Getting settled into my new place has really disrupted my
writing for now.  But
the vegetable and flower gardens have given me a chance to reconnect viscerally
with the earth, an opportunity that has been very rare for the past twelve
years.  I’ve made no altar or
offerings to the spirits of the place yet, but hours watering, staking flopping
plants, climbing into a tree to try and enable coexistence with an
all-devouring wisteria, and other kinds of care, some tough some not, have done
wonders for my peace of mind.  My
days are delightfully removed from the pathology of politics.  Gardening helps put things into
perspective! As I get a better feel for the energies of this place I’ll build
an outside altar and begin building better relations with the subtler energies
of this place.

Until then I give it the gift of my labor in creating more
harmony between plant, soil, and human.

With Mabon fast approaching everything is beginning to wind
down.  Many flowers have come,
bloomed, and gone, replaced by seedpods. 
The nighttime chill seems just a little sharper than it was earlier,
even during this coolest of summers. 
The sun is rising noticeably later and setting earlier.  The wheel is turning towards my
favorite season of fall. 

California Falls are modest compared to those in the
Northeast, but they are long and leisurely.  I joke that fall begins in late August and proceeds one tree
at a time till early December.  
But during this time of global warming and climate change all over the
place, Fall in coastal northern California is getting more spectacular.  Up here north of the Bay Area the
recent shift from apples to grapes has made for luminescent Falls.  Apple trees, at least here in northern
California, do not have mush color, and apple orchards are relatively quiet in
color, but the vineyards that have increasingly shoved them aside produce
vibrant bursts of yellow, orange and red, depending on the grape.  But that much anticipated show is not
yet.  Summer still has some power.

With that in mind today I dead-headed some roses.  With good water I think I can get them
to give one more burst of bloom before they need to rest.  Hopefully they’ll agree.  Inside, pictures finally went up on the
walls this afternoon – I’ve been here long enough to get a feel for what goes
where.  And from time to time I’ve
been reading David Abram’s Becoming Animal.  So far his new book is more than living up to its early
promise, and I will devote a post to it once I’m done, and get into a
intellectual mood again.

Right now arranging my new place and becoming intimate again
with the powers of the land are my priorities.