summertime

Jul. 4th, 2019 06:14 pm
asakiyume: (glowing grass)
Today I didn't have to go to work, so I picked red currants. My bushes are full, bowed down.

branch bowed down
branch bowed down

underneath
red currants

And the berries glow.
glowing

There was life everywhere all around while I was picking--tiny life, little spiders, a daddy longlegs, tiny caterpillars, mother mosquitoes hoping I had a meal for them, and also bigger life, orioles singing up high in trees, invisible, and robins and bluejays, and next door, the neighbors' grandkids, splashing in a pool, and under my feet and knees as I alternately squat and kneel, there's soft green moss, and it's so gloriously, softly hot--heat woven on moisture and full of scents--the grass, the flowers, the dirt, my shampoo, my deodorant, a whiff of the laundry detergent--the humid heat holds these scents. (It's the time of year that edible chestnuts are in bloom--oh the scent of those as you pass them). I never, ever feel more alive or happy than on a summer day like this, life pressing against me. Each moment is bliss.

... Here is the same branch, no longer bowed down.

branch lighter

And here are the pickings from just this one bush:

Two bowls

This will become red currant jelly. The berries on the two other bushes may be just for eating out of hand and for things like fruit in scones. We'll see.
asakiyume: created by the ninja girl (Default)
Today Matt, of Where the Hell [now toned down to Heck] Is Matt fame (videos here and here), came to dance in South Amherst.

I was one of the first people to arrive, but gradually more and more people came, until we had a small crowd. There was a woman whose name was Forest--not Forest Something, or Something Forest, just Forest. She's a dancer. There was a young meteorologist, and an acquaintance of mine who does shape-note singing, and a pastor who is going to let me go up into her belfry to take pictures of her bell and who has a little daughter. There was a woman with her two grandchildren. So many people, happy to dance!

He came with just a smartphone to film with! And asked for a stepladder and a chair, and people found those things--and then for someone willing to film, and guess who was willing: [livejournal.com profile] wakanomori!

Here he is consulting with Matt (forgive the crummy photo; I didn't bring my camera (crazy), so this is taken with my cell phone)



Here are two pictures of the crowd that [livejournal.com profile] wakanomori took from his vantage point on the ladder (you can click through to see bigger) (Also, the pastor's church is over on the right as you look at the picture):





Here's the front row, where the kids were (my cell phone picture again):



After it was over, one guy called out, "You've been all over the world--what's one thing you've learned?" Matt thought about it a minute and said, "That people want to be helpful."

It's true--you could see it in action right there. A sunshiny thought.

Matt collects way more video footage than he uses in his final video, and what he got today may not make it in--but it'll be up on his website, eventually. When it is, I'll link.

Last of all, a posed shot together :-)



[Edit, from 2018. I'm going through carefully putting photos that were only available on Livejournal into my Dreamwidth photo storage, so that when I cease to pay for an LJ account, the photos will continue to be visible. As I do, I'm revisiting the past from the future. In this case, I know now, which I didn't then, that this Matt video would be lackluster compared to the early ones; that you can't go to places based on popular demand and have as interesting and diverse a video, and that the enthusiasm of the earlier years can't be maintained for ever and ever. Matt deserves to--and ought to--move on to a new project. Hopefully now he is/has.]


asakiyume: (feathers on the line)






I've waited all day for this.

Come with me into the gold
come into the gold

Come closer
here is a golden sea

Float right out of your body, over these ripples
swaying in the light


Here are wings ...
like feathers

... they will catch fire, and it will be wonderful
aflame with light
asakiyume: (glowing grass)
Took a break from work to go out and pick some black raspberries. There was a thunderstorm this morning, but now the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. I've let raspberry canes grow wherever they come up, and there are some right along the side of the house, in the sun. So many are ripe, and warm. Picking them, with the sun on my back and a breeze blowing, and a train calling in the distance, I really think: it's okay to be mortal and to die if there are moments like this--sweet berries, breezes, leaves and ferns, sunlight and shadows, a train whistle.
asakiyume: (autumn source)
I had a lovely time with [livejournal.com profile] sartorias this past weekend, a consequence of which is that I haven't been online much at all, and may only slowly catch up with people's entries.

[livejournal.com profile] sartorias brought me cactus candy--and cactus honey--and cactus marmalade! All delicious. I AM HAPPY TO EAT CACTUS!

And she taught me some yoga, and it was so right and good, it made me cry a little.

you were always nice to me )

chestnuts and horse chestnuts )

Some treasures: in the pocket of my sweater are silvery mica and white marble from my walk in Holland Glen, back on Saturday. And on the dashboard of the car is a milkweed pod, spilling milkweed seeds--ballet dancers in long white skirts, like in Fantasia--a Swan Lake corps de ballet. More anon. Work calls--not to mention everyone's blogs! I'll get there, friends.


asakiyume: (shaft of light)






Solstice bells were ringing when I stepped out this morning--

solstice bells

Everything was glowing

wildflowers and vines

grass flowers

Across the way and elsewhere, rosa multiflora was in all its glory, bullying in its beauty--"you can't resist me; you know you can't. You love me--so don't complain about my thorns and the blood and pain. Remember this."

rosa multiflora in bloom

Read more... )

Happy summer solstice from the northern hemisphere!

June 21, 2014


asakiyume: created by the ninja girl (Default)
Sometimes the most ordinary of places is beautiful. This parking lot, with those big clouds, in fresh after-rain light.

It's just a parking lot, but there's a big sky up above it and trees on its margins, and even its asphalt seems . . . all right.

(It's another phone picture. My phone takes impressionist paintings. My phone's name is Cezanne.)


I had to pick up the healing angel from a friend's house. On our way home, we passed a bus-hive. All the school buses were there, all yellowy-orange and black, like fancy hornets. We thought we might see the queen, but we didn't; we only saw the worker buses. (A queen, as you probably know, is just a worker bus that has been fed royal petroleum jelly.) I didn't have the presence of mind to take a picture, but this picture, though it's from more than a thousand miles away, has something of the feel.

Bus-hive in Ann Arbor, Michigan


And hey, while I was searching for appropriate bus-hive pictures, look what I found: mini edible school buses made out of Twinkies.


Photo by Kendra Arch; recipe at "Stop Lookin' Get Cookin'"


asakiyume: (feathers on the line)
There are probably not many who read me who don't read [livejournal.com profile] sartorias, but for the few--here, via [livejournal.com profile] sartorias, is the latest "Where's Matt" video, featuring, among other places, Damascus, Syria; Kabul, Afghanistan; Karachi, Pakistan; Pyongyang, North Korea; and Irbil, Iraq, as well as Vienna, Port au Prince, Talinn, New Orleans, Kigali, Terelj (Mongolia), and many more, including two cities I've actually lived in--Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Kyoto, Japan ([livejournal.com profile] khiemtran, it's the Fushimi Inari shrine, I think). As in other videos, he also dances with animals, under water, and this time he also dances on the deck of what I guess is an aircraft carrier--the USS Abraham Lincoln.

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asakiyume: created by the ninja girl (Default)
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