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Well, I'm back. These golden woods are home, and it is good to be among them once again. I wonder if sometimes the greatest adventure is the return from a journey, the homecoming. And what a perfect season to return to! The world is aglow with golden browns and oranges and greens, the familiar carpet of bermuda grass and clover is soft underfoot on these dwindling Indian summer days, and crisp with frost in these chilly autumn mornings.  Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering. - Charles Dickens
constant and ever-present, the other touched by changing seasons, relishing the life-giving constancy for a while, then flying from the branches. Someday I, too, hope to root myself into the bark of some old tree and trade my golden deciduous adventures for the evergreeness of home.
I've rediscovered this year how exciting wild harvesting can be. The persimmons are ripe and falling from the tree by the basketfull, sweeter now after a few frosts. It's an incredible thing to gather these odd and uninspiring little fruits from the ground, and know that they will add their peculiar spice and citrus flavor and host of healthful benefits to a multitude of breads and pies and scones. A smattering of very early frost flowers have appeared over the last few mornings, the surest herald of winter. 
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| But best of all, this homely Thoughtful Spot is filled with chatter, laughter, and the family who, far more than my beloved woods, make this little corner of Middle Tennessee my home. And though I know they have heard over and again all my stories of how exciting and different these wandering thoughtful spots have been over the past months, they listen to me generously. I marvel at how far away and wonderful those places now seem, and at how real and vibrant is this present moment. |  |
I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.
- Herman Melville, Moby Dick
It's a dangerous business, going out one's door, you never know where you might be swept off to... this year I've been swept off to many a thoughtful spot, and seen many a wonder, and walked Providential paths that I wouldn't trade for anything. But on this sunny day of a fleeting September I know for sure that it's this thoughtful spot at home, and those who share it with me, that will always hold my heart.
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I'm sitting here with the splendid beams of a late summer sunset spreading across my page, and a raging wind billowing in from the sea. This little bench is a thoughtful spot I have visited frequently over the past month, but this evening is the last time I will see it awash with gloaming light, I am leaving the Channel Islands tomorrow. The ocean is all aglitter. As I've explored this tiny island it seems to me that the sea, not the land, has the greatest character here. It rushes into caves, plays around great monoliths, warms itself on sun-baked black pebbles, and ensures that there is never really silence, it is always crashing and chattering just a stone's throw away.
But there are other companions here at my thoughtful spot this evening, besides the happy sea and the regal light, there are those most homely and peculiarly comforting of creatures, the cows. They meander and mumble and lift their long-lashed eyes as I pass by, contemplatively. They are gentle, and they make me think of home.
God made the petreous rocks, the arboreal trees...
The movements of the sea, the wind in boughs,
green grass, the large slow oddity of cows...
- J. R. R. Tolkien, Mythopoiea
The gorse (Ulex europaeus) is blooming here and there, little golden clusters on ferociously prickled shrubs. Those who have lived here for years have told me that, no matter what the season, the gorse is always in bloom, even in the midst of rainy, icy winters, or windy, late summer droughts like this one, at least one or two sunny flowers can be found. No one today seems to think of gorse blossoms as a wild edible and there is very little information about its potential uses, or potential dangers. But an old wildflower guide claims that gorse flowers and buds, tinctured in vinegar, are an effective remedy for coughs and sniffles, and have a pleasant flavor of vanilla and almonds.
When Gorse is out of blossom, then kissing is out of fashion...
- Old Cornish Proverb
Another fiercely thorned shrub grows in abundance around this thoughtful spot, the wild blackthorn (Prunus spinosa). Just now it is covered in powdery blue sloes, and local residents are excitedly planning the making of sloe gin to be ready in time for Christmas celebrations. Though folklore surrounding this angry-looking plant is often ominous, the sloes have been a wild-harvest staple for centuries, and studies have shown that they are anti-inflammatory, support healthy digestion, soothe sore throats, and ease winter colds and flus. Fairies are said to live in both these wild, windswept shrubs, kindly little folk among the sunshine-colored blossoms, and mischievous ones perched on the sharp blackthorns.
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Mountain blossoms, shining blossoms, / Do ye teach us to be glad
When no summer can be had, / Blooming in our inward bosoms?
Ye, whom God preserveth still, / Set as lights upon a hill,
Tokens to the wintry earth that Beauty liveth still!
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lessons from the Gorse
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The sea is gushing in frothy rivulets from the cliff-sides. As it tumbles back the surrounding water is actually turquoise, an almost unearthly color that no photograph can capture. Its roar is deafening and cheering, frightening and friendly at once. The wind is strong, but it's odd how an ocean wind feels so different from that wind on the moors only a few short months ago. Here it is gustier, unpredictable, less constant and persistent. I leave this thoughtful spot tomorrow, and I will miss this sea. But there is oh so much joy in the prospect of returning soon to a more familiar corner of this glorious creation...
