noticing

Wild Geranium – Day 911

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My Purple Wildflower: Wild Geranium (Cranesbill) – Photo: L. Weikel

Wild Geranium

Yes indeed, it pays to have friends who know their flora. In yesterday’s post, I included a photo of a delicately sweet purple wildflower that I’d only noticed and appreciated on my walk earlier that day. Not one but two close friends identified that purple wildflower as Wild Geranium – also known as Cranesbill.

Beyond having very smart friends, this also confirms that I would make an absolutely abysmal herbalist. Actually, not only am I not the person to go to for guidance on the healing powers of plants – I don’t (or barely) even know which ones I could eat without killing myself. Which is why, if I ever decide to go off into the wilderness, I’d better ask Wendy or Margaret to come along. (And while I realize I have a several more friends who would also fit the bill – I want to clarify that they’re the ones who made the positive ID on FB this morning, so they win the prize.)

Noticing

In yesterday’s post, I mused that I’d only noticed these purple blossoms that day. Upon reflection, I surely must’ve seen them before. It’s fascinating, if a little unsettling, to contemplate how many things I see or look at each day and never even notice. My eyes just gloss right over a million things. Every day.

Today, for instance, I was intent upon examining the Cranesbill more closely in order to verify the identification. Sure enough, when I bent down and really took a good look at the entire plant, I could see how the leaves are the same shape as domesticated geraniums that are available in hanging pots all over the place.

Odd ‘Coincidence’

What’s slightly amusing to me is that just this past weekend I’d been out hunting for a hanging plant for our porch. I knew I’d know what I wanted when I saw it, and I even laughed at myself for being so picky. I perused the selections of at least four garden centers before finding what I wanted. The funny thing about that? I distinctly remember thinking to myself, “One plant I know I don’t want is geranium. Ick. I don’t like them.”

Ha!

It wasn’t more than 24-48 hours later that wild geranium had me swooning. Of course, knowing me by now, you know I looked it up. As far as traditional herbal usage of the plant goes, I’m grateful I’m not in need of its healing properties at the moment. (And from the sound of the afflictions it remedies, I think I better hope I never do.)

On my walk tonight, of course, I was acutely aware of their presence. And yes, I apologized to the spirit of geranium. I now realize I’m quite fond of the wild variety, at the very least.

Wild Geranium – aka Cranesbill – Photo: L. Weikel

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Mixing It Up – Day 547

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Nothing But Swirls and Fenceposts – Photo: L.Weikel

Mixing It Up

If you’ve been reading my posts for any length of time, first of all thank you, and second of all you probably realize that you never know what I’m going to write about from one day to the next. It’s the old “keep ‘em guessing” strategy. You know: mixing it up so you never know if you’re going to miss one of the good ones – making every day’s offering an adventure of discovery.

Yikes. I’m dredging from my college days now, making whip-smart use of that psychology degree by employing intermittent reinforcement to the readers of my blog posts. B. F. Skinner would be proud.

Actually, it’s not intentional. Not in the nefarious way I’m alluding to, anyway. It is intentional in respect to the fact that I try to stay away from writing too much about any one subject. My thoughts do bounce around from one topic to another.

A Niche

I think maybe I thought, or was hoping, I’d have discovered a niche by now. But no. Five hundred forty seven days into the 1111 Devotion project and no discernible niche has revealed itself. I guess I’m just a jack-of-all-subjects and master-of-none.

If you were to take a gander at the photos on my iPhone, though, you might come to another conclusion. You very well might think, “This chick should’ve become a meteorologist. Clearly she has a thing for clouds and other weather events.” And you would not be wrong.

Clouds

I adore clouds. I’m confident this comes as no surprise to any of you. And I particularly love letting my gaze soften when I look to the sky and allowing myself to simply see what’s up there. Like the angel’s wings I wrote about last week, and any number of other posts I’ve share about clouds that have appeared to me in intriguing shapes.

Just a day or so ago, I caught this one:

Fox Chasing Bird – Photo: L. Weikel

In my imagination, I easily see a fox chasing an oversized bird right across the sky.

No, I don’t feel there’s any particular message associated with that image. It’s simply a delight. A whimsical interlude punctuating one of our walks.

And that’s an important aspect of what I do as well, or perhaps how I approach life, that many people don’t realize. I don’t try to wring a message or a lesson out of every single thing that happens to me or that comes to my attention. I know it may seem as if I do, but in truth, there’s a unique sense of significance that I sense deep within when I encounter a ‘message.’

Cultivating that sense is something that comes with practice. But first things first – which means, you have to do a lot of noticing and paying attention to realize which experiences coming your way are messages and which are simply interludes of beauty, or pain, or something else in your life that are ‘only’ important in that moment.

 

(T-564)

Beauty Up Close – Day 223

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Lawn From Afar – Photo: L. Weikel

Beauty Up Close

The first task on our agenda today was to mow the lawn. So many days this week were hot and muggy, when you added to that mix a day or two where more rain than usually falls in an entire month fell within a couple hours, you had the perfect recipe for some major growth.

I sat on our porch looking out upon the lawn in front of the barn. (We’re lucky enough to have both a ‘front’ lawn and what we euphemistically call ‘the back 40’ – a patch of grass and weeds, trees, bushes, and an overgrown something-or-other Karl used to call a garden – behind the barn.) The lawn looked different this week. A new patch of something was growing out there and I’m not sure why it apparently proliferated over the past two weeks, but it definitely had overtaken the green grass.

Lots of White, Much Less Green

Walking down to the barn to fetch the mower, I noticed that the sea of white heads in the grass were patches of what I believe is clover. I had to laugh; we are definitely into ‘au naturel’ lawns. Ours would never be acceptable to those who demand a thick, monotonous carpet of green.

Ours is anything but that. In fact, we often have a variety of plants, often referred to as weeds, having starring roles in our lawn productions. Dandelions, wild violets, crab grass, and these teeny, tiny little wild strawberries. And now, apparently, a major crop of clover.

As I was mowing, I started paying attention to what I was mowing through and cutting down to a trim and uniform size. I couldn’t help noticing that, the closer I looked and the more detail I allowed myself to notice, the more honest beauty revealed itself to me.

For instance, the top photo in this post is a shot of my lawn, as I was mowing it, ‘from afar.’

Lawn a Little Closer – Photo: L. Weikel

The second photo, just above, is simply paying closer attention and zooming in a bit more.

But the most beautiful photo is the one below. How easily (and routinely) do we ignore the rich, vibrant colors and many exquisite details in the tiny flowers that I had categorically dismissed as ‘stuff to mow’ only minutes earlier.

The miniature-like quality and detail to these ‘lawn weeds’ is profound. I’m so glad they asked to have their photos taken!

Next Chance You Get, Take a Deeper Look

Next time you have a chance to walk on your lawn, or beside the road, or sit beside a creek or just ‘be’ anywhere, I encourage you to stop and just take a deeper look. Really focus on the details of what’s sharing space right there with you. I guarantee you will be filled with wonder.

And right now, it feels especially important for all of us to seek out and appreciate the tiniest offerings of color, beauty, and goodness we can find.

Beauty Up Close – Photo: L. Weikel

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