Welcome September

just some more saved pictures and sayings

Mountaintop, PA: once I knew someone who lived there...

Jonathan Roumie and friends at the beach

Months have gone by

and what have I been doing? Not writing. Sadly. I am beginning to wonder if I'm sliding into dementia. I have some of the symptoms: Lack of energy, isolation, loss of interest in things which used to interest me. Having trouble retrieving names of people and sometimes names of books or other objects. Then, again, in other ways I am fine and even perky. The garden absorbs my mornings and evenings. Watching British murder mysteries on my laps. I was completely alert and energized on a recent very long drive to Evansville INdiana. I am also somewhat addicted to watching short videos of horses , deer, birds, and babies on Instagram. I recently realized that as an only child of older parents, I was hardly ever around little babies, those under the age of two. I am fascinated by their faces, their eyes, the thinking that is obviously going on. Maybe this entry will break through my inertia.

Bee by Rhonda Lynn

Still watching Jonathan Roumie

July in the courtyard garden: Boneset

Three weeks later

and almost the end of April... Yesterday was my birthday. I am now 75 years old. I simply cannot believe it. I can't believe the old lady in the mirror is me. I still think I look like this:

Today this list of wise advice appeared in my Instagram feed. It's written by the SCS Staff

 ( Science Sensei) and posted in March 2023:

 Thirty lessons people learn far too late in life: 

 1. Everything is temporary

 2. Stop complaining 

3. Life isn't fair 

4. Live without fear

 5. Family matters more than friends 

6. Money can't buy happiness

 7. Don't try to change other people.

 8. Treat yourself with love and respect

 9. Don't sleepwalk through life 

10. People aren't thinking about you as much as you think 

11. Never stop learning 

12. Know your destination 

13. The sacrifices you make now will pay off in the future

 14. Happiness is a choice 

15. Take care of your health

 16. Curb your expectations

 17. Don't let fear of embarassment stop you from being yourself 

18. Material things don't matter 

19. Eventually, things get better.

 20. Everyone is out for themselves.

 21. Age is just a number

 22. Forgive others ( even if you never get an apology)

 23. Learn to put your ego in check 

24. Everyone is suffering

 25. Be present in the moment 

26. Don't be afraid to ask for help 

27.It's always worthwhile to see the world

 28. Say what you mean to say 

29. Remember to enjoy life. 

30. A lifetime is not really that long.

 I'm not going to go through that whole list right now; many of them I have learned by the middle of my life.

 But there are still many I haven't yet learned.

 Like #5, and I blame my parents for that, and my relatives, as well as myself. Long story.

 And #22... I still have a long way to go on that one.

 And #9 - how much of my life have I lived as one sleepwalking?

 Enough of that for today. 

 Here are some lovely April pictures:

Spring Beauties... photo by Julie Zickefoose

and this:

Already Holy Thursday

My post from the last time looked as strange in draft form as this one does. But it looked alright when I posted it. I don't know what's going on.

Mary Webb Green Rain Didn't get back to posting until now. The story of my life. I am out of school until Tuesday, April 11, so perhaps I'll do better. I've been working in the garden, digging up the Cherry Bells I planted about seven years ago. I was so ignorant then about native plants and aggressive plants and so much more. Sigh. These Cherry Bells have gallopped through one quadrant of the courtyard, and they are not native plants. So I am digging them up in hopes of planting so good native plants that attract butterflies.

Paschal Moon- Pink Moon photo by Christine Muldowney Today I baked Easter bread. It's called Paska --- Ukrainian Easter Bread. I've made it other years and it is pretty reliable. And it makes me think of the people of Ukraine. Spring is bursting out here in the Valley.

The Gardener Lizzie Riches

The chief beauty about time is that you cannot waste it in advance.

"The chief beauty about time is that you cannot waste it in advance. 

The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your life. 

You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose.” 

Arnold Bennett 

 For some reason, this is the only font and size I can get tonight. Oh well. Here are some Spring pictures:

any pictures, or just code?

will try again tomorrow

On the Feast of Saint Joseph

 

I love this ancient mosaic of Joseph and the Child Jesus -   so playful and loving.

I've become a big fan of the TV series "The Chosen"  about Jesus and his disciples. They are up to Season Three, and the third episode on the season is about Jesus visiting his home of Nazareth.

It's very close to the Gospel, about Jesus being rejected by the synagogue leader and former friends.

