Priceless is one's incantation,

Turning a red-hot iron ball to butter oil.

Heaven? Purgatory? Hell?

Snowflakes fallen on the hearth fire.

Hakuin

 

Within the circles of our lives

we dance the circles of the years,

the circles of the seasons

within the circle of the years,

the cycles of the moon

within the cycles of the seasons,

the circles of our reasons

within the cycles of the moon.

Again, again we come and go

changed, changing. Hands

join, union in love and fear,

grief and joy. The circles turn,

yeah giving into each, into all.

Only music keeps us here,

each by all the others held. 

In the hold of hands and eyes

we turn in pairs, that joining

joining each to all again.

And then we turn aside, alone,

out of the sunlight gone

into the darker circles of return.

Windell Berry

Views from the Placitas Open Space 

 Finn and Sophie

11.19.23

11.26.23

11.26.23

 

...May hills lean toward you,

Hills and windswept mountains, 

and trees be happy

That have seen you pass-...

Donald Jeffrey Hayes

A fall walk in the Jemez Mountains...
a fine way to celebrate a large number birthday!

 

FALL / HARVEST

One leaf left on a branch

and not a sound of sadness

or despair. One leaf left

on a branch and no unhappiness..

One leaf left all by itself

in the air ad it does not speak

of loneliness or death.

One leaf and it spends itself

in swaying mildly in the breeze.......

David Ignatow

 

Annular Eclipse 

Everywhere

 

HARVEST MOON 

 

ACOG 

Bill Gilbert

Ceramics

9.23.23

 

Empty handed I entered the world

Barefoot I leave it.

My coming, my going-

Two simple things happenings

That got entangled.

Kozan Ichikyo

2.12.1360

Giant desert 4 o'clocks greeting the day

 

There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of nature…

Henry David Thoreau

 

 

As seen from my early morning mountain walk today-

Super Blue Moon with Saturn in attendance

 setting over Albuquerque

 

Our life is frittered away by detail.

-Henry David Thoreau 

 

Love letters from my garden

swallowtail butterfly larvae on my dill plant

dill seeds

 

Lady of Shalot rose

To what 

Shall I compare the world?

It is like the wake

Vanishing behind a boat

that has rowed away at dawn.

Sami Manzei

Dawn light from the hills

 

As for me, I delight in the everyday Way,

Among mist-wrapped vines and rocky caves

Here in the wilderness I am completely free...

Hanshan

Sunrise Placitas Open Space August 6

 

Mr. Rooster

 

TO what

Shall I compare the world?

It is like the wake

Vanishing behind a boat

that has rowed away at dawn

Sami Manzei

Queen Elizabeth rose despite the brutal heat we are experiencing

 

MY GARDEN

A garden is always a series of losses

set against a few triumphs 

like life itself

-Mary Sarton

New Mexico sunflower, Swiss chard

cucumbers and dill (perfect pairing!)

translucent Swiss chard leaves

 

Silence is ever speaking; it is the perennial flow of language

Ramana Maharshi

Dawn on my mountain

 

"SILENCE IS ALSO CONVERSATION."

Ramana Maharshi

NEW ADDITIONS TO AN ARTIST'S FARM

Mr. Rooster (buff Orpington) checking out the
5 week old (Barred Rock) babies

 

JULY'S FULL SUPER 'BUCK' MOON SETTING

 

Summer Sky

It's not what you look at

it's what you see.

Henry David Thoreau

 

EARLY ONE MORNING

Here is memory walking in the dark

there are no pictures of her as she is

the coming day has never been seen before

the stars have gone into another life

the dreams have left with no sound of farewell

insects wake flying up with their feet wet

trying to take the night along with them

memory alone is awake with me

knowing that this may be the only time

from Garden Time

W.S. Merwin

A new today: from the mountain

 

TREASURES FROM THE MOUNTAIN

The Present

As they were leaving the garden

one of the angles bent down to them and whispered

I am to give you this

as you are leaving the garden

I do not know what it is

or what it is for

what you will do with it

you will not be able to keep it

but you will not be able

to keep anything

yet they both reached at once

for the present

when their hands met

and laughed

from Garden Time

W.S. Merwin

 

Summertime

Mt. Taylor in the distance. The dot above the mountain is a hot air balloon

Ho! Sun, Moon, Stars, all that move in the heavens,

I bid you hear me!

Into your midst has come a new life! Consent ye, I implore!

Make smooth its path that it may reach the brow of the first hill!

Omaha Tribe Prayer