#blooming poplar forest

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Bazhou, China

A blooming poplar forest near Luoburen village

Photograph: Costfoto/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

[headspace-hotel]

so many of us haven't seen it

we don't encounter it, we can't imagine it, we can't get out of the tomb of apathy because we haven't seen the wonders just beyond their line of sight

I talk about this all the time, but it's because I think about it all the time

There are likely thousands of plants native to the area you live in, and chances are you have never even seen most of them, in your entire life.

Not even rare orchids that only bloom at midnight on a blood moon or some shit—regular flowers. Weeds. They have been systematically eliminated from every single place you ever set foot in, and you have to have a special hobby or line of work to ever even rest your eyes upon the flowers that used to bloom for no one on every hill, or in every valley, or beside every stream

There are a few hundred birds that live where I live. I have never seen most of them before. I have never seen a Kentucky Warbler, and I have lived in Kentucky for what...twenty years?

I have never seen a rosy maple moth. When I saw one on the internet, I didn't even think it was real.

I've become a deeply weird person over the past couple years. Tasting even a little bit of the Wonders changes you. I wouldn't have thought blue bees were real, or the fantastically rainbow-colored dogbane beetles.

I have seen the world beyond the wasteland, and that glimpse makes you crazy.

You or I may have never seen a truly mature tree. A fraction of a percent of the old growth forest of the Eastern USA remains. Once there were tulip poplars over 6 feet in diameter and sycamores well over 10 feet in diameter. Only a few remain, in secret locations. Imagine walking through a forest where the tree trunks are over 3-4 feet wide.

The forest where I work is 100 years old. That's a baby forest.

Knowing that, being aware of that, it's maddening.

Central Kentucky has disproportionately few endemic plants. Almost none. Central Kentucky was the first area west of the Appalachians settled by European colonizers. The Bluegrass was once described as having the most peculiar plant life anywhere in the East, but now, there are no species known that are unique to that area.

Colonization destroyed the canebrakes. (Did you know that we had vast forests of bamboo full of carnivorous plants?) The bamboo is barely hanging on. It destroyed the sycamores so enormous you could use the hollow center of one as a stable for animals. It introduced invasive grasses to feed cattle and horses. It destroyed the rich lush topsoil. Most of the ancient oaks were cut down or died when housing developments were built on top of their roots.

What happened to the endemic species, never recorded in books of herbs, never sketched by a European naturalist.

Either gone forever...or hiding in a sinkhole on a backroad somewhere, not even yet discovered.

So much has been lost for eternity. So much still could be lost.

Some days it's hard not to wail and scream. There are herbicides in your drinking water. When you spread honey on toast, you likely also spread neonicotinoid pesticides, which testing has confirmed to be present in something like 45% of honey. In many areas, insects are immersed in the presence of chemicals designed to kill them in every drop of water, every leaf, every square inch of soil.

When games, animations, and illustrations envision the outdoors, they cover the ground with a short, uniform carpet of green, because that is what we see, no matter where we go: turfgrass cut by a lawn mower. Where I live, there are no natural environments that resemble this, remotely. The closest thing we have to turf-forming grass is our wealth of native sedges, most of which are rare or endangered.

I talked to a man who had devoted his life to studying the American bamboo, Arundinaria gigantea, and he had never seen a canebrake larger than 200x500 feet. Canebrakes once covered ten million acres, and now the bamboo exists in short, straggly clumps instead of dense bamboo forests up to 40 feet tall.

I want to cry and scream. The grief will tear me to pieces. I live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, surrounded by people who can't even grieve, because they have been so completely severed from everything that was lost that they don't even know it was real.

It hurts. It hurts, and we have to live with it. It hurts, and the grief is all-consuming.

There is the agony, and there are the Wonders. Both are true at the same time. It is because nothing around us is standing still; everything in nature is always moving, iterating, becoming. Something is pulling and nudging at our species, urging us to move, to iterate, to become.

So much has been lost. Even more is not lost.

The trees, the bamboo, the sedges, the Kentucky warblers and rosy maple moths.

They are not lost. We are lost.

This is the hard part. The grief is hard, but this is somehow harder for us. We are lost, and it is time to come home.

Not to a physical place, but to a way of living: interconnected, mutualistic, interdependent. Symbiosis. In the forest, no one is separate from anyone else, everyone is linked and dependent on the community. Trees help each other, they support each other, they protect and shelter and feed one another and all living things, and together they are a forest. I don't really consider myself religious, but I have to reserve something in my head for how it felt to realize what Forest was.

When I noticed the little plants popping up in the sidewalk cracks and gravel paths, the tough weeds holding on in the lawns and pavement, something in my brain began to change dramatically and permanently.

They're still here. The trees. Even in the pavement and lawns. The dandelions have come, adapting rapidly, helping the bees hold on. The wildflower seeds are still sprouting in this depleted ground. Waiting for us to recognize them. Life is everywhere. The Forest is everywhere. It felt like they were waiting. We're here. We have not abandoned you. We are resilience, persistence, survival, adaptation. This is not death. This is Chaos. Come home. Come home. Come home.

I saved little plants from the roadside and tended them in plastic cups. I didn't think it would work. I don't know why I tried. I was acting as something bigger than only myself, responding to a call that moves throughout all of nature. But they survived, and growing and tending to my little plants and trees, I—understood.

I don't know if I believe in God, but I believe in Something, whatever it was that seemed to whisper like a secret: Welcome home, Caretaker.

And honestly, truth shone through then from relics of religion I hadn't touched in ages; God put Adam in a garden, not a suburb, a mall, or a Walmart. This is who you are. Not a Consumer, but a Caretaker.

And when the threat of the Flood loomed, God told Noah to start building a fucking boat.

In ecology, the plants we know as "weeds" are pioneer species: the first species to return to an area after a natural disaster or mass extinction. They survive in the harshest conditions, and prepare the land for regeneration. This is who you must become.

Look to the Dandelion—in just a few hundred years on this continent, Dandelion has risen to the highest calling of a Weed: first survive where the others can't, and then help the others survive. If the human species is to survive, you must be a weed species. You must adapt relentlessly, resist eradication, and protect and nurture other life forms by your very nature. You must be tough as nails, and make the world a gentler place through your survival.

Have you heard the saying that grief is love with no place to go?

That's the hard part.

We must grieve, but it is not yet time to grieve. It is time to love.

[janewilsonrva]

Redbud in Bloom

Richmond, Virginia (USA)

Based on a photo from March 26, 2023.

Eastern Redbud is shrub native to North America and a Spring favorite here in Virginia since colonial times. It is said that both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson admired Redbud trees out in the woods and planted them at their home estates (Mount Vernon, Monticello, Poplar Forest).

[ethereal-forest-furry]

highbush blueberries covered in flowers.. i love them theyre so funky and silly looking and it makes me rlly happy. theyre like little bells

tip for growing blueberries!!! everyone says they need like super duper acidic soil to grow, which they do like, but it's not 100% necessary. what they rlly need is chelated iron (plus some other nutrients but iron is the most important here) which most plants can get by breaking down the iron in the soil through their roots. blueberries are rlly well adapted to acidic soil - and as part of that adaptation theyve lost the ability to break down iron because they rely on acids in the soil to do it for them. There is another way they can get it tho!!! remember when i said other plants break down iron?? if the blueberries can form a mycorrhizal relationship (plant equivalent of mutual aid networks. using fungi. literally my fav thing) then the surrounding plants can give their iron to the blueberries :3 grasses are the best at doing this, especially if you cut the grass occasionally bc it makes the roots die back a bit and release all their nutrients into the soil around the blueberries. im sure it helps that mine are next to a lot of old oaks and poplars that probably have loads of nutrients and connections to the whole forest by now

some ppl try to use various chemicals to grow blueberries, which i get but its harmful to the soil and just rlly expensive and unnecessary... all u need is grass/trees and fungi :3 just take care of the soil!!!

theres a bunch of these scattered around the garden and every year when they bloom you can hear the bees from a few feet away - so many different kinds of bumblebees, honeybees, mason bees, and all the others that idk bc im not a bee expert :P they LOVE blueberries fr if you like bees and yummy snacks (especially if ur in their native range) these are like the best thing to plant

last year the berries all got infected with some kinda fungus right before they turned ripe 3:< hoping that doesnt happen again. if anyone knows how to keep them safe pls lmk :3

[libidomechanica]

The same speckled

A sonnet sequence

               1

The Fall of deep peace, and my Eccho ring. The ground her hath her answers him kneel. Be king hands. I almost work of Tityrus his knee, and his way to known them. Misapplied: No! Nor blindly laws. Summoned to awake the Trecentisti; ’ in Greece, he wild sky, whate’er they possess’d in Tears. The same speckled rounding by his knee, and lacking, and the violet of blizzards and love, she saw these they are gone. See my loue to call the mind: it will not ope thro’ all their Insect- Wings us to grow. See, where they can I be blasted only thro’ which sitting in my reconciled in thy selfe the blow.

               2

A bonny bower-door, to the said; the body, and she use, her Tablet—Yes—’tis uninscribes a crater. An injure. Behold you that I forest, and slight; with him, Wordsworth’s ebon dart, the mistakes, where they did; but, fury, woe, or as those koi. A lovers’ hours, sun, whene’er then will turn the way, where thought came backyard licks of civil! And thee on my living bloom, too, of evening, as quick in hight, while ye write of Air. Throw that are theyr eccho ring. Neuer had touch the brain. Crystal, naked is doth you among the heaven’s limbs from whence a little while I think, is worthier told.

               3

A man unders, like poplar made, and lost. The break her ere shall she look’d down from aboue, and hew Triumph o’er the inlaid without the ice needs must be lost, woe unto every ye weary, he common grief abused it and carroll of shame I spent. Of those enow! Thou wert therefore, dear Waggoners, ’ around; the oldest the path is first of gladness marr’d: his son of the rolls the dead, and thorns: that it more; but this invidious noise of his home, as some dim touch the great oppress’d. Lay scatterd light; and other. That I maintain that all the circumstance bounded helpless ill the stars into me.

               4

She take so lewdly beauty with death, which seeke the ground. Till which spake a strange routed boy: tis to wears a cravat; but I am not in silk and I myselfe pype of the mouse bespoke too cute, the wanton babes to wed wits at will, my want-begotten field, like flowry graceful. Behind, I stretched Sylph in cleare, not be easily harm’d of flattery, so I did not my trembling hands ta’en her bed will bands avian, too, and thrice again topsy- turvy, twisted into the Muses are scorn, sweet pleased, who grewest not see thee, Katie, my friendship, equal fire, nor yet do it to me: what seemeth dropping could neither nurse with windleshanks? The country-farm to beginnings of his rice, and systems have the fevers, massacres and heart, the bats, where, unlikeness, nor why I’m not in any chance, because they him not in ranne. Locks into your body but enslaved a wind alone.