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
- John Masefield, Sea Fever
Many have thought in this Thoughtful Spot. Great minds have pondered wondrous things beneath this old London plane tree (Platanus hispanica). Somehow I think their thoughts have lingered, and have changed this place. Is that possible, I wonder - can the thoughts, conversations, ideas seep into the fiber of a place and leave some vestige of their power when the thinkers have long since gone? I doubt it, yet my imagination likes it so. And if ever there were a place to make one believe such a thing, it is this place.
I wonder anyone does anything at Oxford but dream and remember.
- William Butler Yeats
...that peculiar air of Oxford -
the air of liberty to care for the things of the mind...
- Henry James
The sky is grey with patches of brilliant white, the wind is gusty and hale, as though glad to be at work in such a beautiful place. Beside my little bench is a weather-worn limestone pillar, and dancing over it is a wisteria tree (Wisteria sinensis). It's the sort of wisteria that only exists in very old places, with a trunk that rivals a young oak, and branches that spread and cling to four storeys worth of stone. It is in the midst of a summer bloom, a gentler display than the spring abundance of purple, these drooping blossoms hide among long tendrils of leaves. Those tendrils look as though they intend to ensnare passersby, or at the very least peer into windows uninvited.
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All that is gold does not glitter/Not all who wander are lost...
- J.R.R. Tolkien
A magpie scampers across the grass in front of me, and two ravens strut by. Could it be they enjoy smugly walking across that grass that students' steps may not touch? Magpies are beautiful creatures, blue-black and purest white, they seem to sparkle in the sunlight. And the sunlight is brilliant now, for the wind has driven the grey sky away. The banks of the water are alive with goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) and blue woodland phlox (Phlox divaricata), and cattails (Typha latifolia) bob placidly along the path. The bells have rung, all out of time and characterful. Jagged, cross-tipped spires reach for heaven, towering cross-tipped spruces reach beside them. Ancient ivies and climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea anomala) hide man's handiwork with God's, granting these stones a harmony with creation, and a sense of belonging in these woods and fields. It is a strange, nostalgic, contemplative place. Will my thoughts, too, linger here, waiting to be reclaimed?
The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing... to find the place where all the beauty came from...
- C. S. Lewis
Magdalen College, Oxford
There is a wild wind here on my Thoughtful Walk, but not the sort that heralds a storm or threatens a change. It’s a constant, steady wind, the sort that shapes trees over years, bending them into fluid shapes, the sort that races into your lungs with every breath you take, and makes the grasses with their filigree seed heads ripple like the marks left in the sand of a gentle shoreline. I’m in love with the moor.
It’s been raining most of the day, which has been just right. I was thinking a moment ago that this place would not be right in the sun, it’s so gloriously alive in the rain and mist. But then the sun came out, and it was like a new world had been lowered down for a moment and swallowed this one in one gulp, then it was gone again. The sunlight is resting on a distant hilltop for a instant, racing now across the land, here for a fleeting breath, then off again. The cloud's shadows whisk the light along, but never for more than a moment or two, it always returns.
And the peace which I always found in the silence and emptiness of the moors filled me utterly.
- James Herriot
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One or two fireweed torches (Chamaenerion angustifolium) are just beginning to bloom, fields of them are in bud. Between those blooms and the heather (Calluna vulgaris), I imagine these moors will be a sea of pinks and purples in a month. Birds whose names I do not know squabble among the ripening wild blueberries, and the wind-sculpted hawthorn trees (Crataegus monogyna) are covered in green berries. The clouds are low, or perhaps the land is high and closer to them, yet they do not settle as dreamy mists in the hollows and dells as I would have expected. These clouds alternately float and race just over my head, like an ever-changing roof of painted greys.
... A lonely moor / silent and dark and tractless swells,
The waves of some wild streamlet pour / hurriedly through its ferny dells.
- Charlotte Brontë
Stone walls and old stone homes are etched into this land, not built upon it. They cut, in beautiful disorder, through the coarse, sponge-like grass, through the sturdy heather, through the deepest imaginable moss, all the way down to the sandy soil beneath. It looks as though these stone structures have grown out of that soil.
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So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;/And, deepening still the dream-like charm,
Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere. /That was the scene, I knew it well;
I knew the turfy pathway's sweep,/That, winding o'er each billowy swell,
Marked out the tracks of wandering sheep.
- Charlotte Brontë
This is a place of contradictions, or perhaps of an odd balance. The vastness and the wind gives a sense of wildness, yet somehow the clouds and the little hollows make it feel sheltered, and homely. The land looks untamed, yet sheep graze it placidly. Tufts of wool are caught in the grasses, self heal (Prunella vulgaris) dots its bright purple face among great swaths of nettles (Urtica dioica). The horizon seems limitless, and strangely reachable.
I’m in familiar forests today. A trail that I’ve walked several times before is just visible amidst a jungle-like chaos of weeds and wildflowers and undergrowth, the river is misty and lazy down a cliff on one side of the path and a canopy of green and birdsongs overhead obscures the sky, but not the sunlight. And best of all, I’m not wandering this thoughtful spot on my own. Chattering along the trail before and behind are my family, the best people to share in a thoughtful walk.
