Blessings to all the fathers on Father’s Day! And wishing everyone a most splendid Summer Solstice (and Yule, too, for our friends below the Equator!) Enjoy! Music by Damh the Bard, from the CD The Hills they are Hollow
Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.— His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Cancerian Cancer is the sign of the Summer Solstice, the beginning of the warmest season of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It is also the birth sign of the United States of America. Cancer is the first water sign of the Zodiac, … Read more
Peace of Sonoma County © Dana HawleySeptemberHelen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) The goldenrod is yellow;The corn is turning brown;The trees in apple orchardsWith fruit are bending down. The gentian’s bluest fringesAre curling in the sun;In dusty pods the milkweedIts hidden silk has spun. The sedges flaunt their harvest,In every meadow nook;And asters by the brook-sideMake asters … Read more
Summer Sunby Robert Louis Stevenson Great is the sun, and wide he goesThrough empty heaven with repose;And in the blue and glowing daysMore thick than rain he showers his rays. Though closer still the blinds we pullTo keep the shady parlour cool,Yet he will find a chink or twoTo slip his golden fingers through. The … Read more
Summer means promises fulfilled, objectives gained, hopes realized. The surge of doing and achieving, of watching and enjoying is finally replaced by a sense of quiet and floating and a certain fullness and repletion, as though one cannot absorb any more.— Sigurd F. Olsen This was one of those perfect New England days in late … Read more
A Night-Rain in Summer by James Henry Leigh Hunt Open the window, and let the airFreshly blow upon face and hair,And fill the room, as it fills the night,With the breath of the rain’s sweet might.Hark! the burthen, swift and prone!And how the odorous limes are blown!Stormy Love’s abroad, and keepsHopeful coil for gentle sleeps. … Read more
Mockingbirdsby Mary Oliver This morningtwo mockingbirdsin the green fieldwere spinning and tossing the white ribbonsof their songsinto the air.I had nothing better to dothan listen.I mean thisseriously. In Greece,a long time ago,an old coupleopened their door to two strangerswho were,it soon appeared,not men at all, but gods.It is my favorite story–how the old couplehad almost … Read more
A Summer Day by Lucy Maud Montgomery I.The dawn laughs out on orient hillsAnd dances with the diamond rills;The ambrosial wind but faintly stirsThe silken, beaded gossamers;In the wide valleys, lone and fair,Lyrics are piped from limpid air,And, far above, the pine trees freeVoice ancient lore of sky and sea.Come, let us fill our hearts … Read more
from Song of Myself By Walt WhitmanI am he that walks with the tender and growing night,I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night. Press close bare-bosom’d night — press close magnetic nourishing night!Night of south winds — night of the large few stars!Still nodding night — mad naked summer night. Smile … Read more
Ladies fair, I bring to youLavender with spikes of blue;Sweeter plant was never foundGrowing on our English ground.— Caryl Battersby, 1896 The medicinal properties of lavender are well-known, tried and true for many centuries. But I also love it for its more subtle, equally powerful gifts. I know lavender to be an intimate friend, teacher … Read more