Unswervingly Given

"And the sun and all light
Have forever fused themselves

Into my heart and upon
My skin.

There is only one rule
On this Wild Playground...

"Have fun, my dear; my dear, have fun,
In the Beloved's Divine
Game."  

- Hafiz

Our spontaneous trip to the mountains for a sunset picnic of pear pizza and squash soup - AND - to drum down the sun!

Nourished by the Mystery

"Now the sea
is in me: I am the fish, the fish
glitters in me; we are
risen, tangled together..." - Mary Oliver

He borrowed this book from school...


he carried his sketchbook to the poorly lit lakeside cafe...

where he drew a butterfly fish, a halibut from 2 angles, and sketched out the shape of a marlin.

That's all

"In summation, I think you just got to not do it, man. That's all." - Badger (Fantastic Mr. Fox)

"Mama", he said, "Britain is killing Badgers...that's so sad".

"It is", I replied.  That's all I could say.

First Day: Third Grade

"Mama, I'm scarecited...that's half scared, half excited".

School Prayer by Diane Ackerman

In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,

I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.

In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,

I will honor all life
—wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.

A Light So Radiant: Butterflies

We said farewell to summer with a visit to Brookside Gardens to see the Butterflies.  It felt like a fairytale.