Constance Spry

Do whatever you please,
follow your own star,
be original if you want to be
and don't if you don't want to be.
Just be natural and gay and light hearted
and pretty and simple and
overflowing and general
and baroque and bare
and austere and stylized
and wild and daring and conservative,
and learn and learn and learn.
Open your mind to every form of beauty.

Constance Spry, 1886-1960
Society Florist and author who's lesson to the ladies was that they could create beautiful flower arrangements from their home gardens and natural woodlands, even with violets and peonies.

With love and hugs.
xo

Mary Oliver



"The Waves"

The sea
isn't a place
but a fact, and
a mystery

under its green and black
cobbled coat that never
stops moving.
When death

happens on land, on some
hairpin piece of road,
we crawl past,
imagining

over and over that moment
of disaster. After the storm
the other boats didn't
hesitate-they spun out

from the rickety pier, the men
bent to the nets or turning
the weedy winches.
Surely the sea

is the most beautiful fact
in our universe, but
you won't find a fisherman
who will say so;
what they say is,
See you later.
Gulls white as angels scream
as they float in the sun

just off the sterns;
everything is here
that you could ever imagine.
And the bones

of the drowned fisherman
are returned, half a year later,
in the glittering,
laden nets.

My hugs to Mary Oliver for a speedy recovery.
xo



A Friday Poem

The Dog Has Run Off Again

and I should start shouting his name
and clapping my hands,
but it has been raining all night
and the narrow creek has risen
is a tawny turbulence is rushing along
over the mossy stones
is surging forward
with a sweet loppy music
and therefore I don't want to entangle it
with my own voice
calling summoning
my little doggie to hurry back
look the sunlight and the shadows are chasing each other
listen how the wind swirls and leaps and dives up and down
who am I to summon his hard and happy body
his four white feet that love to wheel and pedal
through the dark leaves
to come back to walk by my side, obedient.
~Mary Oliver

With love and hugs.
xo

Hearts

Above all else,

guard your heart,

for everything you do

flows from it.

~proverb~

With love and hugs.

xo

Je t'aime.

Le Prix Amour,

C'est sentiment amour.

xo

Fleurs via Saiupa

Mellow Yellow

A mellow kind of Monday.

With love and hugs.

xo

Photo: Heather Bullard

Words

Words do two major things.

They provide food for the mind

and

they create light

for understanding and awareness.

~jim rohn

With love and hugs.

xo

A Pinecone, Waxflower and My Fortune in a Cookie

hmmm...

only one?

With love and hugs.

xo

The Sounds of Silence

Super Bowl Sundays have always given me some sort of insight.

I love the camaraderie and the competition, not to mention the super ads.

And winning those bets against my Brother!

For years we've celebrated with friends.

Cheers and beers.

Last year a friend told me about this spot.

We've lived in Hardwick for a long time, and I never knew about it.

This past Sunday I remembered.

So as we headed out for a walk, I suggested we explore the trail on the other side of town.

 And what a surprise!

We came to a fork in the trail and  we headed North.

These ruins awaited us.

A magnificent tale of old times here in the hills of far West  NJ.

At first, I wondered...What the heck was it?

A village?

 Some sort of stone quarry?

Walls and walls of perfectly constructed stone.

Eyebrow entrances created from ancient brick. Barn beams corroded by time.

Structures that stand hollow with only the view of a perfect blue sky.

And days gone by.
Stone cold silence.

A friend has told me it once was an old ice house.

Boy, would it ever make a grand brew pub!

We could all celebrate the Giants!

Cheers and beers!

Happy Tuesday!

Love and Hugs.

xo

Words Under Words

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
What you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out of the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of Kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know Kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
Only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
~Naomi Shihab Nye

With love and hugs.
xo

Hello, February

I never did like to spell February.

It's a funny month. Could go either way. Bitter or sweet, depending on your viewpoint. We're gearing up for the groundhog to see his shadow, the Giants to win the Super bowl, some well deserved Valentine's Day treats, with maybe a blossom or two, and a long awaited return of Real Estate frenzy! I'm looking forward to a great month ahead. So, February, please be kind.

Happy Day!

With love and hugs.

xo