We are celebrating the heart of summer quietly around here. I have a little time between formal writing commissions to decorate my hearth altar. I am enjoying writing in my journal this year *before* binding the signatures together. A few pages are so much more portable. A little green gouache in a Speedball C-1 pen is fine to mark the turn of the Wheel.
It is such a sensual pleasure to harvest fruit and eat it warmed by the sun.
The wildflowers obligingly provide just the right color contrast to catch the eye. These are California poppies, the state flower, and blue Nigella, also known as Persian Jewels and Love in a Mist.
I mark the sacred time by making a little space in the studio for play. I have an idea for a greeting card . . . so I mix up a little wheat paste and pigment, wet my paper and start spinning my idea. I have since added some green . . .
This feels the fullest and most luxurious time of year. Everything is planted and the harvest is yet to come. The long summer hours invite a mix of doing and lazing. In the resting from ceaseless work come stray ideas and visions, if we only let them quietly flow in.
I had heard the name “love in a mist” but never Persian jewels — how lovely! And are those grapes, or plums — so huge, dusky and juicy it’s hard to tell. Welcome summer indeed 🙂
Michele, those are plums, a bit small from a young tree. Funny, I thought of you when I wrote about working in my unbound journal pages. I began reading “A Midwive’s Tale” on your recommendation and early on the author mentions Martha carrying just a few pages at a time as she went to attend births. I think it’s going to be an amazing tale to read, thank you for the comment last summer on another post!
Cari–I’ve been enjoying reading your posts–juicy plums are the perfect summer fruit! The Burpee’s seed envelope are a reminder of the joys of planting. We just enjoyed our first homegrown tomatoes yesterday which was one of those perfect summer days in the Bay area.
Thank you, Conni! It is good to hear from you. Yes, the first tomatoes! Thanks for letting me know you are out there reading. It means a lot to me.