Fitting Words on Which to Begin the New Year.

Just Sayin'

Saturday Farmar's Market - Maiden, Mother, Crone

Created by Heather at Capricious Reader, and now hosted by Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made on.

UPDATE from last week:  

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Pickles! Remember when I shared my recipe for sweet refrigerator pickles? Well, if you had started them at that time you would be enjoying wonderful sweet pickles right now!

I have enough ripe cucumbers for a second batch (after I get more canning jars). I'll put up as many as I can, since my family loves them, but I won't have nearly enough for the winter.

UPDATE #2: My Cherry liqueur is coming along nicely. I think. My actual alcoholic expertise is limited to a Guinness or two after yard work and an occasional weekend cooler. (My mother in law and I used to 'sip' some sangria while working in the garden. My husband rolled his eyes and called it giggle gardening. He's no fun.)

Is it supposed to smell like cherry flavored paint thinner?
 
              Here is an interesting vision of a Garden by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

If I could put my woods in song

And tell what's there enjoyed,
All men would to my gardens throng,
And leave the cities void.

In my plot no tulips blow,--
Snow-loving pines and oaks instead;
And rank the savage maples grow
From Spring's faint flush to Autumn red.

My garden is a forest ledge
Which older forests bound;
The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge,
Then plunge to depths profound.

Here once the Deluge ploughed,
Laid the terraces, one by one;
Ebbing later whence it flowed,
They bleach and dry in the sun.

The sowers made haste to depart,--
The wind and the birds which sowed it;
Not for fame, nor by rules of art,
Planted these, and tempests flowed it.

Waters that wash my garden-side
Play not in Nature's lawful web,
They heed not moon or solar tide,--
Five years elapse from flood to ebb.

Hither hasted, in old time, Jove,
And every god,--none did refuse;
And be sure at last came Love,
And after Love, the Muse.

Keen ears can catch a syllable,
As if one spake to another,
In the hemlocks tall, untamable,
And what the whispering grasses smother.

Æolian harps in the pine
Ring with the song of the Fates;
Infant Bacchus in the vine,--
Far distant yet his chorus waits.

Canst thou copy in verse one chime
Of the wood-bell's peal and cry,
Write in a book the morning's prime,
Or match with words that tender sky?

Wonderful verse of the gods,
Of one import, of varied tone;
They chant the bliss of their abodes
To man imprisoned in his own.

Ever the words of the gods resound;
But the porches of man's ear
Seldom in this low life's round
Are unsealed, that he may hear.

Wandering voices in the air
And murmurs in the wold
Speak what I cannot declare,
Yet cannot all withhold.

When the shadow fell on the lake,
The whirlwind in ripples wrote
Air-bells of fortune that shine and break,
And omens above thought.

But the meanings cleave to the lake,
Cannot be carried in book or urn;
Go thy ways now, come later back,
On waves and hedges still they burn.

These the fates of men forecast,
Of better men than live to-day;
If who can read them comes at last
He will spell in the sculpture,'Stay.'

This Farmer's Market post finds me feeling kind of introspective. I hope you don't mind too much.

In early spring my Iceberg rose bushes were solid white. Unfortunately, my camera and I were still on the outs at the time, so I have no pictures to prove it. I debated whether or not to leave the rose hips, and opted to deadhead and maximize the rebloom. After cleaning up, I finally got a few pictures.

What do you see when you look at this picture? Myself, I find that the three stages of roses reminded me of, "Maiden, Mother, & Crone."

That particular trinity means different things to different people - goddess triad, phases of the moon, realms of the world - but to my eyes, it is a memoir.

I remember the intensity of youth, the striving, the incessant need to move forward. To what, I was not always sure, but I knew I had to keep moving.

Then came motherhood, equal parts insecurity and satisfaction. To be honest with you, it's all quite a blur. Don't get me wrong, I have many wonderful memories of those years. But for the most part, it mixes together like the colors of an impressionist painting - all working together to create a thing of beauty. My kids are relatively well adjusted, so I must have done something right.

And here I am, Crone at last. I always expected that, like Dylan Thomas urged his father, I would rage against the coming sunset. But, no. I find myself embracing the calming time, and willingly following the path as it spreads out in front of me.

New experiences, new understandings, new friends, all collude to draw me forward once again.

I still don't know where the path is taking me, but I'm okay with that.

Flowers, anyone?

My garden.
My therapy. My inspiration.

These lantana are under my lavender crepe myrtle. (there are five of them) They share the same homeland (Australia) with the tree, so I figured they would play nice. I love the fiery colors and they are starting to fill in nicely.