               5

While I stack by his face, like a balloon? The door to record? Till ever dwells of me, and flower phases wrought her icy breathe adieu. At time of the trees which, with equal mistrust; it sucked from fear to me as Romances, newspapers, in the captive void of the mast o’ the goddesse please he finds of Air. Of solace lives in light to think what wall, or where two first and in the lute Corinna, for love for barley- sheaves, the curious and black chaos thus, and absinthe arts are lost her Vanities, which enchanting? His fashion’s song, the death; forgiveness’ might not wast, my soul. When they.

               6

What a war of all my part the circle of life; thine are likenesse did not speak. His rice, meat, there was already play, our self so fair commeth time. The soul of his you poor, ring into mould; and honour there Cymon was not fewer to lend and her ranges, for three partaker of breathing somewhere, open conquer’d, I thinking more than combin’d, her for all; if one of old victory; and goodwill, my friend, comes of Camelot. Loe whereon it must reason; t was the rest orphan of snows; supposing even after Winter dark fen the Turkish trousers furl’d about their small: with javeling air; I loved you of that e’er the British Queene, hye your Eccho ring. To darken’d her life, and man, whom the sighs to run her being of love and sung long so long, as her blue the pursuers in them pure, which most unoriental teare. Still onward blows, are lang day’s detested theme of thee.

               7

Were to see the house; old sisters would man. Have chosen friend stories! Not all his weep; the heroic rays, she said to inscrib’d with soft seraphic cheeks; four, through the seaman, that poore soul. Your fault was born to others being a man of please less of savage deed, demand now Adonis had many wives and cancell’d in turn away boy who changed the song and sting; the fruitful shame. We glides, safe with the same speak: this invited. Sprawl? ’ Breath. Cage, these, or none puts on out my mouth grace except, like many a rose. Rapt from foreigne with Ruby and faith an uncorrupted house, and he is sinner!

               8

Sing ye there she that mad with proffer’d violets’ eye; which by turns her sad and made the nipple, can speech is the faded leaf put fear; why will. To drink, and digest hearts would blaze forth some ice, taking, bids the chain of a hill to disclosed with thy course, and the boundlesse shining Sappho’s break and as for this flea guilt: for more astonish’d in his swaddling, and not stem and enter email privacy refunds advertise contact link they must speak, fair surprising his blowes; and in higher hangs, that he had dreamed I was a trice as you are nothing, about the Trophies of other lap did see.

               9

Is brow, till am learnest—but aye she lock, not gather’s scythe offence: doubted daughters all; the town, he reader, to the hears ashamed of the store of my lips, since if then raging saw what; his journey once beyond sire; subject and downe, and of the two stremes; despair, while she prated Rome, true, the vigour, bold Sir Plume had not sweet, this Lock, tend there the ledges of his virtuous stronger. And now ye dainty cheek, and say’st roam the lighted sailors where: not thou arteries; nor stricken to dawn coming bare the side its Honour is to me, sayings of Troy; stella is nought about?

               10

Smart unclosed to know what we went as your Locks first pass to raise a labours the day did you might of nightly, that not to draw a moment his double I been at the virgins to snows; supposing cycle goes are lift her pure imaginary she would ease him at her arms, suggesteth to die, my heart that, eye that hapless imperial truths to save thee light, the hole, ’ would be. Too old fountain from crimes of the immortality alone at the Spring with somewhere is not a mother’s rein under other one? The yule-cloth the master— not the miserable is to the fire?

               11

’—Not yet nought it laugh at time and now takes for the British Throngs promiscuous storms, there more; nor dare: that transplanted on a growth the flockes dost lends embraced the learn’d, preference are nothing of all the Pow’rs gave lion was give, so Orpheus did he bearing than they and presence to weep, and he should be thy head was what folly, the Ballad or rough, I returned me was in a forgot to go through clay afloat. Disturbed from the lies budded fish in the Fops envy, and all the which the table. To those bred more gashes like clouds do say, while the chastity, you’llnever mark, and hide?

               12

In the rest of many, round his churl in silk and swallowing Death, or wishfull vow, and I cried surprise to glancing, yet is hall at once made an atmosphere, nor wilt have sung their winged within. The hall the glass appeared of her Eyes are; nor every nearer to me, how that bears the earth white baracan, and forceless owes and—should I dare we almost words, like a room of the wishes—did we held out hurdles of which, belied the best to find so many a grapes, do surfeits not speed. Profess in the depths of prayer, who bids him from both with this flea’s death without alarms, and all live.

               13

And when waste a wonder at a rout, ends. As some one burn so chast, a beam, and the shore; the barrein now reign o’er will not fear. You likewise youth a lazy length might of the past, and success, no doubt beside his fyrye face, nor damned ghost, O crown’d into the gazing on from burning to the same, I say, will laughter—had no further priests in its leafless ribs of Whale. Lay a pleased. Of calculate both in beds them with compel a well-proportioned nose, they wept for she said No’. And on the morn as of good? And tears, quake to sing: think the language broken utter’d in each, and balls and learn’d to him.

               14

In the middle ages can’t see the deep dawn turn, until is answer and the shudder; the census take true we see who dote and crime, that lures, and never flowers, and Spright, or in the bosom, where t is, that thou loue, content to find then cups the Fruit of old smokers, of Asia’s might not found, and love can no more pitied. His eyes, that drench’d alone, and Phoebus gins to either the sexiest meal of the blindly ere she cried, so that settled equal power’s shirt for one while clouds of bridale bowers, to claim, poor rich can hurt and sung, some gentle Belles and keener Light hover, her figures do say, where is all alike, endanger reason: many a lover, and grave don’t, Cash down for what I shoulders were against Pallas also did hold it half a happy pair—their carriage—but. Beauty draw me this; I triumphed, or by must that, if thou feel’st it rhymes, which we comes a cry.

               15

Looking ear we sate mute, with mortally thoughts the match with all we cannot, dreadful, and half the shoe is fair sight with a sober manner which to proceed along, in whose grow within the mind, appear; from knoll of orphan’s eyelid dry, stray, is spent. The spoke, and o’er the best is at press of one generous life in love is love you had returned my mind; my works, and the webbing in his Hands. Coming care, each other worne in one that now his Diamond the world to a marble flowres a tweene this isolations guide the lions’ keen eye was a lament through the deserved for the Silver Bound, he seems to resign, yours I am, I will now not white lilies, and spread her love, studied quicken to my true-love is like lightnings of thy comfort in another wear yours was rest, having wrong; being let the kindness flower! Cleft pomegranates of thy might makes a Devil-born.

               16

A third day is true, than a Billet-doux. Where the deceived, expectant, still’d thee how fares of your nativity, that take a Patagonian jealous o’ a’ the Sharp-witted mind to thee, Spirits into the walk’d about some dull disdaine our bed her own, than ducats. Then she was no cause deserve the Falcon thereto approaching to my self, than theyr loue to drink that green-ground, each new Night; the drifts that tell, than Christmas-eve. Poetry Bookshelves knowledge hath gives from the of the train dropped out: Is your love that binds ironies irritate my after Winter breath. Sprang out the sound.

               17

Is a sight I stand lips. And slight lay afloat. If to sing, and on his should he put a kiss shall be distant short swallow boughs with a thousand do not more that’s stillness flower unfamiliar to expel by care, which can a younger, darkly feels: the knocks, so career is I came this lucky thought, somewhat love had not shun their outside to love be blest, knights were mixed with darkening stars, in this pay. Of deer; and now such Maladies do not known munificence is ampler day. On Lethean spring to do with disclose Recesses averted the Wits again to your merry merry show!

               18

In walk’d of prey— that whistled manners bled. Or was a human ill death is still dost the haze of silver down fa’ for Jock of Hair. And only sovereign salve canonization from the first-born and region sweetness to say. Our hero and, I say, will she did joyous make with me that taught my hand the places compasses darkens any life is darkness, the gloom, she bats, when warbling farewell. One large, alive, her borne down from their tide, the Labours to the vessel glides, stunned the keep his tale with his heard the people apart. While now wind, when paper- thin placid awe, they chang’d. Meal of joy.

               19

Could retract; and the phantom-woman that unaware hath promised to be powder’d, I think the tenth or plain of wedlock struck eighteen industrious Tempestuous plighter eyes discourse opened, and cease. For no mortal Wound. Would the lands; and ha’ these pretty, is but one, and cut him, until we’re about: then your eccho ring. Which compass’d by her side by which the fan be euer fedde in whom I love in his name them their annual magistrate. Song to steal from offender’s alarms, and sow the blood, my lips, and hoped, and why to this holy Life! Angels tune. Or clothes and unlawful.

               20

Which was I lay on thro’ the lesser way; from the tidings cryen for rays thee from comes a scarlet come away and when too late the wily Virgin’s heat more shall I die by long stronger. She keen’—but the town, sitting drunken branches loud and clouds of the mimic picture of tranquil ruin, I retires, your wings, by Loue hath so taste, and scarce a scoff; and bishoped gain the other could, with her cheek, his broken faith, the in at heart or covered thou feel it would not dealt between the months in Air, weighs unto men may Dine; the distant view within his people through wave fled, in lands or back.

               21

Pass superb menage loathsome little selves? The years to his mode of life he least, which have a soldier once are not too had done as the birds forgive away: the reprehend, fall like the vague desire; yet feel, or, being less doth lives a silver soil, not be still is he seem’d a curious for speak through our life the mind the sence, but hung to hiccup or to form, what though doubt is naked weeds that earth the woodbine veil the streams, as old Bench, as warring the fight pittie is, the young like myself would, he meditative ranging flats again—to shepheardes all the Nurse and Juan was, the end?

               22

Two blue windows till, for none life I leave bathe innocent. Your deep relation amongst the tempest and roar in health, in it; of what heard you skill to stay him not the same. Impassion, and still the will live! ’Re told; she who conquest fire doth keepe, adieu good queen seraphic flames he died, and view within him to warb—learn’d, pious, but the bent to the greater glides he might have leisure there in the learns thee and slowly love Gregory combustious Heav’n who spring out them each what dimmer on the sense a Miss Blank meant found the sence mad March; come: not indeed, at her hair waits old hand to Fate!

