Winter haiku...

Footprints in the snow
chilly march across my deck
for a peck of seed

I looked up

from beneath the tree in my yard, through to the blue sky above, on another beautiful autumn day.

This tree (which came with my house, and therefore I do not know its species)is a visual delight in every season. When it loses it's leaves in the fall, these wonderful yellow berries appear. In winter, they turn red, then brown, and even when it is bare, it's a perfect silhouette of snow and ice. In spring, it flowers in white, but if you look closely at the petals, they are rose-colored in the center. In summer, the white petals blanket the ground and green leaves greet me again.

In spite of the fact that I am essentially allergic to the fall (mold, leaves, hives, itch, horrendous, two weeks, end of story!), this has been one of the most beautiful seasons I can remember. We've had perfectly mild weather in the day, chilly and crisp for sleeping at night.

Art stuff...
I organized one of my many journals last night =-- my IDEA journal -- and it was a good exercise to remind me of all the sketches I made and ideas I have for holiday projects and also for techniques I want to try. As this year rapidly comes to a close, I am looking back at the year to see what I've accomplished, and making my list of intentions for 2008. Those who know me or have followed my blog for awhile know that I used to dread (and avoid) making resolutions or intentions, because my logic was that if I didn't do them I would feel badly, whereas, if I never admitted to having them, I could not fail...

Of course, this was very skewed logic. I certainly wasn't fooling myself. I still felt awful when a year would go by with nothing to show for it. With the help of a wonderful creative coach, I was able to see this flaw in my logic. So now I declare my plans and intentions -- often quite publicly in this forum -- and just such a simple declaration makes them real, and is the first step to realizing them.

Spring...my new favorite season...

I have always been an autumn girl. I love crisp cool weather, new fall sweaters, ochre, red, brown... but this year, I am really appreciating the miracle of springtime, when nature shows its resiliency and incredible beauty. Plants that you think could not possibly survive winter in the northeast bud and bloom and restore my faith. I breathe deeply the smell of fresh-cut grass, flowers, wet earth, and warm sun.-- Yes, I smell the warm sun. Okay, maybe I feel it, but part of the magic of spring for me is the mingling of the senses.
Birds...
another miracle of spring in upstate New York.
I have a nest of baby robins outside my kitchen window. From behind the sheers in my kitchen, I watched as they built the nest in my arborvitae, twig, by twig... and I watched the day they defended the eggs from a common grackle. I saw what it really means to "get ones feathers up" as the robin plumped up to appear larger and more threatening and successfully defended the nest. And now I watch as mother robin brings them worms, seemingly all day long. She has at least four hungry mouths to feed, from what I can see when I dare to intrude by using my own deck, and I am in awe of the devotion and duty of motherhood.