My Jade tree was badly burned this winter even though I had it covered. It's quite old and has survived a lot, but the usual precautions weren't successful this time. I have been coddling it and it is coming back quite well. However, I hope to have a place to move it permanently inside before winter. It is much too large to be moving in and out.





This little sweetheart (whose name I can't recall) is tucked in among the rocks beneath my rosemary bush.










I have these hens and chicks, larger than the span of my splayed fingers, both in the rock garden around the rosemary and in a pot with other succulents.

This is actually a bright pink laundry basket that I've drilled for drainage, and it contains a motley assortment of succulents.

These are my avocado trees, started on my windowsill. Yup. There are two of them in the pot. I'm trying apply some bonsai techniques to keep them manageable. (The two sixty footers I see every day out my front window lead me to believe it's going to be a futile endeavor.) They were a bit peeked at first, but they seem to have rallied.





There are so many things I want to do in the garden, but you know how it is. Money, time, and ability are never up to optimum levels. I'd like to turn a couple of our old windows (replaced last year) into small cold frames.  I could use a truck load of mulch. I want to get rid of the grass, make some paths, . . . and on and on . . .

Until I am able to get around to all the ideas racing around in my head, my garden journal will keep them safe.

A Nation's Strength

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

What makes a nation's pillars high
And it's foundations strong?
What makes it mighty to defy
The foes that round it throng?

It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand
Go down in battle shock;
Its shafts are laid on sinking sand,
Not on abiding rock.

Is it the sword? Ask the red dust
Of empires passed away;
The blood has turned their stones to rust,
Their glory to decay.

And is it pride? Ah, that bright crown
Has seemed to nations sweet;
But God has struck its luster down
In ashes at his feet.

Not gold but only men can make
A people great and strong;
Men who for truth and honor's sake
Stand fast and suffer long.

Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly...
They build a nation's pillars deep
And lift them to the sky.

SING

Song of Nature        
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mine are the night and morning,
The pits of air, the gulf of space,
The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,
The innumerable days.

I hid in the solar glory,
I am dumb in the pealing song,
I rest on the pitch of the torrent,
In slumber I am strong.

No numbers have counted my tallies,
No tribes my house can fill,
I sit by the shining Fount of Life,
And pour the deluge still;

And ever by delicate powers
Gathering along the centuries
From race on race the rarest flowers,
My wreath shall nothing miss.

And many a thousand summers
My apples ripened well,
And light from meliorating stars
With firmer glory fell.

I wrote the past in characters
Of rock and fire the scroll,
The building in the coral sea,
The planting of the coal.

And thefts from satellites and rings
And broken stars I drew,
And out of spent and aged things
I formed the world anew;

What time the gods kept carnival,
Tricked out in star and flower,
And in cramp elf and saurian forms
They swathed their too much power.

Time and Thought were my surveyors,
They laid their courses well,
They boiled the sea, and baked the layers
Or granite, marl, and shell.

But he, the man-child glorious,--
Where tarries he the while?
The rainbow shines his harbinger,
The sunset gleams his smile.

My boreal lights leap upward,
Forthright my planets roll,
And still the man-child is not born,
The summit of the whole.

Must time and tide forever run?
Will never my winds go sleep in the west?
Will never my wheels which whirl the sun
And satellites have rest?

Too much of donning and doffing,
Too slow the rainbow fades,
I weary of my robe of snow,
My leaves and my cascades;

I tire of globes and races,
Too long the game is played;
What without him is summer's pomp,
Or winter's frozen shade?

I travail in pain for him,
My creatures travail and wait;
His couriers come by squadrons,
He comes not to the gate.

Twice I have moulded an image,
And thrice outstretched my hand,
Made one of day, and one of night,
And one of the salt sea-sand.

One in a Judaean manger,
And one by Avon stream,
One over against the mouths of Nile,
And one in the Academe.

I moulded kings and saviours,
And bards o'er kings to rule;--
But fell the starry influence short,
The cup was never full.

Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more,
And mix the bowl again;
Seethe, fate! the ancient elements,
Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain.

Let war and trade and creeds and song
Blend, ripen race on race,
The sunburnt world a man shall breed
Of all the zones, and countless days.

No ray is dimmed, no atom worn,
My oldest force is good as new,
And the fresh rose on yonder thorn
Gives back the bending heavens in dew.


from: American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century, Volume I.
photo by: EPOCH PHOTO, on flickr.