               23

Bid her Hand, which of burst a floated free of men,— what we die. For Wisdom. And this old age is old as he ground my final lands whereat it grows deep-seated hour. Present strange gleams, and on the pediments, divert strong bond of mine shall its meriment, and change my smooth and bread—that rose medled with all forced me thus are crossed be the text is out of dry land? As from Fancy be cool’d in the sun and would charms cross there in their darling by him invisible compass’d tween the grove of glass, and all that thy life had done things save here we have wrought, of all was born. See fierce it ill adapted to redeem the small worth the hill which, can find his hound. New light. Have we are the Baron’s Eve northern light ruin and whistle and you’llsay, now we’re spent pain, and drooping, galloping, and hearth, in his sour to earth she; and its from her to hide her as he short time within her face I know no more.

               24

At the times with to virtue friends remain heaped with me asleepe, may seem, mine was their Bodkin from off two world shapes that he like a knot. Tak down one with tears dead, with thy help she said, oh Shah, whose rays of his Charge of a heart from forgotten sounds from high the first fruitless chastity, love much- beloved the bedded fish in their own: the eternall sleepe, may stayre, and move when a sea at to-morrow may not to black clouds and heart uniform. But left the plasma, listening low in love; it disna becomes a whittle! I come again, on better that one Trump and o’er he beheld again.

               25

Erected, one would given to lick a humanity would no maid’s son, and so many a shiver’d o’er the little gently bent to shed it is why youthful and ought on a pension, her dew distinguish, whereof doth live with what stay him? This Casket Indian shore and all thy bower and genial hours without a few peace on that other, as floating steel by new the waiting triumphant spot of garden-rose they him who shall to begins the wind with art are cement? I dream the coffee to show the night, raunged in delight, when thou, as once a summon up remember pears!

               26

A book argument, of lavish mien, a sweetens our eyes the woe which each others are we know myself the air, the blood a frenne. Who looks thy Bagpype broken Vows, and skim away. Bare me in the height, my busy withered, already upon the spouse, for crippling very sound of stars of yours, you’llhave a kiss. Without the palace flies; but yet one winked in this limbs whose rubies the tips, and reap, and Fear, if all that once have replyes, true ally. But hateful troop appeared. The Tears of the pleasure, that their pain, and sadness, but he fence is temperate dandy, they ministers, struggles stoic, sage, the known the hill but wanton babes, and each bending to be drunk, then, and loud alarms it would not speed, being a goodly you canst say, that heard: ne let thy though neither I long summer by with him last year: the blind! And Cathering it, of air, shalt not his wanton; he’s gane downs and me.

               27

He is a man well roar of innocence: and yet never sudden was obtuse. ’ Marry heart, the gently bent, and all my heart can all our Christian articles thro’ the first she stone, and native cast he turn’d to claim his embrace, While the waves, he bent to feel what seems no life’s ocean-plains with Guilt, and Latin fraud, bud and meant and each with a long has made him her husbands a Structure like Nature wi’ him. Her luck on the Crimson stood and teach humble o’erflowing of my night beat like a disease he linnet warbling starry clustering, this pompous Robe, and ought him at the dissension.

               28

Content. ’Er he got her, I see not to be a dumb lactation in fact, if not quicks, o tell me Papa. And fountain: how many cease you all? To know we’re no baseness picture in his eddying in me, as if they were must do: for to be complaintive shore. And Life, a Furbelo. With her give throne more praise: glory spreads them where did she, have done no eyes the danger seize our tatter’d races drives, that hath breast, there are blame gaudy sun was past him with water past a Jest ⸻ nay prithee to the directly strive to kill. That binds, laughing, how brooks, then two, and I will not yield, and the end?

               29

With side-long Present, as rotted, like echo of a peacock, some separate mind, he ask’d when you said, Sweet yearn’d to a laugh somewhere, swan-like Confusion was not yet ne’er wash’d into a cock’d the name of tourists. Nor hast might renewed, the full sad and laws to Things to Hallam’s Middle of time, and seemed to hear him, this to his hand, till enslavery’s jackal;—i’ve heard and kings: and fussed around me from him: thou had taught that merchants his converted without flaw the christall match between the sweet civil home- bred stars arose and round to all day, half- controll’d announced mildest, matrons for thee.

               30

—But more to rest, for which youth; for no man mighty spels, nor lose headlong to be double intellect: and cannot unknown; human vie with much succeedingly to ken, how the silver Spout: and, move me the servile to teach through the herb and fear: for from her to feigned as men pass the circled steer; what kindly given a lifeless phantom, Nature lends embrac’d: for every part, he turn’d his message prevent, thrust of the Society. Expedient out the Throne as double-tost with and proud rider on the boss of wine, and for the shade, in which I know not like a dumb cry defying couriers in Italy he’d prance and Death? We’re about, as yet the pediments, and now him king on the first confusion warmth from out at her heart, the Levant; except a dubious success is my speculation, but find in mine; but in her figures, shall love regain, and light dies bride.

               31

My old abbey. Daily draws, to mould answer, and we’lldispositions are eerie; and branches of one on all the nights, and infidels adores without a helpless bitter in, and leave my mind; this kid in a king, my thousand the rich, chorus-like, he head to the silent still things to make you found his turn’d a forming Indian strive where eternal Flow’rs, which, tho’ left her by the marge, had bruised, had need not that lay on the Fall he crystal eyne, who batter’d from her living sound, to bind my father’d in his spend the thou makes dayly mone, without alarms in warmth frost was Miltiades!

               32

Loving up from the quay, and from thee are fixed to make him, fresh and world has something with waltz; some Wolfe them thou brings of every badly she dies, one with his kid in her booty sought, how dwarf took off his Charge, exuberant, and heart, and never could not to spendthrift and gold. But clean shew the dead; but taxation; he lov’d, he scale of long divine; tells the brazen great in silent shore, which in fashion’s brides about your fatal shore with human clay? Under the way; for that will keep a musing at the fanning low down freedom rarely can dances, or may find the grey; set me stalks, or breasts but I, then, for a fairy change. This talking how earth of chance, a pleasures make, and years, for every limbs whose fair unhappy if from marge to my lofty elms, and hoisted round the grief my lord of her beat high Muse by experience unto the Glass and was na Robin:—robin shure wi’ him.

               33

By which each; and cherry-pit: she setting in the electrical wires, leaving no cure the same loosely—like a Jade her arms thy loue, in the summer France, and syne he knew not what, however, and hours so, that taught with Golden he rode, a pleased; then being a pitying Audience, submitting sorrow, and their leaden strew’d flower. By swamping life in their long night, the past with javeling crave; and clouds of partial. In words she has best; and he had those faith is gay, for yonder the sea. Well, so it good wine—and earth, Belovëd,—where halfe mellow ripe: my spring alive, and close hand.

               34

But in great bounds, Charms she hath killed up, in shade alone another’s glory, for some stood upon a pivot, he perceived it any fault was the great logs and leaning. And joyous loved remaineth, and when it seemes more pity of him. The doom which enchantment and bounds and a ravish, or by thee; but aye there, named Simile of all. The ocean is moralists hand, the lass of tissue, meridian-like it fear the Palate till the worse: his eyes; who take; thrice the poor woman! The tips, and liked her the only said, that may be of solid earth for you like state; but, when a stone.

               35

Lord God, God and shame give a love to glanced to be, and as yet, ev’n yet, if there: big and slowly but an articles of some Socrates—but part so far, and the greeting cheerful might I not deeds and luminous air ascend, a Branch and coral, still shines: and I feel her own. The East will come against venom fraught, whiles ye for proof makes him kneel’d to her sense it need I love. You never yet betoken’d wrack him, bids him mastering voiceless of death: yea having left Tithones to pain bend? Faithful guard the perfect’st manner which puts on out your body: see it back, and the eldest maid was delight turning feature, pink, and some others, illumin’d with blast echoing to feel there’s ancient power the silence or the winter, as the strong, and think what were I soliloquize beyond the sport of the and meant to shame, but purple from the truth, the ford, or so she agrees.

               36

Why should not see the face, were alone, and harder from nature vex, to pleased; and, being seas: the while I so often stood a strawberry breast. That trash or stone was over to death may lie in bloody view, fair, I feel her gorgeous gloom, my bondsman that warm, a soul on his dayes meridian, or found the breatheth life is dead! Of fire which is to beat so quite conscious hourly- mellowing out a pictured by the faint, life-poisoned bait. Into your greatness and daily breath, and South comes of blood fingers like allay all with all is gay, shall his broke the lot is cast together; that cried.

               37

Or be she rose, and sycophants himself in her wonder down, disdain, as I’ll give to such as fine words, like Gods dear Annie of Louis, what Nature’s error, a tempering grape. To trampled Petticoat—a careless smiled as the breast was some with purple pass athwart the loved me, that beech: we heart was on any chronicle as I walked to gain. The baby is station with bathing dew, that fruitfull progeny, send vs the failure ourselves; for ioy doe surcease: and feeding at an example full of loves his countenance—like Paul with faith thro’ wordy snares to be: for Cupid.

               38

Thou too, mortal love, ’ quoth Venus keeps it fared with Reproaching some once more. That hole where you, but one, to muse make thy mother, a mortal Pride, and violet, and memory street breath; sleep, gentleman, defamed by her could reach’d along, it come at, in narrowing Tears of weaker timber toes your very dew-drop painted Bow, or breath laugh the wily Virgin’s Though I were a youth tasting. If that she had done and pure moments when misters of blood to works with her heart too brittle her Eyes. But live with hope to a thousand Wilberforce: the last renewed, the shepheards God of inflamed my veins.

               39

While I paced the print the incarnation? But have thunder roars, and half languishing restive—they in which thou will blighting tears; for from the door attend to whom he had no novice in desponds,—as if too bold, although he loved the Ringlet the full tears. ’ For a strange it seem’d to wed another’s garb, the woods shall ne’er fortune dead and fell down, and, for thy sore silent unexpress all-comprehends her on the day-lightens to improves from the prest are excuse—e’en death secret from her own sand age-bent, she wore, when I know the human eye, his Purple tear the galleons of the chance, thought.

               40

The lonely, smooth flower,’ quoth shell shrink awhile, among them scorn. And Phoebe fayre Hebe, and health, in her in the promised the printed it. Her bosom, wherefore the splendour of that sits, the course was a ta’en his western were summer dust a voice; I prosperous House; a Road of thy loue is on her timber cottage bench; an iron dug from you I try; tyran Honour, Name, above yours. It so happen—deeds, with Reproach their heads on match his straight thee is laurels smyte, and high heauen would strive what is to him, there with sport me why. To country’s wrist is dearest, an alderman strive to keeps verse, even in sleepe and for ever again. A peasant field; as years of you nor will spin. Not touch, first came; her early more. Is not see them yet, which thee. My ain loved perhaps you’re wrong walk as ere throne, that pass ere I was as he Alone with which I became of the spheres and the streams of pearl.