But it's also a wonderful imagining of Saint Joseph --- how he was with the Child Jesus.

This is the only clip I could find on Google, and it's not the best one of Joseph,  but it's close enough.

To me, he is very believable and lovable.

I have all kinds of associations with the name Joseph.  My father's name was Vincent Joseph.  I went to Saint Joseph College.  My classmates and I are forever known as the "Joe's girls".

So sorry I haven't written for so long.   I had cataract surgery on March 7, and lots of doctors' appointments and the taking of eyedrops for days before and after, and papers and midterms at school.

It's still so cold out and I am so yearning for Spring, which is supposed to arrive tomorrow.

inside a Dandelion...

The Song of Bernadette

 February 12 is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.

This is how the grotto of Lourdes looks in this century:

I was there in 2004 -  how is it so long?     And also experienced the candlelight procession which happens just about each evening, where thousands of pilgrims carry candles and say the rosary together, in about ten different languages

I vividly remember reading Franz Werfel's novel The Song of Bernadette  when I was about ten years old.  It made an enormous impression on me.

Bernadette was about 15 years old, from a large, impoverished family, and in poor health.

On February 12, 1858, she was out gathering wood for the fire at home, and gathering it in a dump, when the lady appeared to her.  Bernadette called her "the lady"  and also "Aquero" which means "that one" in the local dialect.

In one of the later visions, the lady called herself "I am the Immaculate Conception".  Bernadette had not heard that expression before; the parish priest had to tell her that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born free from original sin - a doctrine proclaimed just 4 years before all this happened.

This is a long and moving story.  The book tells it better than I can.

At the intersection of Pagan and Christian

 It's the feast of Saint Brigid of Kildare.  

Here are some interesting pictures and information about her.... and perhaps, about us.

and   

and

02/01/23 St Brigid of Ireland (451?-525) She was born at Faughart, near Dundalk, in Ireland. She was a milkmaid who was converted through the preaching of St Patrick, and with whom she prays as the patron of Erin.

Indeed, the legends of her life abound. A beautiful woman who saw, in her society, her beauty as an obstacle to the will of God in her life, it is said she was temporarily disfigured so as to pursue the Monastic vocation.

Please note this is no pious eccentricity. In a world in which women were either the possession of one man or doomed to be possessed by every man; in which women were either seen as chattel or a sorceress, to choose monastic chastity was to state loudly that in Jesus she had found a Saviour that gave her worth in and of herself.

Her name is that of the pagan goddess of fire, her symbol the Cross, made of reed from her cell. She is known to have imitated her Saviour in making beer from water, and was a healer and reconciler of factions. She founded the first monastic communities in Ireland, made of men and women, and died at her monastery in Kildare in 525.

She is buried next to her friends St Patrick and St Columba.

She remains an ancestor in faith that reminds us all that in Jesus we are chosen for love, selected for life and saved for eternity. Wherever we are today, we can find the Cross (Brigid saw it in the straw on the floor of her room!) embrace and proclaim it, wear on the heart and announce it with the mouth.

How? By loving simply, simply loving.

Wear green today, or her cross!

by M. Dennis McCarron

The last night of January

 and I have this item of good news:

and also this:

art by Jane Newland

Garden Dreams, continued

 I found some of the photos .

Closeup of Cherry Bells    May 22, 2012.  

Cherry Bells     June 24, 2016

Cherry Bells     April 11 2021    By 2022, they had spread to the right all the way past the last daffodil,

I didn't know they would spread like that.  And when I planted them in 2014, I didn't know they were not native plants.

Sigh.    So I will try to document my efforts to pull out the Cherry Bells and replace with native pollinator plants.

I know so much more now than I did 9 years ago!

Garden Dreams

 

I hope to have a sign like this in my garden.

Now that classes are back in session,  I am sliding into procrastination on this blog.  Once again, I give promises to improve my contributions.

It seems that these late January days, mostly rainy and grey here, are inviting me to think about the garden.   It's also because several of my sisters are working on improving our community's commitment to Laudato Si,  Pope Francis'  letter about the environment, our "Common Home." Also, I have been reading Doug Tallamy's book Bringing Nature Home, and watching his talks on You Tube.  He's a big proponent of the shrinking of the American Lawn, among other things.

So in the last few days I have been thinking about replacing one patch of my large courtyard garden ( it's not really mine alone --- but I am its steward right now.)   with native plants which are butterfly host plants.

