Plotting the Solstice

The Mystical Analemma

Post by Cathy Lindsay ~ Photo by Scott Betz

Also perfect for Summer Solstice ~ Celebrations
Learn more about the Solar Analemma . . .

Another version . . .

NASA

. . . and Fractals in Nature

. . . and other universal patterns!


Speaking of cosmic patterns . . .


HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE
& MOON OF WINTERTIME!

Thanks Burnetta!

REMEMBER
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.

A Midnight Clear

An Indiana Solstice Sunrise

Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away tonight.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

Poem by Joy Harjo
Artwork by Josie Wren
Post by Heirloom Gardener

Not forgetting the Equinox . . .

Crosby Christmas

Christmas Eve in Crosby Village
The Tree, The Creche, The George

Gerry Meets Up With An Old School Friend
"Happy Christmas, Peter!"

Midnight Moon & Fairy Lights
Across the Road From Little Crosby Church

This morning I pointed out to Gerry that it had already been a full month since we left for Christmas; and he responded: "Only a month!" To me it didn't seem all that long ago, even though we had already been home for two weeks. For him, however, it seemed ages ago! And dear Auntie Margaret wrote to say, "It is only 16 days since you left here but feels more like 16 weeks." Funny how the passage of time can be skewed that way.

Looking at photographs from one of my previous trips, my friend Burnetta asked:

"How do you feel when you are in England? Do you feel as if you are home or close? I have always thought I would feel like that. The photo albums were great, seemed very familiar. Maybe it was due to some of the books I read as a child. I also feel similar about NYC, having never spent much time there but having watched lots of movies set in the city.

"I suppose the name Carriker is Irish though? I thought I was mostly British in ancestry but found out that I am mostly western European, 44% French and German; however, there is 33% Irish and 19% Great Britain. Interesting. I have always responded so strongly to photos of Great Britain. Wish we could time travel sometimes."

I responded to Burnetta's intriguing observations:

"The fact is, traveling to England often feels to me the way it is for American families going to Ohio or Kansas, because we spend most of our time driving around in a rental car visiting cousins and elderly relatives, and sleeping on foreign futons. You can see how jaded I have become!

"So it was kind of nice to hear it from your perspective and tap back into the historical magic and not take it so for granted. I must say, assembling the photo albums always helps me reclaim some of the literary romance of the country! Just before we left for England, one of my neighbors in Indiana said, 'You were so smart to marry a Brit!' I said, 'I know!'

"As for ancestors, you're right, I don't have any from England that I know of. Most are from Ireland and Germany and some from Sweden and Switzerland."

Regardless of our genetic ancestry, I think what Burnetta and I feel in our bones is the literary lineage of all the English novels we have ingested over the years, filling our hearts and heads with visions of a British Christmas Past.

A Rainy May Day

The Act
There were the roses, in the rain.
Don’t cut them, I pleaded.
They won’t last, she said.
But they’re so beautiful
where they are.
Agh, we were all beautiful once, she said,
and cut them and gave them to me
in my hand.

~by William Carlos Williams

With many thanks to literary botanist
Burnetta Hinterthuer for the WCW reference!
Previous May Day Posts
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2016

Big Tree in the Middle of the Yard

Thanks to our friend Thomas Sheridan Walsh
for spotting Gerry's profile pic,
turning us into an album cover,
and upgrading us to "Raging"!

Our son Ben (age 11 at the time) took the original photo of us
back in 2001 with our extremely ordinary camera,
no special tricks, he just got everything right!
Haverford College Duck Pond ~ Pennsylvania

And we really do have a
big tree in the middle of our yard!

Speaking of which:

It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make Man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night -
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.
[emphasis added]

Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637)
(With additional credit to literary botanist Burnetta Hinterthuer)

Good Bones

Previous Arbor Day Posts
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017

Full Moon Night ~ Full Moon Year

Burnetta: What causes such emotions
to bubble up when I look at the moon?
Kitti: If we only knew!

2017 ~ HAPPY NEW YEAR! ~ 2017

A Perfect Ecclesiastical / Paschal Moon

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

FULL MOON CALENDERS
FROM PREVIOUS YEARS
Moons of Wintertime and Beyond ~ 2013
Never Quite the Same ~ 2014
Time for a Moondance ~ 2015

EASY LISTENING
Van Morrison's "Moondance"
Michael Buble's Rendition
"It's a marvelous night for a moondance!"

P.S.
Q. My friend Megan inquired, "What's the scoop on the moon calendar? Were they taken throughout the year or on a special day? Clearly there were different days, but are they governed by a theme?"

A. If I stop and think about it, I think I can answer this question. The last moon calendar I made was for the year 2015, using moons from 2014. Last year, I got distracted by other themes and didn't make a 2016 moon calendar. So for the current 2017 calendar, I had many moons from which to choose, for I had been saving all my moon photos from 2015 and 2016. A few of the choices match up with the corresponding month, but others I picked randomly or transported in from the "wrong" time of year because they seemed like a good fit (e.g., the big yellow February moon used in October).