               41

A lovers for Years, there sweet, upon the year a deep was crost, this Lock, now behind: troy owes your body’s banquet in airy Elves by Moonlight cymarr; her morn her fires to me and gatherine was born in Bethlam. Subject—let me excus’d, gods and walking how earth and languish to kneeling moon in his straight of that his dead, the man; love alone in a worm is wise might provok’d my mind. Then unmark’d, on what she poore soul of no woman sickness number’d o’er then, to turns at ease, and all in its glowing on the pear to us, names are fraught dies; but that the Skies, the more as they him called with thou like popping the low begins to the gods, in vassal unto paper; modest Death,—grim-grinning to Adam can hurt me, that’s one law, and Chiefs contrarious lampe of her for she weeps, while the shocks of Ruin, and fragrant babe the perfection; but of two captive Queene, her Eyes shine; but still.

               42

In proud humility; who every tree discover where thee; but certain’d; and of these, as down, tak down, for good: defined. What your sunburned away, to slant of replies with nature of that hears survive the blindly within the comett stird vp the story has been slowly worn buried blood. Who wake, nor other love of grave, and lips shall scarce had kept, and dimmer on their love are not dealt with God forth the mould; so pass’d for east, and favourable now; day, who may Place, and died with fayre flowres, a shining each cheeks, to his wooden spring which telling life into bounteously full of dew.

               43

And turne, that loss of men who drew behind? But how his Diamond’s eye? We lives on matches. Now Ben he devil, wooings, and foretold that all her prays that bound thy though as are love in use, her range. All raiment rises in approuance doth repent, my hero, and aye she frosty winter starts are ended following grave this daughters of Air. On speed, being sate heaven-kissing social stately thee; but, crying, and their force, and women of my lost invention, even her bosom never knew it was hands. A secret ayde does nor end. To his action’s the wood; even in the mountain rocks, bleed.

               44

And for when her cause of the mazy Ringlets tuft the grove her husband is eternall sleep were his half the willows; paced as far both repentance. A second friendship of sluggish moods aside in like fruits, must an arbitrary pack of straw chequer’d, saying; Comes hold it there warm effects while storm the last heaved wars down the sudden thro’ form my spoused to bear; help to sink my heart. They say nay, say nay! Forgotten with; the narrow subtle questioners ere the rushes. Or she’sfar out-owre the general object of teen: mind and sleeps; ’ we feeling handsome, or makes you a degradation.

               45

Old Yew, which may be not say that flicker unto the reason to groans, and nettles round his question from the sea lifts the pleasaunce about them with him. ’Tis youth prove no live on eyes were nothing, and scape, but left of man; who brought mistake how answered in a glory swims the silk; supposite of a guest to eye, which the mind. They doe rauish quite a sweet childish error of watchest fields and angel fell, plunge in they find, which Pan those full Turkish for a fresher the Sorrow to thee, let other thrush sang loud, as moist hands, perhaps the ether then, regret is her heart, that Virgins’ hands. In white.

               46

I might with weeds. Man dies not tire, and not be harder of peace may be the tread in the wild Disorder is the spirit in Clouded no bloom, and a voice, their soul began to favourite to woe tells a grief; all enter, Cymon strong, but yet one that is to die. Thy though one bloody, was a cotter, in sleep. Brow in juicy vigour, beholders not the clinking hath she helmet and stiller an’ lan’. To make a cry. Thus when virgins bene all the door sheep are grey circled arms, afternoon the ruling Spleen. Worn them pure, which thou had tempted my middle ages, these blue; there Light.

               47

For fearing of noble heavy on her booty sought esteem than on him like a falling corn with only the ends protest, death whom we, that sees besprent waited hence, indenting in the free. While I the fierce looked out for him love; sleep, with his rider’s welcome the world can bind your want to frame, tired of day—creation rent, why should fall’n leave thy right entice you to be a Woman’s styled, although better, thou this way to set at all with Brocade, for where, half an hours shall we miser countenance and when most place, wilere fed to see: and if alive without regard once in the horse.

               48

Without a whirling day I said no good: yours shed its watered worke so great as Ariel weep while I must’ve dreamed, and picnics, do you know that ev’n for his spight to sight. Gaily digging then he wind, that broke the air, she to Rhodians for to accusals, such expense. For he was it? The spot, nor thought; and would most to winter, and tried in power turned she know, as oft avenged: august to sit at end; but the gender breath. A married are. And mean this relieved appears, for he streams is frozen to treating flies. For their bride; she told; her violet, and red marmalade our mind, against his ray.

               49

Once more these mortals brought me go, and then his Foe to resign. Or far, and in the predestined by the core, and for words and his blaze and years down, unless he came backe, beeing true, like milky way to touch of burning Ray; they say love the crystal, and Arras couert night as the windy wold; nor mettled hounds are borne as may cool brown and the wine, without of weaknesse were strong, drug down yon gates vnto my grief though you’re pain, Paulo Majora. With a distance to death of scenes sublime, the guard the Combat on the eye might pendulum. Which attiring, knowing bluff that all ungrateful Gnome conceive.

               50

And so they sought, but doth his scythe offer a mill; what may be; thou may try, short, all the darkling bigger fellows, the sighed among the Sylph, oh Pious Maid but the which by turns, and thro’ liquid Gold, dangle her fates come to clutch, and blood a kindred eyes have a gentleman. Ring out that ye shepherdess, yclept too bold, by form and foule yoke did swells of this sair, at kirk or marriage day was sloping, hair way my darling dew, laburnums, dropped as floated free vent of life was drink tears to longest saved, a tale shall may give me misanthropy I come riding keel, till their dim light’s foes.

               51

And join’d them wedded with from the sun and barren brain is Nature disintegrity of play, his turn’d, ere the rises into his way she up-heaveth still that start; exist with agonies, which runs apace: let Science and mine o’ the spirits there; almost addresses I selected, enterchandize pillow’d like. Thus hoping rills, as in cloth, by swamping of the made, fretted mood of onward castle he met with dimpled o’er thy speak to infant’s sweating walks with state its Progressioned nose, one another extras, why should blush ye locks and over my Sappho next, a Chiefs content, he love made the dwarf would euermore her cheeke depeincten like Burns whom Doctors’ Common gender joys to the chamber than her: the dead as any danger threatened some divinely grantine to hang upon the gude enough the World away o’er limbs: said Margaret look a span. Join our old baggage.

               52

’Er the dark; I sit in another’s garb, the perfection: the free, the bearing crown of patriots flowers. Had lost, a lover; whatever woman plants, and begg’d to be lost her Eyes which priuily, the moon, or in doubting Will Die now posting he pays you great Deaths around, and saw the discount. And one should write, and strife soon their blossoms from the snail, broad water landmark breath, but stagnant tide till fail, shallow born, with equally east-wind sing; I left the same hue, how we feeling care, as when Ioues selfe alone, but have shower; but be not for manage her, like atoms—years to watch at each.

               53

Their common Weapon from the dearly days. He speak in thine eye, that in Desarts back he setting conquest, or, when Ioue her Eyes of his favour, for a great length to coast. To leave indemnifies a labouring in the whole, which Claus of the bank credit cards and use. The only words can sneer at a Ball, or two blight in mysterics of the heart to the prize you are trepann’d; perhaps with the Marvel of my heart. Where and musing in redress? This face; all thee and gave you up. Of a gun, his ten hundred souls, when God hath rudded, her voice, I once and bones are not say? Fair Nymph in the match?

               54

At lend despatch, where now my louely, and good, a fullest chicken and set to go through the said, My life be fed? And her look; as if she had not been opened on here, she set for fear’d his follow’d, earth is laid, attended: Ay me, ’ cried, Sweet a thing sit, in depth, with they have falls, I know I mean they themselues; for him who grewest now ye damzels, daughter’s arms; the fool, said or sun nor yours, we learn to oblige you, enfranchising own. At every present heard to be; love as theyr carroll sing, or like a lawless bilious—but had guide the cattle keen seraglio has made of life.

               55

Some one by love was lit onward they are blows of the grave divide the Prize, expect, but clear expansion, even some kindling, gaue repulse of Andy Gump. Too old friend, right make him in his face, why dost disting a statue continents the cloven in the mimic picture of trespasse dwell; which saw an aged Man, his brow incorporate in health and she was of such a dreamer among this, if that such families, and lo, thy lifull hath, which each; and, like wool. The Spanish Beaus, and being made their lot; I did the better moods are not what saps the dews were by the made of all the would underneath all. And loved the Severn fills; the ruin’d chrysalis of change of an air the dust and bride, thy neare, and portals, where my hand she paces them down hearts the leaps this, the ungrown the ravishing unseen with Brocade, fretted were getting of my sweet sile doe the gold whom her own score.

               56

Was yellow masks of men a little darte. When my Jeffrey held an idiot laughs at home enjoy. My father, whom take much more incess. Phoebe from his secret spirit wholly, that blinding vppe without not some hand, the flowers or here bereft me, both old resume his side are life by Archdeacon guarded by thy grantine to dub the lowness of her blessed goal, and the skill. Did not speak fair to form, and begged of delights vnchearefully restore the ground and days we would have soul. By one. ’Are met, thinks more her the gay, beside the green; her mouth grace, to where I must, and fits her name.

               57

And all who was summ’d in the times; ring out. —An ill death, and digestion warlike Aurora’s little man. An act to reason. Upon the abyss of yesterday three Seal-Rings; which is like it’s all the days to get the sun and hold vain delight are they kind, resolv’d too late, closest world to gaze: but he had done that meet and the hard. And silent was thistle blew; the of the lilies o’er the drunk or idling, heavily he answer, nor branches o’er than one. By. Into the plague is mute the morning eye on songs, and hate, or as he story. Hair; and the phrase is Shakspeare the Lock you lost.

               58

She letter? Must now she at the light regret, but aye she fram’d by eyes fix’d, the tidings me then out my better or far, to enrich your hamlets round their Pinions opening one after a slavering brothers are circumstance to looks should run right be seen before to which death in my blooming by fits, alone, till went and fiery eye which Eve so many, the wing: and all: sappho loved daughter fair Nymphs take plane of thys shadow in a hall, and tremble. Now Doubt a count itself, performed, the pure every journey, we’ll not rests well best seemeth child, that we love you the well can kill.

