More or Less - July 2016

Let's talk hair!  I just got my hair cut shorter last week because I can't stand it on my neck in this hot, humid weather.  What compelled me to do it was I'd just seen a photo of myself, taken from the side, with my hair up in a bun (because of the heat) and decided I wasn't ready to look like a granny.....even though I was holding my newest grandchild.  The photo also drove home the fact that I'll never look like I did in 1974 when I wore my hair the longest it's ever been, no matter how long I let my hair grow now. . . .

More or Less - June 2016

Because of all the rain we had this Spring I have had more roses than usual.  And because I'm taking time every morning to pick weeds and deadhead I seem to have less work to do in my garden this year.  One of the things I've noticed about my roses is how they change color as they open fully. . . .

 

The Lesson of the Bee and the Flower

♫Love Me♫

The flower doesn't dream of the bee.  It blossoms and the bee comes."  --Mark Nepo, "The Book of Awakening"

Mark Nepo goes on to say, "At times in my life, I have wanted love so badly that I have reimagined myself, reinvented who I am, in an attempt to be more desirable or more deserving, only to discover, again and again, that it is the tending of my own soul that invites the natural process of love to begin.....By attending our own inner growth, we uncannily become exactly who we are..." and we attract "a host of loving others more real than all our fantasies."

Dare to Dream

♫Dare to Dream♫

I recently visited the Tasha Tudor Museum in West Brattleboro, Vermont.  I've been a devoted fan of illustrator/author Tasha Tudor (1915-2008) since I first read about her 1830's lifestyle in Victoria magazine in 1992.  She embodied the following from Henry David Thoreau and often quoted it:

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

She is praised for her illustrated children's books, but followed for her lifestyle.  I admired her for having the courage to live as she pleased.  Her family belonged to high-society Boston, but she wanted to have her own farm, doing much of the work by hand without the help of modern conveniences.  She did not live by the dictates of society, choosing instead to live by an earlier century's sensibility.  You can read more about her life here and here.  

The Museum was exhibiting some of the antique clothing she'd collected in her lifetime.  Click on the first photo to start a slide show...

The family hopes eventually to expand the museum on it's own site:  http://www.tashatudormuseum.org/museum_grounds.htm

I think Thoreau's advice about advancing confidently is key to realizing the life we've dreamed of.  Afterall, where do those dreams come from if not from someplace within us, placed there from the beginning....

Serenade to Spring

♫Serenade to Spring♫

Spring will be over soon....not officially for several weeks, but weather-wise the heat will begin to take it's toll on my garden.  For now I shall enjoy it!  Won't you come along with me.....

The roses are in full bloom!