Two of the people I love most share favorite colors of white and palest pink. Maybe it is because they are both youngest daughters of their families. Perhaps it’s the appeal of purity, innocence, ballet shoe colors of satin ribbons and grace. They embody the compassion of those sweet colors in the ways they are…
Author: PollyAnya
Listening to the Beloveds
Why not? Why not watch the cardinal groom itself a vivid crimson the color of fresh blood on the uppermost branch of my favorite cherry tree bathed in sunlight? Why not observe the crows alight, on the bone end of the loblolly pine bough cawing out the forecast to our day, where the mockingbird bares…
Watershed – Part 1
“Everything really interesting and powerful happens at borders.“~ Mary Pipher, Writing to Change the World Watershed – defined for our purposes as a noun meaning: “a region or area bounded peripherally by a divide and draining ultimately to a particular watercourse or body of water.” Or it can be the divide between draining areas, such…
Violet Fields Forever
Are wild violets a harbinger of spring for you, too? These humble flowers are some of my favorites (it’s like trying to choose a favorite color, or child). Their vivid exclamations amidst brown fallen leaves and psychedelic green moss give me so much pleasure, and for some reason they are particularly prolific this year along…
Daffodil’s Promise
Have you ever bent to sniff the frilly bell of spring’s first daffodils? Their vivid hopefulness warms the heart after dark winter. A full-scented daffodil has a fresh, innocent almost indecipherably complex fragrance. First the nose detects a jasmine, ylang ylang musk that is dry and deep. Next comes green alertness of petitgrain leaf, followed…
Cardinal Directions
Do you ever dream about healing plants or foods that upon waking you realize you want in your life? A decade ago, after a clear dream featuring something called a wolfberry I researched the Lycium barbarum Goji berry and wrote it into the draft of a story *. Despite their diminutive size these vibrant berries…
Bee Balm and Lemon Balm
“By observing nature, you begin to sense the harmonious interaction of all the elements and forces of life.” ~ The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra The Mystery and Miracle of Plants I have a passion for understanding plants and their properties. When I heard Dr. Mahtab Jafari, an accomplished researcher and professor…
Privileges
Thank you for the joy of sight. Writing gratitudes for appreciation and ancestorsSoft breeze on bare feet through an open windowsunshine dappling on cherry’s trunk.An open window in November!Poetry might spring from this kind of silence.Inspired also by a great hawk perched withits white breast fully in view. On a forest walka warm day before…
Nature’s Haunting Creamy Passions
Imagine opening Nature’s exquisitely scented love letter written to cherish your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual being. Engage in any one of her many fragrant dialects: a spicy cabernet chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum x morifolium), the fresh sweetness of lilac (Syringa vulgaris) in springtime, the subtle clove of a pink Firewitch dianthus (Dianthus gratianopolitanus) flower, and we…
Do You Talk to Butterflies?
Immersing myself in, and writing about, the intricacy of Nature has been a method of self-care for many decades. It’s my cure. My access to optimism. My antidepressant. My church. My muse, my inspiration, my belief system, my people. (Yes, I regularly talk to trees, dogs, cats, butterflies, vegetables, birds, and caterpillars, don’t you?) Come…