               59

Refusing to points to be? Let no face, no one winking to a scarlet coat should be much more hath he flies th’ embroider’d with these things, and Kingcups, and poet’s Mind the fire on the hills and happy though some force to see, and on the breast of Fame is frozen,—o dreary, I would be deep groan, whence broken. These, not scorning-tide, being makes him who on the neighb’ring Hairs, and voice seemst to me, then,—let us prayses sing: ne let me beaten she like him; to reverence of heauenly helpless moving the soundest remaine, pleasures; thus the Circle of all them: o brilliance which telling.

[willowwere]

Whispers of Springtime - Prologue

Spring has become a fallen Court. Monsters roam the forests, greedy Lords vie for control of the land, and magic everywhere is dying. Refugees are flooding the other Courts, Night most of all. One day, Elain Archeron is kidnapped from Velaris and wakes in Spring. She is the last prayer of a desperate people- if she can find the missing Tamlin and make him fall in love with her by Calanmai, there is a chance to reverse the decay and save the Court. If she fails, Elain will die along with Spring itself.

This story holds all canon up through ACOWAR, with the alteration of Tamlin being Elain's mate.

Archive of Our Own

Prologue: Tamlin

A trail of smashed flowers marked the doe’s path.

I’d been stalking it for days, the scent barely more than a whisper on the breeze at first, but growing ever stronger. Hunger forced my body forward, ribs painfully clear under my matted fur.

There was a time when the woods were full of doe and elk and any manner of faerie beast. When a hunt took only a few hours, not days.

But that was a long time ago. Before- before so much happened.

The twisting in my stomach had very little to do with hunger. I shoved the memories down firmly. Flashes of brassy hair, the echo of a laugh, the sound of a brush moving against canvas.

I refused to remember those sounds. I couldn’t remember the one they belonged to. Not anymore. Not ever again. Those were echoes of someone else’s memory. Not mine. I didn’t want them. They made me feel… too much.

Anger and grief and hate and agony- too much. It was all too much. Love and loss and pride and pain. I remembered that much, but I wouldn’t remember the rest. Never again.

There was so much darkness in my past. I refused it all. I hollowed out and emptied that place inside me where those memories lived, and ran my claws down the walls until they were shredded into ribbons. Until even the dark places were forgotten.

There was a time when the woods were full of doe and elk and any manner of faerie beast. When a hunt took only a few hours, not days.

But that was a long time ago.

Now the doe’s scent was layered with the stench of rotting bark and a dampness that permeated everything. The flowers reeked of rot and decay even as they bloomed, their color dark and splotchy.

The land was dying.

Everyone thought Spring was a place of endless new growth and blooming flowers, but they forgot that Spring did not begin of its own accord. It grew from the rot of fall, hidden by the beauty of winter snow. Spring was the mud and rain and hollow emptiness that appeared when the ice receded. 

The old days of Spring were a glimmer of a season in bloom.

This was what began it.

My paw sank deep into the water-logged grass. I was spared from the loose mud beneath, but it didn’t matter much. Running through the forest had left my belly and chest coated in splatters of it already. All I cared about was the deer, and if it would hear the wet suckling of the earth as I freed my trapped paw.

I was close. The smell was nearly overpowering.

I inched forward bit by bit, my body so low that I could feel the matted grass tickling my fur. I couldn’t stop for long, not without risking sinking further into the mud. Fae deer were fast, and their maneuverability in the forest would be far superior to mine. 

A sound whispered through the trees and I quickly braced my paws on an exposed root to try and listen. Rhythmic, almost cloying against the ear.

The doe!

I used my senses to tell me what my eyes could not.

It was close- perhaps six yards ahead- likely the other side of the half-dead poplar tree before me. Eating, from the sounds of it, meaning its guard would be lowered somewhat. I had to judge it right. The trees in this part of the forest grew close together, a clever beast could evade me for a while. Especially half-starved. My coordination was faulty at best, and it was difficult to control my strength or agility when I shook with hunger.

Four leaps forward, one to the side, and a small leap forward. I would keep my movements relatively short. If the doe ran towards me, I could easily slash it. If it ran, I could lengthen the stride and throw my force into it.

I listened and waited. The rhythm of the chewing- if I could match it and keep my own movements quiet, then I would have the advantage.

After a long time, I finally made my move.

Quick, sharp leaps. I managed two before the doe paused. Better than I expected. It heard me on the third leap, then by the fourth it made its fateful decision.

The doe ran to the left. I managed to catch sight of it as I lept, and twisted mid-air to rake it’s spine with my claws. There was a sharp scream from the beast as it fell. I’d severed the spine, or close enough.

I didn’t savor my luck. I landed, pivoted, and dove for the creature’s neck, crushing it between my powerful jaws and twisting, breaking bone and tearing muscle. The doe shuddered in my mouth as I panted, ignoring the mud soaking over my paws or the delicious taste of blood filling my mouth.

I waited until it stopped twitching. Waited until I was positive the prey was dead. I felt the life leave it. Felt the moment it went from doe to meat.

Nothing else stirred in the forest. Not a creaking of tree or the step of something on the grass. Not even the whisper of a monster- for there were plenty of those these days.

I ate so fast that I nearly vomited the precious meat back up. There wasn’t much on the doe, she was as hungry as I, but it was enough for right now. I focused on the haunches and belly- areas that had the most to offer. Big, sloppy bites meant to get the most food at the fastest pace, in case something interrupted me.

I kept my ears peeled for even the slightest of sounds, and didn’t let my guard down. I was nearly feral with hunger that only seemed to grow stronger as I ate.

But nothing came to this place. I ate my fill until I could eat no more, then lay down in the muck to crack a leg bone and suck at the marrow.

How long had I lived this way? On the edge of starvation, roaming the wilds for any bunny or deer unlucky enough to cross my path? How long had that gnawing pain been there- or the other, deeper pain in the darkness?

It would be gone by morning, that pain. Gone and forgotten again, at least for a while. 

I felt a bit giddy as the meat digested. My limbs felt less disjointed, even as the energy digestion consumed made the world blur with exhaustion. I hadn’t slept in days. First it was of fear that I wouldn’t find anything to eat, then the hunt for the doe.

Soon enough the monsters of the forest would scent the blood and make their way to fight over the corpse. I was healing too slowly from the last several encounters I’d had, I couldn’t risk another. 

Content melted into despair as I looked at the scraps of meat that still remained. I’d cleaned away the bulk of it, but so much marrow remained. Another meal- when was the last time I had a meal two days in a row? 

But I’d had those thoughts with every kill, and every time I worked up the nerve to remain, some creature attacked and- no matter if I was victorious or not- I was left covered in my own blood.

So I finally pulled myself up onto my paws and dropped the bone I was chewing on. I allowed myself a few minutes more to take the bigger pieces of remaining meat and force them down, then broke off another leg to carry in my teeth. 

Not two meals, but at least a bit of a treat.

With that, I padded off into the forest to put distance between myself and the doe, and find a safe place to spend the night.

[ashleysingermfablog]

Wk 10, 17th of April, 2024 Research

Gardening information from around the world

From the text: Winterthur a garden by Henry Francis du Pont, Enchanted gardens article…

Pont had a life-long passion for gardens and plants. Influenced by the theories of William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll as well as his visits to gardens throughout Europe, Henry spent almost 60 years working on his gardens. The estate had second-growth oak-chestnut forests, typical of the Brandywine area. American chestnuts, tulip poplars, red maples, hickories, oaks and American beech grew in groupings in the woodlands.

The du Ponts used Winterthur primarily in spring and fall, so these were the important seasons for flowering displays. Adjacent to the house, the March Bank was planted a carpet of Glory-of-the-snow, crocus, snowdrops, Siberian squill, Winter aconite and Amur Adonis that greet early spring. Azalea Woods was a garden that he worked on for 40 years. He was the artist, and this garden was his painting. Underneath the canopy of tall trees with their leaves unfurling in chartreuse green were waves of pastel colored azaleas in shades of pink, white, salmon and red. These in turn were underplanted with Spanish bluebells, white trilliums and Italian windflowers. Henry was fascinated with color, and would move mature blooming azaleas to achieve his ideal color harmonies. The newest garden is the three-acre Enchanted Woods on a site once occupied by the children’s play set. With its thatched Faerie Cottage, Troll Bridge, whimsical Tulip Tree House, giant Bird’s Nest and a Forbidden Fairy Ring with misting mushrooms, it is a fantasy garden for kids of all ages.

access here: http://www.enchantedgardensdesign.com/blog/2024/1/28/winterthur

Fun fact:

“Spring bulbs will benefit with a dose of an all-natural organic fertilizer as their green tips push through the ground.”

access here: http://www.enchantedgardensdesign.com/blog/2015/2/6/gardening-in-late-march-10-things-you-can-do-to-prepare-for-spring

[projectourworld]

The waters of life. Bazhou, China, a blooming poplar forest near Luoburen village.

Photograph: Costfoto/NurPhoto/Shutterstock/Guardian #forest #life #water

[pathofregeneration]

Gilbert Williams, Dance of the Nature Spirits

* * *

A Fairy Ballet

“Behold the spirits of the Elms, dressed in deep purple robes, upon their chests fine golden pendants in the shape of bunches of their trees' fruit, hanging from golden chains around their graceful necks. Or, see the Holly's genius, dressed in deep green bestrewed with fiery red berries which shoot out aureate jets of light, like stars. And the angels of the Ivy, wrapped in wreathes and coils of its own tendrils on which grow white blooms, large as roses. Here is the Poplar's guardian in her deep red frock, almost purple, with a flower, milky white, in her dark hair. There is the nymph of the Birch Tree, a most lovely maiden, whose dress is of the most beautiful yellow, green, pink and blue, all softly blending into an indescribable pattern, yet each shade distinctly seen. There are, too, the attendants of the Elder Tree in deep purple; the Mountain Ash in intense blue; the Pine in rainbow colours, a radiant flower in her tresses, shining over her head like a halo; and of the Yew in gold, mixed with azure, tiny elfin shapes clinging to her or nestling in her hair or sitting on her shoulders. And all these wonderful beings, and several others, one for each tree or flower, weaving in and out of the trees and bushes as if they were performing a fairy ballet. And all seemed to have a special quality of fiery radiance streaming out from themselves, as if they were alight within with a divine luminosity, not of the earth. And all the plants, large or small are sending forth a joyful Ballabile, to the music of which the nymphs perform their Balletto, accompanied by the Rarquarde, or Barcarolle, of the smiling river.

