Svadhisthana: O Water

All the water that will ever be is, right now.

~National Geographic, October 1993

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Someone in the desert was crying out for you.

 

Bad Water Basin salting up Death Valley

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Someone elsewhere was drowning.

     Mississippi River gushing between Tennessee & Arkansas

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Someone was learning to swim in your deep end.

Pacific Ocean inviting us to the deep

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Someone was propelling herself forward through you.

Nameless water in her aquarium with jellyfish

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Someone saw herself in you.

Woodward Park Reflecting Pool reflecting the things above

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Someone saw you in the heavens.

Anonymous water fueling rainbows in the Memphis sky

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There are not enough lips to utter
All your fleeting names, O water

I would have to say them in every tongue
Pronouncing all the vowels at once

Wislawa Szymborska, (Excerpt from a translation of Water.  Read the beautiful poem here).

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My Svadhisthana Inspiration Playlist

Dear Island, ≈∝≈ Joseph Michael

Sleepwalk ≈∝≈ Kalani

Clare de Lune ≈∝≈ Kerrilyn Renshaw ≈∝≈ Classical Relaxation Piano with Soothing Ocean Sounds

Moonlight Sonata ≈∝≈ Chie Nagatani ≈∝≈ Classical Relaxation Piano with Soothing Ocean Sounds

(ok, absolutely anything and everything from the Classical Relaxation Piano with Soothing Ocean Sounds Album)

Somewhere Over the Rainbow ≈∝≈ Israel Kamakawiwo’ole

Heaven ≈∝≈ DJ Sammy

I Want Your Sex ≈∝≈ George Michael

The Seal Lullabye ≈∝≈ Voces8 & Lavinia Meijer

As the Water… ≈∝≈ John Williams

Erotic City ≈∝≈ Prince

Orinoco Flow ≈∝≈ Enya

Overflow of Love ≈∝≈ Alexandre Desplat ≈∝≈ The Shape of Water

The Women of Water  ≈∝≈ Lin Hai ≈∝≈ Empire of Silver

Made of Water ≈∝≈ Tom Wisner

Feelin’ Love ≈∝≈ Paula Cole

Earlier this year…

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First Day of Summer at the Farm

Strange Moments in October

 

Thinker on a Rock, Sculpture Garden in D.C.

 

Somewhere in the bowels of D.C.

 

 

 

South Main, Memphis, TN

 

 

An Invasion at the Squirrel Nut Zippers Concert

 

 

 

 

 

Quiet

Love itself describes its own perfect. Be speechless and listen.

–Rumi

The Moonflower Blooms

A Love Song Sang in Pictures

Today on the Farm

roses & arugula intermingle

cucumbers bloom

blackberries ripen

Peculiar Children

I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen.  The first of these came as a terrible shock, and like anything that changes you forever, split my life into halves: Before and After.

-Jacob Portman (Ransom Riggs)

Reeling from the mysterious events surrounding his grandfather’s tragic death, 16-year-old Jacob Portman sets off to learn more about of his grandfather’s  life, the strange photographs he kept, and the fanciful stories he told about them. Jacob’s journey takes him to an abandoned orphanage on a remote island where a secret world hides beneath the ruins of the bombed-out wreckage.

We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing them becomes too high.

–Jacob Portman

As soon as I turned the last page of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children on Sunday afternoon, I ran to the bookstore to buy the next book in the series. This is Ransom Riggs’s first novel and it is  riveting. Riggs has woven a story around the strange and creepy vintage photographs he collected from flea markets over the years, some of which are published in the book as characters and scenes. The pictures alone are worth the book’s cover price.

Though categorized as “young-adult fiction,” consider yourself forewarned, there is a significant amount of dark and violent topics touched on in the pages, including the Holocaust, bomb raids, murder, animal slaughter, animation of the dead, and slightly less scary non-human monsters of the sharp teeth and tentacled sort. In fact, there was a certain point, about mid-way through, when it began giving me nightmares, so maybe it’s not the best bedtime story. But it is a story worth reading.

Also in the Garden…

I have a new one-eyed Turtle friend named Sprout.  He has taken up residence in my garden.  We’ve been hanging out together.

Sprout being shy

Sprout in a rather distinguished-looking pose

Nickel seems threatened by this new relationship.  Last week while I was cleaning out the veggie beds he persistently intercepted my reach, sticking his silly cat head between my hand and every weed I was trying to pull.  It was a sad and desperate attempt to force me to pet him, which of course worked.  And while I was taking pictures of Sprout, Nickel jumped up on a rock between us and he went all “Zoolander” on it, in a “look what I can do” sort of way.  It was a sad and desperate attempt to force me to take pictures of him…

“I’m too sexy for my shirt”

“I’m too sexy for your party – no way I’m disco dancing”