The very top Paschal Moon was photographed in April 2016, Amelia Island, Florida

January ~ taken in January 2016 ~ Early Morning Moonset from my backyard, Indiana

February ~ early April 2015 in my front yard

March ~ a year later in the same spot ~ April 2016 in my front yard

April ~ June 2016 from my driveway, tropical Indiana

May ~ May 2016 ~ taken through the pines, while visiting Ben in Durham, North Carolina

June ~ June 2016 ~ Summer Solstice Moon, Indiana

July ~ July 2016 ~ Another Driveway View

August ~ September 28, 2015 ~ The Super Blood Moon, an hour before the total lunar eclipse

September ~ September 2016 ~ Waiting for the Harvest Moon to Rise Above the Treeline

October ~ February 2016 ~ The Last Full Moon of Winter

November ~ November 2015 ~ Thanksgiving Eve, taken through my bedroom window

December ~ November 2015 ~ A Ghostly Moon Pre - Winter Moon

The concluding Moondance Moon was taken in June 2016, through the oak leaves in my front yard.

I try to photograph the full moon every month if possible, running out with my camera when the time is right. When I complained that the highly acclaimed movie Moonlight didn't seem to feature much actual moonlight, my son Sam made me laugh by asking, "Did Mom sit through the entire movie with her camera ready, hoping to get a picture of the moon?" Haha! he knows me well!

How the Light Gets In

~~ 12 November 2016 ~~
A week after the U.S. Presidential Election, my friend Burnetta* and I were exchanging photographs of the full moon: "I know you will post one of your own," she wrote. "All of my friends are so down, Kitti. We must figure out what to do, how to act, and take back the best aspects of our democracy. Of course, we practice those every day. I hope they are enough. Everyone I know feels the same. Peace, love and hope for the coming days, weeks. May we find the high ground and work from there."

Mourning not only Hillary Clinton's lost chance at running our country, but also the death of Leonard Cohen, Burnetta posted this song as the pefect tribute to a timeless songwriter and a fitting response to our post - election trepidation:

Anthem

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government --
signs for all to see.

I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring ...

You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.

Words and music by musical genius, poet, and man of vision Leonard Cohen
(September 21, 1934 – November 7, 2016)

~~ 13 November 2016 ~~
Another favorite of mine is the "Song for Bernadette":

So many hearts I find, broke like yours and mine
Torn by what we've done and can't undo
I just want to hold you, won't let me hold you
Like Bernadette would do . . .
And every now and then we try
To mend the damage that we've done . . .

By Leonard Cohen, Bill Elliott, Jennifer Warnes

The Jennifer Warnes rendition is popular,
but I prefer Anne Murray or Judy Collins.

~~ 14 November 2016 ~~

*Previous Burnetta Posts:

Dawn of Doom (Dark Vapors) ~ 10/7/16

Roots of Kindness ~ 4/29/16

Your Poem, My Poem ~ 2/23/16

May Day Birthday ~ 5/1/14

The Wire Brush of Doubt ~ 3/16/14

The Fish Hatchery, Neosho ~ 2/8/14

Never Quite the Same ~ 1/9/14

Moons of Wintertime and Beyond ~ 12/28/12

Whatnots ~ 12/1/13

City Wonderland ~ 12/3/12

Come Back to the Present! ~ 10/22/12

Autumn Days ~ 10/17/12

Chrysanthemums ~ 10/9/11

Huckleberry ~ 7/21/11

All Souls: Never Alone ~ 11/2/10

Fair ~ 7/2/10

Opinions & Facts ~ 4/20/10

April Leaf ~ 4/8/10

THANKS BURNETTA!

Roots of Kindness

~ Thanks to Burnetta for this poster & more ~

Previous Arbor Day Posts
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015

A Tree Can Be Your Chair!
Lincoln Park ~ San Francisco

Your Poem, My Poem

"If this moon doesn't change you . . .
Not enough for me
that this moon shines in your eye . . .
I want this moon to be in your mind . . . "*

See also "Your Poem, Man . . .
FROM "FORWARD to NEW NUMBERS"
by Christopher Logue

If this book doesn’t change you
give it no house space;
if having read it you
are the same person you
were before picking it up,
then throw it away.

Not enough for me
that my poems shine in your eye;
not enough for me
that they look from your walls
or lurk on your shelves;
I want my poems to be in your mind
so you can say them when you are in love
so you can say them when the plane takes off
and death comes near;
I want my poems to come between
the raised stick and the cowering back,
I want my poems to become
a weapon in your trembling hands,
a sword whose blade both makes and mirrors change;
but most of all I want my poems sung
unthinkingly between your lips like air.

[Now, try substituting the words
"Moon or Photos" for "Book / Poems"]

See also "What Do Writers Want?"
FROM "COVER NOTE"
by W.S. Merwin

. . . reader I do
not know that anyone
else is waiting for these
words that I hoped might seem
as though they had occurred
to you and you would take
them with you as your own**

FROM "FINDING A NEW POET"
by Linda Pastan

Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods . . .

And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only

in your dreams there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only there had been a flower.

. . . or a moon . . .
Such as this one by Jay Beets,
whose photographs are guaranteed to change you!

As my friend Burnetta wrote, in response to
The Last Full Moon of Winter:
"Why do we long for the winters of our youth?
(At least I do, the winters of my imagination.
Were they even real?)"

May Day Birthday

Happy May Day to All!

Peonies, 1887
Charles Edward Perugini, 1839 - 1918
[Previous Peony Post]

&

Happy Birthday to Etta!

For my Christmas present this past December, my dear,
life - long friend Marietta gave me a big shopping bag
full of my old letters to her, thinking that I could use
them for my memoirs, and even better -- for blogging!
Thanks Et!

************

Thanks to my friend Mitzi
for sharing this photo from the Woodland Trust

Ah listen, for silence is not lonely!
Imitate the magnificent trees
That speak no word of their rapture, but only
Breathe largely the luminous breeze.

from the poem -- about the painter -- "Corot"
by D. H. Lawrence
Burnetta writes: "Oh what scene, from my childhood in west Kentucky! I have to share this. I just makes me long for the "olden days" at least in landscape.

Indeed! My friend Vickie Amador and I often reminisce about wandering down a lovely path such as this, gathering wildflowers in a basket as a May Day surprise for our elders!

The Wire Brush of Doubt

Last Full Moon Before the Vernal Equinox
Thanks to my friend Burnetta & her friend Craig for sharing these words, so timely as we anticipate the nearing spring, even as the temperatures remain below freezing!

. . . This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.

lines from "A Blessing for the Breakup of a Relationship"
found in To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
by Irish poet & priest John O'Donohue, 1956 - 2008

~ blushed with beginning ~

The Fish Hatchery, Neosho

"The Fish Hatchery Neosho ~ 1912"
by Thomas Hart Benton, American painter and muralist
born in Neosho, Missouri on 15 April 1889
died in Kansas City on 19 January 1975
For the past couple of weeks, some of my friends have been playing a kind of tag - you're - it art game on facebook. Your friend names an artist and you post a painting E.g., when I received Georgia O'Keeffe, I pulled up an old favorite; and when I received Fra Anjelico, I learned something new (click here or scroll down).

I was most excited when my childhood neighbor Rebecca gave me an artist from our home town of Neosho, Missouri: Thomas Hart Benton. We grew up proud of his artwork and his famous family. Some of our friends attended Maecenas Eason Benton Elementary, named for his father, the U.S. Representative for Missouri (from 1897 - 1905). Becky and I and our siblings were just as pleased to attend Eugene Field Elementary, named for the St. Louis poet.

There are various examples of Benton's artwork around Neosho, and I was all ready to share a photograph of his ceramic tile mural on the side of the former Safeway store, across the street from Big Spring Park. Not only did we love it as kids, but I even took my kids there to see it one summer, on a family vacation:

Sam & Ben acting out the scene on the mural
on the side of the old Safeway Store
Labor Day Weekend, 2002 ~ Neosho, Missouri
However, as I got ready to post my example of Thomas Hart Benton's work, I learned that I have been mistaken all these years! This well - remembered mural is NOT by Thomas Hart Benton! It was commissioned and designed by local artist Lawrence J. “Larry” Sanchez, who had studied at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts and won a mural-design contest sponsored by Safeway Stores. Mr. Sanchez, my apologies for the confusion!

Of course, I still admire the mural as much as ever, but I realized that in order to fulfill my art quest assignment, I would need to search further. There are so many to choose from, but I settled on "The Fish Hatchery" because if there's anything that defined our growing up in Neosho besides Thomas Hart Benton and George Washington Carver and Eugene Field and Big Spring Park and Fort Crowder and Rocketdyne . . . it was The Fish Hatchery!

I was sure that Rebecca would approve of my choice, and even though it was totally new to both of us, we immediately agreed that "The Fish Hatchery" has to be the quintessential Thomas Hart Benton painting: local artist, local watering hole, local color, local beauty, local peace of mind!

Rebecca said, "Yes. I've never seen this painting before, but I love it. So much of his work is action - oriented and masculine. This is peaceful, sweet and gently rendered, and the subject is a place I remember from so many elementary school field trips. Thank you so much for finding this."

All of our Neosho friends agreed, if you went to school in Neosho, you've certainly been on a field trip to the Fish Hatchery! It really was the perfect in - town getaway, just as Benton has portrayed it, though the painting doesn't really capture the fishy aroma, yet another memory that shall never fade!

P.S.
For a view more scenes of the good life in Neosho,
see my photo albums:
Neosho, Missouri & Few Acres

P.S.S.
Burnetta wrote to say:
"I love Thomas Hart Benton, and Steve and I visited the hatchery on a scavenger hunt for my 60th. It was an awesome birthday surprise. We also went to the largest planter."

Yes, of course! How could I have forgotten Neosho's nickname
and it's famous gigantic Flower Box!