to lilacs the iris and all things purple

One day the lilacs were there ... everywhere ... blooming large and lustrous fragrant. Then gone. We still have a white one right near the house so I think I will go get a bloom and bring it in just to savor it. Summer is like this - strawberries, blueberries, flowers, go, smell, be, savor, swim, love. I am trying to get all-things in or done or cleaned while also in-joying some of this beauty. Or at least learn to have moments like this. Carved purposely into my week, in which to reflect and bring myself all up to date with what we've been doing. It's a frenetic pace we've been keeping, and I am not quite sure most days. Thank you right now for birds, the color green, and nhpr's folk show.

That first picture is this funny branch arbor I put up last month. We moved the hops and now it's twining ... growing each day ... up and up and up.



Today Luna scooted and I walked down the road to gather some colt's foot. This is wonderfully medicinal for your lungs and it grows along our road down in the woods. We'll dry it for tea in bundles hanging from our ceiling beams. I also gathered and bound nettles. I have come to rely on this ritual of gathering and making our medicines as one of the ways I can savor a few moments in nature.


Spring is a good time of year to gather leaves and flowers. The energy is rushing up from the roots and feeding the leaves. Thank you Colts Foot. We love you. Time to harvest a round of chamomile too...



This time of year can be taxing on me ... it's tricky for me to remember I chose this and that I can really actually handle this crazy busy push of energy that is Spring to Summer when you're a farmer/wild-crafter/wild-woman/mother/musician/wife. I force myself to remember I am doing this all on purpose for a life of purpose. There is a time for it all ... when I do each thing in it's time. Like finding the time to start tiny miracles, watering them in soil too dusty and clay ridden to be deeply satisfying, and waiting ... waiting. Hoping for that little place in cracked earth - green shoots through - roots diving down in hope of life. I am grateful in that moment and earnestly learning to remember the gratitude in the space between satisfaction as well. I will amend the soil ... it will become mutually beneficial when we are eating off our land. It all starts with hope in a seed. It is perfect now and I weave my web between deep satisfaction and hard work and love.


I am not a very patient gardener -- it's so hard for me to find peace in something so unfinished as my gardens -- but I since I am always starting some new bed, it seems perhaps the earth has discovered a way of teaching me to be grateful with imperfection. It is important for me to reflect here. I look back for a moment and see -- the ground frozen and brown, even covered in snow. I remember that this is all fleeting and will be gone soon. My little prayer to myself over and over is to just be happy with the now that is now and sink in just for a minute in between projects. This is my prayer to myself for this week.

Now for that lilac...