmth from the wood stove, enveloped and welcomed me even as I was welcomed by my mother and aunt. They were happy for my unexpected company and we chatted about the snowstorm’s effects, and how weird it was to have a major storm before Hallowe’en, as we sipped coffee and evening began settling in. I don’t know if it was the time of day and the way the lamplight glowed and cast slight shadows on the walls, or the steamed windows and cooking smells from whatever dinner my mother was making, or simply spending time with my mother and one of her sisters, but there was something so extraordinary about being there that I noticed and enjoyed in the moment, and that feeling, or experience, actually, has stayed with me since.

I left before it was dark and made my way up the path without needing my flashlight. I noticed the stillness of the woods around me as I walked, and had a sense of being present to life in a way that I rarely sense.

I got up this morning and began working on things that I often think about doing rather than starting – or finishing. I feel my life changing, almost radically (for the better), and I hope that’s true.

Shivering Wind, Blustery Day

October 25, 2011May 19, 2015 / Hermionejh

Image via Wikipedia

Fluffy white, cotton-ball clouds are moving lazily through the bright-blue sky misleading viewers to the tempestuous scene closer to the ground as furious gusts of wind threaten to blow open the door and windows as I sit here typing this.

The young maple tree across the street is ablaze with orange and red leaves, the sunlight making them shimmer and glow as the wind tears at the leaves clinging defiantly to their branches, while hundreds of their brethren are ripped into the sky, a rain of color and twisting shapes in a flora danse macabre.

Leaves piled in a building’s alcove swirl up and around in a whirlwind, settling back down in drifts, and swirled around again in the next updraft. Some of the leaves resemble tiny kites performing acrobatics, flying higher and higher until the wind changes and the leaves zig-zag gracefully down, or plummet violently in a wind shear.

This blustery day reminds me of Piglet and Pooh Bear, and I am once again missing my son and the happy hours we spent reading Winnie The Pooh, and watching the videos. I have seen the movies, and read the books with the other children I watch, but it’s not the same. I realize that I want another baby, but only if the circumstances were right. I also know that desiring another child is a passing fancy, borne of the exciting autumn winds, and upcoming Hallowe’en, my favorite holiday.

I’ll decorate my house for my inner kid, who still craves the not-too-scary thrill of ghost stories around a bonfire with friends, and shivers in delight when the wind rattles the windows during the night, and the bare tree branches against the twilight and night sky look menacing, as though they could reach out and grab unsuspecting passers-by.

Maybe I’ll buy a pumpkin or two to carve later. I’ve already been eating some of the candy I bought for Trick-or-Treaters, so I have to steel my will against eating any more, and buy what I don’t like next time!