I've been writing about this garden since about 2015, when I started working on it.  The garden has been there since the building was built in 1964. Back then, it was mostly rose bushes.  Then, in later years, it was filled with pachysandra ground cover and annual flowers.  Then, the garden guy who was the Attila the Hun of grounds keepers,  pulled all that out and spread mulch everywhere, except for the "Knockout Roses" he planted in the center beds.  The sisters complained that his favorite colors were brown and green!

Summer, 2014

Summer, 2022

October 2014   

July 2022

I could go on for pages with the before and after photos, but I am searching for the photos of the Cherry bells, and how they have taken over.

Hopefully, will return to this post.

Winter the Magician

 I like this poem   by Fyodor Tyutchev:

The Forest Is Entranced

The forest is entranced

By Winter the Magician.

Under velvet snow

It's mute, immobile, glistening

Wondrously with life,

Standing enchanted,

Neither dead nor alive,

Entranced by a magic dream,

Entirely covered, fettered

By light links of snow.

Should winter's sun cast a sudden flare

Glancing across its summits,

Not a thing will shiver in it.

It will sparkle and flame

And be blindingly fair!

Art by Lennart Helje

I've had a busy ten days: January 12-15 I hosted seven of my Saint Joseph College classmates at Mother Seton's White House for planning for our April reunion.... and, of course, partying.

Introvert that I am, I was exhausted by Sunday.

Tuesday ( yesterday) was the first day of class. I am again teaching Modernity in Literature - on Zoom- and it looks to be a very promising semester.

I will try to keep up with this blog, but I make no promises!

Wolf Moon , Winter Path by Jim Crotty

Epiphany Sunday

 

Skipped a few days with socializing and errands and just plain idleness.

I am longing for snow, even though it clogs up all plans.

Happy Feast of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton!

 We had a big crowd at the 11AM Mass in the Basilica today.  Lots of mothers with loud and active toddlers.  Nothing to worry about with the population of the Catholic Church!

As I watched those young mothers try to manage their squirming offspring, I kept thinking of Elizabeth, who had five young ones very close together.

Yesterday I finally retrieved my laptop from the Mount, all upgraded and working well. 

So  here are some poems and pictures from my blog post files:

Jo Grundy    Winter Morning

Here's a poem by Emily Dickinson:

The Road was lit with Moon and star

The Road was lit with Moon and star --

The Trees were bright and still --

Descried I -- by the distant Light

A Traveller on a Hill --

To magic Perpendiculars

Ascending, though Terrene --

Unknown his shimmering ultimate --

But he indorsed the sheen --

artist: Amanda Clark

It rained when it should have snowed

 

She Yi - Winter Moon, 1999.

Here's a poem by Seamus Heaney:

Holly - Seamus Heaney

It rained when it should have snowed.
When we went to gather holly

the ditches were swimming, we were wet
to the knees, our hands were all jags

and water ran up our sleeves.
There should have been berries

but the sprigs we brought into the house
gleamed like smashed bottle-glass.

Now here I am, in a room that is decked
with the red-berried, waxy-leafed stuff,

and I almost forgot what it's like
to be wet to the skin or longing for snow.

I reach for a book like a doubter
and want it to flare round my hand,

a black letter bush, a glittering shield-wall,
cutting as holly and ice.

art: Lynn Bywaters

Wrinkles collected

 

art by Luci Grossmith

Happy New Year!

Here's a poem by  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

On The New Year

FATE now allows us,

'Twixt the departing

And the upstarting,

Happy to be;

And at the call of

Memory cherish'd,

Future and perish'd

Moments we see.

Seasons of anguish,--

Ah, they must ever

Truth from woe sever,

Love and joy part;

Days still more worthy

Soon will unite us,

Fairer songs light us,

Strength'ning the heart.

We, thus united,

Think of, with gladness,

Rapture and sadness,

Sorrow now flies.

Oh, how mysterious

Fortune's direction!

Old the connection,

New-born the prize!

Thank, for this, Fortune,

Wavering blindly!

Thank all that kindly

Fate may bestow!

Revel in change's

Impulses clearer,

Love far sincerer,

More heartfelt glow!

Over the old one,

Wrinkles collected,

Sad and dejected,

Others may view;

But, on us gently

Shineth a true one,

And to the new one

We, too, are new.

As a fond couple

'Midst the dance veering,

First disappearing,

Then reappear,

So let affection

Guide thro' life's mazy

Pathways so hazy

Into the year!