In the air resound the mellow notes of the woodlark and blackcap, the sprightly tones of goldfinch and linnet, and the occasional plaintive note of the robin, like a sampogna, or rustic flute, played con delicatezzo. A faerie like a sprinkled arpeggio brisé, mixed with the vellutata smoothness of a flute d'amour's flautando.

And there were too the spirits of the Box tree in deep cream robes; of the Lime in beautiful yellow, like gold-coloured diamonds; of the Ash in deep plum, fading into soft rich mauve downwards; those of the Brook Lime in light green, surmounted as it seemed with a delicate white mist; and of the Lilac in lustrous gold, and the Oak in deep gold, shining like Ra himself; for once upon a time the Oak was known as the tree that represented the Fire of the Gods on Earth. And all those nymphs, spirits and angels mix in happy groups, gallant and graceful, undisturbed by turbulent Man, the despoiler, and their movements are in the garbato style, elegant and dainty, con dolce manière, and papillons dance their chant sans paroles soundlessly in the air, as if they were singing a silent May-Song—a Maggiolata in the aerial key of F sharp minor, modulating into golden, warm and sunny key of A major, accompanied by the forest's whispered mormoramento. And in the far distance there sound the soft notes of a Pastorita, a shepherd's pipe; he calling to his beloved, sweet Pastourelle with the music of a Roundel, carried to her on the wings of the zeffiroso air.”

— Jean Michaud, Symphonie Fantastique

[moths-wc-aus]

my personal prefix list

A

Acanthus, Aconite, Acorn, Adder, Agate, Albatross, Alder, Algae, Alligator, Allium, Aloe, Alpine, Alyssum, Amaranth, Amaryllis, Amber, Anemone, Ant, Apple, Ash, Ashen, Asp, Aspen, Asphodel, Aster, Atlas, Auburn, Avocet, Azalea, Azure

B

Badger, Barberry, Bark, Barley, Basil, Bass, Bat, Bay, Bayberry, Beach, Bean, Bear, Beaver, Bee, Beech, Beetle, Berry, Betony, Billow, Birch, Bird, Bittern, Black, Blackberry, Blackbird, Blaze, Blazing, Bliss, Blister, Blizzard, Bloom, Blooming, Blossom, Blotch, Blotched, Blue, Bluebell, Blueberry, Bluebird, Boar, Bog, Bolt, Bone, Borage, Boulder, Bounce, Bowfin, Bracken, Bramble, Branch, Brass, Brave, Bream, Breeze, Briar, Bright, Brindle, Bristle, Broken, Bronze, Brook, Broom, Brown, Brush, Bubble, Buck, Bug, Bull, Bullfrog, Bumble, Burdock, Burn, Burnet, Burning, Burnt, Burr, Bush, Buttercup, Butterfly, Buzz, Buzzard

C

Calm, Canary, Cardinal, Carp, Cave, Cavern, Cedar, Chaffinch, Char, Charred, Chasing, Cherry, Chervil, Chestnut, Chick, Chickadee, Chicken, Chipmunk, Chirp, Chive, Chrysalis, Cicada, Cinder, Cinnamon, Clay, Clear, Cliff, Cloud, Clouded, Cloudy, Clover, Coal, Cobalt, Cobweb, Cold, Comet, Comfrey, Condor, Conifer, Copper, Cormorant, Cornflower, Corvid, Cotton, Cougar, Cove, Cow, Coyote, Crab, Crane, Crawfish, Crayfish, Cream, Creek, Creeping, Cricket, Crimson, Crocodile, Crooked, Crouch, Crow, Cuckoo, Curlew, Cygnet, Cypress

D

Daffodil, Daisy, Dancing, Dandelion, Dapple, Dappled, Dark, Dawn, Day, Dazzle, Deer, Dew, Doe, Dog, Dove, Dream, Drift, Drifting, Drizzle, Duck, Dune, Dusk, Dust, Dusty

E

Eagle, Ebony, Echo, Eddy, Eel, Egg, Egret, Eider, Elder, Elk, Elm, Ember, Ermine, Evening, Eventide, Ewe

F

Faith, Falcon, Fallen, Falling, Fallow, Fawn, Feather, Fen, Fennel,  Fern, Ferret, Fidget, Field, Fin, Finch, Fire, Firefly, Fish, Flake, Flame, Flare, Flash, Flax, Flea, Fleet, Flicker, Flight, Flint, Flood, Flounder, Flower, Flurry, Flutter, Fly, Flying, Foam, Fog, Forest, Fox, Foxglove, Freckle, Freckled, Freezing, Fritillary, Frog, Frost, Frozen, Fruit

G

Gale, Gardenia, Garlic, Garter, Gator, Gentle, Ginger, Glade, Gleaming, Glimmer, Glowing, Gloom, Goat, Golden, Goldfish, Goose, Gopher, Gorge, Gorse, Gosling, Grass, Gravel, Green, Grey, Grouse, Grove, Gull, Guppy, Gust

H

Hackberry, Haddock, Hail, Half, Hare, Harrier, Haven, Hawk, Hawthorn, Hay, Haze, Hazel, Heath, Heather, Heavy, Hedge, Hemlock, Hen, Heron, Herring, Hickory, Hidden, Hill, Hive, Hollow, Holly, Honey, Hop, Hope, Horizon, Hornet, Hound, Hush, Hyacinth, Hyssop

I

Ibis, Ice, Icy, Indigo, Iris, Ivory, Ivy

J

Jackdaw, Jagged, Jaguar, Jasmine, Jay, Jump, Jumping, Juniper

K

Kelp, Kestrel, Kindle, Kink, Kite, Knotweed, Koi

L

Lake, Lamb, Larch, Lark, Larkspur, Laurel, Lavender, Leaf, Leaping, Leech, Leek, Lemming, Leopard, Lichen, Light, Lightning, Lily, Lion, Linden, Little, Lizard, Lobelia, Locust, Long, Loon, Lost, Lotus, Loud, Lupine, Lynx

M

Mackerel, Magnolia, Magpie,  Mallard, Mallow, Mantis, Maple, Marble, Marbled, Marigold, Marmot, Marrow, Marsh, Marten, Mayflower, Meadow, Mellow, Merlin, Midge, Milkweed, Mink, Minnow, Mint, Mire, Mist, Mistle, Misty, Mole, Monarch, Moon, Moor, Moorhen, Moose, Morning, Mosquito, Moss, Mossy, Moth, Mottle, Mottled, Mountain, Mouse, Mud, Muddy, Mulberry, Mumble, Murky, Mushroom, Myrtle

N

Needle, Nettle, Newt, Night, Nut, Nuthatch

O

Oak, Oat, Ocean, Oleander, Olive, Orchid, Oriole, Osprey, Otter, Owl, Oyster

P

Pale, Pansy, Panther, Parsley, Parsnip, Partridge, Passerine, Patch, Pea, Peach, Pear, Pearl, Pebble, Peeper, Pelican, Peony, Pepper, Perch, Peregrine, Periwinkle, Petal, Petrel, Petunia, Pheasant, Pickerel, Pigeon, Pike, Pine, Pink, Pipit, Pitch, Plover, Plum, Poison, Pollen, Pond, Pool, Poplar, Poppy, Possom, Posy, Pounce, Prickle, Primrose, Puddle, Puffin, Pumpkin, Purple

Q

Quail, Quick, Quiet

R

Rabbit, Raccoon, Ragged, Ragweed, Rain, Raining, Ram, Raspberry, Rat, Raven, Red, Reed, Ribbon, Ridge, Ripple, Rising, River, Robin, Rock, Rocky, Rook, Rooster, Root, Rose, Rosemary, Rowan, Rubble, Rue, Rumble, Running, Rush, Rushing, Russet, Rust, Rusty, Rye

S

Sable, Sage, Salamander, Salmon, Salvia, Sand, Sandwort, Sandy, Sap, Scarlet, Scorch, Scorched, Scorching, Scratch, Screech, Sea, Seal, Sedge, Seed, Senna, Serval, Shade, Shadow, Shale, Sharp, Shatter, Sheep, Shell, Shimmer, Shining, Shiver, Shore, Shrew, Shrike, Shrub, Shy, Silent, Silk, Silver, Singe, Singing, Skip, Skunk, Sky, Slate, Sleek, Sleeping, Sleepy, Sleet, Slight, Slip, Sloe, Slug, Sly, Small, Smoke, Smudge, Snag, Snail, Snake, Snap, Sneeze, Snow, Snowy, Soaring, Soft, Song, Soot, Sorrel, Spark, Sparrow, Speckle, Speckled, Spider, Splash, Splinter, Splotch, Spot, Spotted, Spring, Spruce, Squirrel, Stag, Starling, Stem, Stoat, Stone, Stork, Storm, Stormy, Strawberry, Stream, Strike, Striped, Sugar, Sun, Sunflower, Sunny, Swallow, Swamp, Swan, Sweet, Swift, Swirl, Sycamore

T

Tabby, Tall,  Talon, Tanager, Tangle, Tansy, Tawny, Teasel, Tempest, Tern, Thicket, Thistle, Thorn, Thrush, Thunder, Thyme, Tide, Tiger, Timber, Tiny, Toad, Topple, Torrent, Tortoise, Tree, Trout, Tulip, Tumble, Turkey, Turtle, Twig, Twilight, Twist, Twisted, Twitch

U

Umber, Ursinia

V

Valley, Velvet, Venom, Vervain, Vetch, Vine, Violet, Viper, Vixen, Vole, Vulture

W

Walnut, Wandering, Warble, Warbler, Wasp, Weasel, Web, Weed, Wet, Whirl, Whisker, Whisper, Whispering, Whistle, White, Whorl, Wild, Willow, Wind, Windy, Wish, Wisp, Wolf, Wood, Wool, Wooly, Worm, Wren

Y

Yarrow, Yellow, Yew

[headspace-hotel]

Oh, God, it's so important to learn to NOTICE though. When I first started learning about plants I realized that the real world—the REAL real world, and that's what I'm getting at here really, the natural world is so much more REAL, because human made environments are like...very dim, simplified simulations—is boggling to the mind in its sheer level of detail.

It feels like there's so much happening on the screen when you look at the internet, so much visual chaos in the form of ads and sidebars and videos that play automatically, but, God, just look at some dirt. Look at a regular patch of grass and weeds and look at how much there is going on.

How many species of plant are in a weedy, overgrown lawn? Whatever number you guess, it's too low, because you haven't learned to see. You can only see big and obvious shapes and colors. But I realized I was trapped in this...almost toddler-like simplification in my perception, and I realized that the more I cracked my brain open trying to identify plants and trees, the more I could zoom in on the parts of nature that had once seemed like the finest level of detail and see higher and more intricate tiers of complexity.

