Happy Earth Day

“Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.“

-Gerard Manley Hopkins

The above image was taken at the Exquisite Creatures exhibit at Crystal Bridges. Christopher Marley’s work shows the astonishing beauty and diversity of insects and other creatures. Enlisting help from a worldwide network, the artist collects insects for his work in an environmentally sensitive way.

The Seer

Walking in Memphis: Dixon Gardens

First Tulip of Spring

What a lovely way to burn.

East Meets Wild West

”Bone by bone, hair by hair, Wild Woman comes back. Through night dreams, through events half understood and half remembered…”

-Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

Walking in Memphis: Tom Lee Park

“These hands are small I know, but they’re not yours they are my own, and I am never broken.”

–Hands, Jewel

“If I could tell the world just one thing it would be: We’re all okay, and not to worry ’cause worry is wasteful and useless in times like these. I won’t be made useless. I won’t be idle with despair. I’ll gather myself around my faith that lights he darkness most feared.”

—Hands, Jewel

“Poverty, stole your golden shoes, but it didn’t steal your laughter, and heartache came to visit me, but I knew it wasn’t ever after. We’ll fight, not out of spite, but someone must stand up for what’s right, ’cause where there’s a man who has no voice, there our shadows seep.”

-Hands, Jewel

Inferno

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” -Winston Churchill

Solstice Encounters with the Winged Folk

• 

  when wind moves wild intelligence

• 

  all bodies speak

• 

  catch my drift?

Beneath the Bright Between

Inspired by Juliet Marillier’s Wildwood Dancing

“There was a lake deep within the wildwood, a place unofficially known as the Deadwash though its real name was prettier: Taul Ilelor, Lake of the Nymphs. Every family had a dark story about the Deadwash. When I was five years old, my cousin Costi drowned in Taul Ilelor. I was there when it happened. The things folks said about the lake were true…

“The folk of the Other Kingdom had their own name for this expanse of shining water; at Full Moon, they called it the Bright Between. The lake waters spanned the distance between their world and ours.”

–Juliet Marillier

Sweet Child of Mine: The Wonder of a Mutant Rose

Prolifera de Redoté

“Childing” is apparently one of the old botany terms used when a rose flower sprouts another flower within an already opened bloom. The phenomenon is also called “rose flower proliferation” (formerly “perfoliation”). The earliest documentation I could find on the topic is a painting by Belgian botanical artist, Pierre-Joseph Redoté. Interestingly, Redoté was a court artist during Napoleon’s time and worked for Marie Antoinette, Josephine Bonaparte, and Marie-Amelie. He found the beauty in less-than-perfect subjects: broken tulips and mutated roses, which makes a sort of weird sense, I guess, as he kept on painting straight on through the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, like nothing crazy was happening at all; it was just another day in the imperial gardens of France. C’est la vie!

Anyway, this was my first time, after years of poking my nose in hundreds of rose blossoms, actually seeing the deformation. This double blossom happened after one evening’s dip below freezing temperatures was followed by several days of 70-degree weather. I’ve read it’s a hormonal problem that causes continued cell division after the formation of the flower. This particular rose bush has only bloomed yellow until this particular flower happened. Notice the petals are tinged with pink edges in the parent flower and the child has pink variegated petals. It will be interesting to see if subsequent blooms return to their former yellow color or it the pink remains. Stay tuned!

If you’re interested in this stuff and want to learn more:

Plant Mutations in the Botanical Prints of Pierre-Joseph Redouté

Rose Flower Proliferation :: Melinda Myers

Virus, Tulips, & Financial Bubbles