what is so rare...

Glorious sunny day. Last day of June. Cows grazing contentedly in a field; swishing the flies away with their tails. Sun glistening off the leaves of corn. Two men playing horseshoes in Middlebury.

scorpius

Evenings at the Zen Center. Shadows of moths flickering in the light from low lights along the walkway. Flickering fireflies in abundance. The constellation Scorpius prominent in the southern sky

moon

Full moon, the strawberry moon, is tonight.

oriole

Sunny. American flags along Main Sts. in Rutland & Wallingford. Oriole in the old apple tree. Basil & parsley along the front walk. In the winter there is a time when it's so cold it seems it could never get warm again. The opposite also holds true, and that time is now.
Happy Birthday Mom.

it is the noon

Rainy. Day lilies & dragonflies. Driving to Bethel early in the morning to pick up some envelopes, 77 degrees at 6:00. Bright red tubes lined up for rafting at an outlet along the White River in Stockbridge. Three large beach towels drying on a fence near the Tweed River.
I am one
who eats his breakfast
gazing at the morning glories.
Basho
Zen Page a Day Calendar

lupines

Cloudy. Lupines are in bloom.

6/12/2008. "Sometimes in June, when I see unearned dividends of dew hung on every lupine, I have doubts about the real poverty of the sands. On solvent farmlands, lupines do not even grow, much less collect a daily rainbow of jewels. If they did, the weed control officer, who seldom sees a dewy dawn, would doubtless insist that they be cut. Do economists know about lupines?"

Aldo Leopold
A Sand County Almanac

mystery

Sunny. Heading to the car on a beautiful summer morning. Swallows careening through the skies. The call of the hermit thrush; as Doug Blodgett says, like the sound of someone playing a flute deep in the woods. What is the emotion one is feeling at moments like this?

Heads up. Erin has simplified the comments process so it's kind of like her blog. You can use the name, or anonymous categories if the spirit moves you.

solstice

Summer solstice. On hot summer days, things get cooler coming home from work as one goes into the hills and along the creek. Baby cardinals are out of the nest. Shade from summer clouds darken sections of the Green Mountains. Stalks of corn in the fields. I think the following passage was written at this time of year.
It is the noon;
Orioles are crying.
The river flows in silence.
Issa
Vermont Zen Center newsletter

D'oh!

The other night when I was out star gazing, I noticed with concern that there was a persistent band of light clouds that ran all the way across the sky from north to south. It wasn't interfering with what I was watching, but I was afraid it eventually would. Great astronomer that I am, it only took me about an hour to realize that what I was seeing wasn't clouds, but the Milky Way.

Lagoon Nebula

Sunny. Last night was clear, a good night for star gazing. Saw the Lagoon Nebula which rivals the Orion Nebula in luminosity. Also saw the Trifid Nebula, the M3 cluster, the Ptolemy cluster, the Butterfly star cluster, and the M22 cluster. Most of these are found near the constellation Sagittarius which appears right along the southern horizon around midnight this time of year. In order to see what I wanted to see, I had to haul my telescope up along the fence line by the woods in the back. When I got done about 2:30, everything was covered with dew including me.

the neighborhood

Rainy. Back in May on Green Up day, I went back to the bridge by the Clark farm to see if the pure white Bloodroot I had spotted there exactly a year ago had returned. It gladdened my heart to see that it had. The other day I noticed that the first Blue Flag Iris I ever saw was back in the tall grass along Cold River Road. The Deptford Pink, a vision in magenta, had also returned to its usual position just up the road, hiding behind a rock from the well meaning lawn mowers and weed whackers.
It seems sometimes like my neighborhood just keeps expanding. The wildflowers returned to their old haunts. The wood thrush calling from the woods behind the house. The crescent moon alongside Venus in the evening sky. Signposts and markers to a world that seems ever more familiar.

cardinals

Cloudy. There's a nest of cardinals over by production. We've been watching them periodically for a couple of weeks now, ever since the eggs started to hatch. The eggs had a mottled look, kind of like a malted milk ball. The chicks are growing amazingly quickly, and it is fun to watch their progress. The mother isn't amused.

plop

Sun in the mountains, fog in the valleys. Allyn's potted plant in the fir tree. Monarch butterflies sipping at the Dames Rocket. Irish moss growing in the cracks in the sidewalk at work. Plop of a frog in a pond.

Dear Lord

Cloudy. This event is not the usual narrative, but worthy of mention nonetheless. On Saturday night we went to a benefit concert given by Mill River alum, and Shrewsbury native Jonathan Lorentz. He is a jazz saxaphonist, and was there with his combo. He played a John Coltrane composition, Dear Lord. He said that it was a spiritual, a Coltrane spritual, but a spiritual nevertheless. It was a tune he had composed near the end of his life.
As Lorentz started to play, I began to feel like I was being filled up, like a balloon being inflated with helium. As he continued to play, I felt lighter, fuller. It finally got to the point where I felt like I couldn't take it anymore, like I was going to burst. Amazingly, just at that point, members of the audience erupted into spontaneous cheers. It was like they were feeling what I was feeling. I hooted and hollered along with them. I think I have experienced that sort of spontaneous support before, but rarely. There are versions of Dear Lord on Youtube. Check it out.

washout

Last night I went out after 10:00, and the sky was clear! Owl hooting in the blackness. I hauled out my telescope, star guide, binoculars, etc. Got a list of 4-5 sites to observe. As I was quietly setting up in the lane, I suddenly heard some growling and barking in the darkness not far away. I think I surprised & frightened the foxes which, in turn, surprised & frightened me. I yelled at them to go away. Finally got back to the heavens, and was honing in on the M3 globular cluster when some of the marker stars started to fade away. Clouds had started to quickly roll in which put an end to the star gazing before it ever got started. Frustrating.

nine squirrels

Cloudy. During the winter I used to fill up the bird feeder at work once a day. Now I am filling it three times a day. I think it's because the bird population is greater now, and that they feed more with the longer daylight. There is a woodpecker (hairy or downy) who's found the feeder. He splatters seeds all over the place. Yesterday there were nine, count 'em, nine squirrels scurrying around underneath. There are only six openings on the feeder for the birds. I'm going to have to get a part time job to pay for the seed.

Summer

Cloudy. Thunderheads over the Green Mountains east of Rutland. Silhouette of a heron fishing in a pond, perfectly still. Deer browsing in a field in the seemingly perpetual evening light. The green in the leaves of the trees is darkening as spring turns into summer.

June 8th

Over the weekend we spotted three red foxes in the back yard. Looks like there is a mother, and adolescent, and a pup. The two young ones spent a good deal of time chasing each other around as evening turned to night. The next day I saw them over by the old barn. I've got to believe the mother noticed me, but didn't pay a bit of attention to me. With the place virtually deserted during the day, they must feel that they own the place