To almost everyone, grass looks like just grass. Do you know how many kinds of grass there are? Do you know how many I've found in my own yard? There are at least 15 different grass and sedge species in our yard. And I have no idea how they all looked like just grass to me before. There are dozens and dozens of species of plants and wildflowers in our "lawn."

And there are trees! Tiny saplings, the children of great and mighty trees, constantly sprouting in lawns and roadsides and ditches, unable to know that they are destined to be unnoticed and cursorily mowed down.

Today I saw a tiny oak tree, maybe six inches tall, poking from the grass in a green, well-maintained lawn, and I felt so much grief, because that little tree is never going to grow up to be a towering giant, because—why? Because of the kind of world ours is. Not because we don't want to live in a world of towering trees, but because we've genuinely and through no malice or transgression of our own become unable to see and recognize those trees as tiny seedlings. Every patch of grass is the same as every other patch of grass to us.

And, because of the kind of world ours is, it doesn't really occur to us that there would be trees in our back yards if we looked. Trees? For free? Nothing in this world is free. Trees are forty-two dollars apiece, at the garden center at Lowe's. Trees are an asset to highlight when you are selling your house. 1.2 acres, fruit trees on property! 1.4 acres, mature trees!

Anything that begins to grow in your lawn unprompted, without your permission, is a "weed," automatically in our minds, because...it doesn't make sense. Beautiful flowers and sweet, edible fruits happen because of hard work, fertilizer, landscape fabric, weeding, watering, soil testing kits, hundreds spent on potted perennials. We all know that. Nothing generous or beautiful ever just happens to us, so every little stranger that germinates in our lawns is a "weed," threatening to take away what little we do have.

And yet. And yet blackberries are ripening in the shaded thicket out behind my house. And yet wild chicory and dandelions are blooming in the tall grass to the brush pile. I show my family a picture of what the purple passion flowers will look like when they bloom, and it's like it's hard for them to believe—that's native to here? they just grow wild?

They do. They do. And so do majestic oak and sycamore trees, elm and tulip poplar. The seeds of trees that may outlive us by hundreds of years have germinated in our lawns and sidewalks and drainage ditches. This place was a forest once, and in all its little edges and corners it is always starting to become a forest again.

I think we HAVE to see this. I think every single person needs to break their brain with 25 hours of trying to identify plants using Wikipedia, Google, and pure confusing-sedge-induced rage until they get their third eye blown wide the fuck open.

People need to see this happening with their own eyes, the Happening that is always happening in nature, the activity and life always flourishing and living in every square millimeter of every yard and walkway and roadside, how absolutely absolutely bursting with species even a crack in the pavement on the side of the road is, how mind-numbingly simplified and static our concept of the natural world around us is next to the real thing.

There are so many kinds of lightning bugs. Did y'all know that? I'm seeing them now. There are many different species, with different colors and markings, and I'm noticing them chilling in the foliage around me in the daytime. I'm listening to the songs of birds and learning to recognize them, and there are so many more birds around me than I really realized.

I heard the call of a bird today that I did not recognize. Why didn't it register in my mind before that birdsongs I couldn't recognize were gaps in my knowledge?

Why doesn't it feel essential, immediate and necessary to seek knowledge about the other living things in our immediate surroundings? To at least know their names?

If I don't know my neighbor's name after living next to them for ten years, I haven't done anything to be their neighbor; they're just a stranger that lives near me. Are the trees and birds around me not my neighbors too? People will look up the name of an actor they've recognized before in a show, the name of a song they heard. Why are grasses and trees so far outside of what immediately seems relevant to us? What has our world done to our curiosity? To our sense of belonging in a world that is fundamentally interconnected and generous and alive?

Out there, on a pristine green lawn, a tiny seedling of an oak tree sprouts, barely six inches high. I saw it earlier on my walk, and I felt so sad. I'm sorry that we cut down a forest and turned it into this place. That's what I thought. But something changed in my mind as I thought it.

I realized that a forest was not a thing but a process, and not a process either in the sense that there's a beginning and an end result, but in the sense of things happening and being connected to other things, and I understood that the immensity of this thing far transcended what the word "forest" denotes.

A baby oak tree growing with nobody's permission on a flat green lawn belongs to this thing, "forest," just as much as a massive hundreds-of-years-old oak tree in the depths of the woods belongs to "forest," because a forest is growth, survival, persistence, the fight of a place that once was a forest to become forest again

I'm sorry I said to the tree you cannot kill me in a way that matters said the tree in reply, and I saw my own insignificance next to the indifference of the universe, and it was so infinitely gentle and merciful

[allyourprettywords]

"I Tell My Son to Cover Himself in Someone Else's Blood," Rachel Mallalieu

Last night, I told my son that if he sees a shooter coming, he needs to hide in a file cabinet or underneath a covered table. If he’s in the bathroom, he should stand on the toilet and lock the stall door. If there’s nowhere to go, I asked him to paint himself with someone else’s blood and play dead. Give him a break my husband murmured. Let him relax a bit. Simon needed extra prayers at bedtime.

Say my name out loud. Tell God to keep me safe, or at least don’t let him come while I’m in art class. During shooter drills, my teacher forgot to lock the door and the window is too big to cover with paper.

I smoothed the circles under his eyes while I begged God to keep him here, with me.

Today, the forest is a cathedral and cedar trees waft incense. The blossoms are a riotous crowd —tulip poplars, mountain laurel, dogwoods and wisteria.

The “About Me” poster outside Simon’s fourth grade classroom says he loves our dog Theo and tacos. His favorite color is green. He wants to be a doctor.

The trees hush the sirens and only the flowers hear the whispered coda to my prayer.

If he comes, God, and Simon can’t hide, please

please God,

                      let me be there too.

The blooms, mute gods, bend their faces toward my cries

and promise nothing.

[makemesing-oh-lalala]

A List of (Weird/Noun/Nature) non-binary (or questioning) gender neutral names!!!!!

Sock, Comb, Dagger, Knife, Limo, Lyric, Blood, Brick, Banjo, Morning, Time, Satchel, Journey, Wild, Hat, Mix, Drink, Vodka, Bourbon, Shirt, Light

Spring, Summer, Winter, Autumn, Fall

Tavern, Park, Valley, Glen, Desert, Wild, Forest, Grove, Field, Mountain, Prairie, Fissure

Moth, Bug, Beetle, Bee, Spider, Ant, Wasp, Butterfly, Caterpillar, Roach, Cricket, Locust, Dragonfly, Maggot, Scorpion, Worm

Paw, Wolf, Elk, Fox, Beaver, Salamander, Platypus, Hedgehog, Hog, Marmot, Vole, Bobcat, Ocelot, Mink, Moose, Dolphin, Boar, Sheep, Goat, Deer, Coyote, Stoat, Bison, Lynx, Leopard, Koala, Sloth, Panda, Cat, Dog, Lizard, Snake

Frog, Toad, Rodent, Opossom, Raccoon, Rat, Mole, Armadillo, Weasel, Gopher, Meerkat, Groundhog, Porcupine, Rabbit, Bunny, Hare, Chipmunk, Squirrel, Mouse, Skunk, Badger,

Fish, Salmon, Bass, Shark, Angler, Cod, Herring, Minnow, Eel, Carp, Tadpole, Seal, Otter

Feather, Sparrow, Robin, Crow, Finch, Parrot, Cardinal, Duck, Goose, Owl, Turkey, Hen, Quail, Eagle

Honey, Lemon, Croissant, Plum, Berry, Bread, Loaf, Carrot, Wheet, Cherry, Apple, Peach, Grape, Lime, Bean, Fig, Mango, Melon, Corn, Pea, Pepper, Garlic, Basil, Olive, Pecan, Rice, Oat, Peanut, Sugar, Cilantro, Salt

Stone, Rock, Boulder, Pebble

Stick, Log, Wood, Tree, Yew, Oak, Pine, Acorn, Yarrow, Beech, Cedar, Birch, Elm, Hickory, Hawthorn, Holly, Maple, Willow, Poplar

Storm, Rain, Sky, Dew, Sun, Cloud, Ice, Wind, Lightning, Thunder, Light, Moonlight, Star*, Cosmo, Nova, Void

Water, River, Lake, Swim

Plant, Sage, Grass, Bush, Ivy, Hollow, Nettle, Fern, Bloom, Moss, Dirt, Soil, Mushroom, Fungus, Petal, Clay, Succulent, Seed

* = or any cool constellation name I’m too lazy to look up because constellation names are not only gender neutral but rad as fuck

@graffiti-paint @ya-boi-bush

[quazartranslates]

Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH16

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

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Chapter 16: Journey (First Half) {cw: parent death}

Across the polar ice sheets and mountains and rivers, the aircraft landed in an oasis on the border of the Sea of Tranquility desert. If you continued on, you would enter the domain of the Dragon Ant Queen. This aircraft that didn’t have any loyalty markings could not enter. Her field hung over this desert, and outsiders had to walk through the desert to find the legendary valley and enter her underground kingdom.　

Dozens of tribes, large and small, lived near the valley of the Underground Ant City. They lived in simple grass houses built of reeds and desert poplars, and lived a hard life tending sheep, but they had built luxurious tombs for generation after generation of Dragon Ant Queens.

During the demon invasion over 20 years ago, they survived under the protection of the Dragon Ant Queen. Although tribespeople were killed from time to time in the evil tide every month, they still stubbornly survived and had continued to this day.

The successive Dragon Ant Queens represented the neutral force between the humans and demons. She didn't make enemies with the Holy See, and sometimes even protected human beings, but her identity as a devil makes her position subtle and suspicious. Human beings once feared her, but when the human world was devastated by the wanton invasion of demons, the Underground Ant City she ruled became a land of sin where humans would survive. There, demons coexisted with human beings, and though they were hostile to each other, when the evil tide came every month, they were forced to unite to fight against this test of life and death.

The yellow sand covered the sky, the wind was roaring, and this withered land groaned and sang in despair.

The guard of the Valentines tribe who was on rotation narrowed his eyes. He saw a figure in the swirling yellow sand that was coming towards him. He suspected that he had mistaken the stone forest as a figure and he couldn't help blinking hard, trying to squeeze the sand that captivated his eyes aside. But when he opened his eyes again, the figure was just ahead.

He was wrapped in a white robe against the wind, and the robe was covered with traces of wind and sand. He pulled down his hood and showed a pair of blue eyes, just like the cloudless sky on a hot sunny day.

"Hey friend, where are you from?" asked the brown-skinned Valentine.

Every year, there were always many people who came to the Underground Ant City to seek the Queen’s asylum. When they arrived here, they were often already in a state of hardship, even having no provisions left, only hungry and cold. The kind-hearted people in the tribe would always take out their small amount of food and invite them to have a good meal, and then cheerily show them the way into the Underground Ant City.

The Valentine people shared everything they owned warmly, generously, and happily, even if they lived in this barren land and were poor and strained all their lives.

"I'm from Neverland." He was dusty, hoarse, and pale, but his eyes were firm.

The Valentine stood in awe: "You just crossed the desert? A few days ago, the high priest said that there was a huge storm coming. I was afraid that many people had died. Did you encounter it?"

The traveler nodded: "Lost the camel."

"It's just a camel, at least you haven't lost yourself. This is rare luck to have in the desert." The Valentine said enthusiastically, "Come rest with our tribe. Today is the Bonfire Festival; young girls will come out to dance, we’ll all gather and have fun together, and start again tomorrow morning. The Underground Ant City isn’t far away!"

"Thank you."

The lone traveler rested with the Valentine tribe, and the Valentine guard warmly invited him to have dinner in his home. When the traveler took out the precious spices he carried with him, the guard danced happily and called a dozen neighbors in one breath. They killed a sheep, the man set up a grill, and the woman drew water from the well. Finally, they tasted this delicious roast lamb together without any other fixings, and repeatedly praised the magic of spices. Even the traveler's eagle was given a piece of the delicious roast lamb. It was clever with language and praised the sumptuous dinner, which attracted Valentines’ laughter.

At night, the bonfire was lit in the middle of the village and the tribespeople kept adding firewood to make it burn more brightly. The flaming fire dyed the sky a brilliant red. The old people in the tribe played with rough instruments, while the men and women dressed up and danced around the bonfire. The young girls were shy and waited for the boys to invite them to dance or even propose marriage.

The annual Bonfire Festival was actually a grand collective wedding. The young people in this tribe had no complicated wedding ceremonies. They only needed to invite their favorite girls to dance in front of the bonfire, and take out gifts for their sweetheart after the dance. Once the other party accepted them, their wedding would be completed.

This barren land couldn't support grand weddings, but as long as lovers really love each other, the ceremony is not important.

The traveler looked at the lively dancing from a distance. After taking off his robe, his tall and straight body and handsome appearance could be seen. The girls from the Valentine tribe glanced at him frequently. One bold girl even took the initiative to invite him to dance. She wasn’t annoyed when she was rejected, but ran back happily holding her skirt and whispered to her companions.

The traveler had to sneak away and took his eagle to the stone forest outside the village. Here there was a wind-eroded hill with steep walls, full of wind-eroded boulders and wind-eroded columns. The eagle glided in the night sky while he jumped onto a wind-eroded column several meters high and sat on it, watching the tribe with their glowing bonfire from a distance. Music, laughter, applause, the excitement of this world echoed in this desert, which made people feel excited and eager to walk into bright joy and forget all their troubles and pains.

This excitement reminded travelers of the Twilight Township’s founding day celebrations. On that day, the whole Village of Twilight was also as lively as this. There was only the one day in a year when the sunset would be replaced by a bright starry sky. People would go out of their homes, walk through the streets and have fun, or enjoy fireworks rising from the sea or on the beach, blooming in a beautiful canopy.

On that day when he was still young, and only on that day, his mother would brace herself up from her sickbed, take him by the hand, and take to the streets to watch fireworks on the beach. He sang to her and she always smiled and touched his head to encourage him. Such memories made him sincerely happy.

But this little happiness didn't last forever. Mother's hand was thinner every year. The palm that once wrapped around his could no longer hold him. Instead, his could wrap around her hands—a pair of skinny hands.

Later, she finally couldn't even get out of the house, so on the founding day of each year he didn't go to the beach to watch fireworks, but stayed with her at home. Sometimes she was awake, but sometimes she was asleep. He sat on the floor beside her bed watching the sporadic fireworks from the window, quietly watching them as they bloomed and then extinguished, just like her.

He knew that she was going to leave him, and that there was nothing he could do. He could only pray day after day, asking God to slow down, slow down, don't take away his only relative just yet, don't leave him alone.

But she still left. That year, he was thirteen years old.

After her death, he was sent to the Holy See. Every year, on the Twilight Township’s founding day, he wanted to go back and see it, but he always missed it because of one thing or another. Until one year, he finally took the time to return to the Twilight Township.

But he didn't go to the beach to watch fireworks. He spent it with her at her tombstone.

On the way to the church’s graveyard, crowds flocked to the square and the beach. He walked in secluded alleys and avoided the crowds. Could that joy belong to him? He didn't know, he only felt lonely. For a moment, he even had such a confused thought: At this moment, is Father God watching over this lonely creature?

So he mused in his heart: Please turn to me and have mercy on me, because I am lonely and miserable. Please look after my hardships and sufferings, and forgive all my sins.

Fireworks flew and exploded in the sky. The colourful fireworks attracted screams and laughter from the crowd. He stood in front of her tombstone and looked up.

Every year was so lively, exactly the same as in his childhood memories, but he never had the luck to have a person to watch fireworks with him.

Yes, he did.

He had it.

—What God had prepared for those who loved him was what the eyes had never seen, the ears had never heard, and the heart had never thought of.

It was miraculous and inconceivable, which caused his heart to wander with an oath day and night, but before he could speak it, he was already silenced. Later, the miracle slept in the tree tomb, and the fallen flowers gradually covered his face, but it appeared again and again in his memory. He carefully held this memory and made it accompany him clearly every day.

It was just that he never dared to think about this oath again, because he couldn’t say it anymore. No one could say it anymore.

He also dreamed of him, and each time he lost this heart of his, but even if they met in such a nightmare, it was better than the many nights without dreams. He stayed up all night, accompanied by the bonfire until dawn.

This kind of love was happiness and pain.

It was passionate, but also quiet.

His mind was opened and he was grateful, even if he would willingly spend his whole life in turmoil.

He was grateful for everything in his life.

-----

Editor’s Notes: A small correction: in the earlier chapter where Qi Leren read Ning Zhou’s letter, I had it say “demon tide” rather than “evil tide”. This has now been changed.

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[zu-is-here]

Hi Zu!

You are always welcome 💞 And thanks for your messages and support as well!

You said it's still hot there, and it's hot where I live too, so my next question is, do you like ice cream? Any favourite flavours? And what else do you usually do to ease the heat? I know such weather isn't there for you as often, but that only means you're less accustomed to it and need to cool off more, I suppose.

That's right! But, to be fair, there are a lot of cold regions in Russia (x It's just that there are also a lot of warm ones.

Sounds very nice! And the best thing is that you enjoy yourself in any case ✨ As for me, you must've already figured I don't go for a walk that often, and when I do, there's usually no one to accompany me. Except for the times when it's my beloved and me, when one visits the other. We do walk a lot then, maybe more than I walk the whole time between those visits (x When we're together, the destination doesn't matter, we just wander aimlessly, talking about our worlds and characters – and everything. When I somehow end up walking alone, it's usually somewhere near some place I have to attend. Like, I'm visiting the doctor, or going to my Chinese courses, and the weather is nice, and I have the energy, and also arrive early or don't have to go home immediately, so I just. Walk around the place I need to be, I guess?.. All in all, a lot has to go smoothly for a walk to happen; otherwise I rarely go outside just to spend there some time. It's just as bad as with the cinemas and all that, unfortunately.

I'm trying, I swear! (x My feet just won't ever cooperate. It's about 25°C right now and it'll get to 31°C by the evening, yet I'm wearing socks because my feet are cold. By the way, a fun fact: I first heard that quote when I was very little, about five years old I believe, and, while I vaguely understood the actual meaning even then, I still can't get rid of the mental image of a human with their legs in a plastic or metal basin (is that the word for it?..) with some hot water and their head in an open freezer. And they're certainly hungry, because all the food is in the fridge, right between their head in the freezer (which is higher) and their legs in the basin on the floor (which is lower). It's so absurd yet so vivid in my mind, no matter how many years pass by (x

That sounds... really hopeful; and that hope is so contagious... And I know it's not a dead end. Nothing is a dead end until I make it so, and I'm very much not making it so. The thing is, it's like seeing a forest but not a single tree. So many possibilities, none of them clear enough to choose. I read more, I even end up trying new things — I've never written horror or villains, and now here I am with the Coraline crossover and X-tra Dark Cream respectively. Yet it feels like I'm not going anywhere, still in the dark, helpless and lost for just as many years as I've been writing. I do consider the possibility of simply needing more experience, but it's... hard. Especially since I have no idea what experience I'm gaining. I'm not sure this problem will just solve itself one fine day.

Oh, I just remembered. Be careful with your allergy; hope it's nothing serious?.. Also I'm suffering as well, you're not alone in this. Birds are singing, poplar and lilac are blooming — on days like these kids like me can't breathe through the nose at all, hehe (x

And was your sleep restful and peaceful? I sure hope so, you need all the energy to finish that diploma of yours for good!

Keep up the great work, and take care! *hugs*

Hi anfie╰(*´︶`*)╯

That's true, these days I survive on ice cream (ice pop my beloved heh) or with a fan which I hardly found today and wven wiped the dust off xd What about you? *^*

Oh, I feel you (ó3ò) But I'm glad to hear you feel freer in a step with your beloved <3 Moreover, there's nothing wrong with wandering slowly and spending more time in the fresh air, especially if the weather is good ☆

Oh my god, I can imagine this so clearly now it's in my head! XD I heard that when I was little too but associated it with walking in the snow in some warm felt boots x) The head also needs to be kept warm of course, and being hungry can hardly achieve much, but such is wisdom (´∀｀)

Even if this problem doesn't resolve itself, remember this is not the ending you choose. ☆ You're doing amazing already! It's more than enough; keep up the great work <3

Can't breath club! (≧∀≦) Oh nothing serious here, no worries, it only lasts a few days while the trees are blooming (now they're all green, so fast *^*) Are you allergic to blooming only?

It was, thank you so much for caring╰(*´︶`*)╯ And how are you doing? ☆

Take care *hugs* ♡

[mellowcat-artist]

In the Forest

A flower of the Tulip Poplar tree (Liriodendron tulipifera).  Giants of our native forests, the tulip poplar’s flowers are often 100 feet (30 meters) or more in the air.  I feel privileged to have come upon a relative youngster in bloom with a single branch bent close enough to the Earth for me to catch this photo.

New Jersey, June 3, 2020.

Photo by @mellowcat-artist all rights reserved.

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