Flowers were the sun and fiery spots of sky strewn through the woodland.
-Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
Countless daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare) bloom along the way, and purple explosions of wild bee balm (Monarda fistulosa) are dotted in little clusters. That surest scent of spring, the perfect harmony of moss, wild privet, and honeysuckle are in the air. All three plants line this trail in abundance, the viney honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum) and privet shrubs (Ligustrum vulgare) almost touch across the path above my head, creating an archway of flowers. I wish I could blend a perfume of that scent!
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And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
Indian Pinks (Spigelia marilandica) in yellow and scarlet pop up here and there, tucked in little rocky crevices rocking into the steep slopes or in between the gnarly roots of old trees. And Mum has made a new wildflower discovery- a small bell-shaped bloom on a vine, perfectly shaped with thick yellow petals turned back at the tips like a fuchsia, in the loveliest shade of pink. It’s a wild clematis variety, (Clematis pitcheri) and not a very common one. Its vine and leaves look similar to its cultivated relatives, but its unique blossom, with thick, sturdy petals, give it the common name Leatherflower.
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…there are so many things that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring there is a different green.
- J. R. R. Tolkien
At home the first day lilies are blooming, the roses are just passing their prime, and the vibrant green of early summer is beginning to overtake the land. I’m glad to be returning there when I leave this thoughtful spot. It is good to turn my steps towards home for a while, and delight in the familiar companionship of family. Particularly as my next Thoughtful Spot will be very far away indeed…
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It's Spring. Full-blown, gleeful Spring. I've found a field today, off of a little trail that has been the site of many a pleasant walk. I've no idea who the property belongs to, and I'm not entirely sure if I'm supposed to be here or not, but here I am, nestled in a clover patch, delighting in the reassuring excitement of a friendly, familiar sun.
... April, dressed in all his trim,/Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.
- Shakespeare, Sonnet 98
There are few delights comparable to laying in an un-mown field of spring grass. No stalk is grown enough to be prickly or uncomfortable, and the tiniest of flowers are hiding beneath the Johnson grass and clover. There are wild strawberries, and violet wood sorrel (Oxalis violacea), and the first of the dovesfoot cranesbill (Geranium molle), and two dainty Venus looking glass stems (Triodanis perfoliata). And the world looks so wide and different from this grassy vantage, I imagine this is how the little rabbit I passed on my way here might look at this field. Isn't it odd how we tend to love the idea that we have the ability to see the world the way birds do, yet we rarely stop to look at it the way squirrels and rabbits do. Don't you think their view is quite lovely too?
Spring won’t let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.
- Gustav Mahler
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While on the topic of quotidian joys, I must stop and praise the lovely experience of writing with a pencil. My pen fell out of my hair as I biked here, no doubt I'll find it on the path when I ride back, but until then I'm using the pencil that I found in the depths of my purse to write this, and am remembering how pleasing it is to write with a pencil, and feel lead instead of metal move smoothly across a page. A honeysuckle (Lonicera x bella) is blooming across the field. It's a cloud of white and yellow blossoms, with slender trumpet throats and that unmatchable scent they simply can't contain, it must leap out of those trumpets and flood the air with fragrance. And in the very middle of this field blooms a single, shockingly yellow ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris). I'm tempted to pick it, yet it stands so tall and proud I think I should leave it be. Oh and the cornflowers! (Centaurea cyanus) What a color! Of all blue flowers, they must be the truest blue, like late afternoon skies without a cloud in sight, the color of an indigo bunting when the light hits the feathers just so.
Tiny green aphids crawl across my page and onto the magenta bud of a vetch flower (Vicia americana). I love it when the vetch begins to bloom. Though I hear the sounds of heavy equipment nearby as work proceeds on a new highway that I fear will cut far too close to this wild haven, the sound of the wind in the trees is louder, and the chatter of birds and squabble of squirrels is nearer, and I am grateful this haven exists. The mundane and the spectacular of creation thrive together in this thoughtful spot, awaiting marvelers. What a perfect gift is spring.
For the past week I have traveled, almost daily, beneath a large, single cherry tree. When this week began, the tree was subtly bedecked in pale buds, but slowly, coaxed by rain showers, sunny days, and a warm spring, the buds have burst into bloom. Today they are glorious pink pompoms, and the first few petals have begun to fall.
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In March the soft rains continued, and each storm waited courteously until its predecessor sunk beneath the ground.
- John Steinbeck
Red buds and crab apples are blooming too; my walk today is almost entirely beneath pink and white arbors. The sky is grey and towering with storm clouds, as it has been for several afternoons this week. But with the warmth of the spring air, the blooms on the trees above me, and the delightful scent of new grass and damp mulch in the air, the grey skies don't seem threatening at all. It feels instead as though this dim spring day is wrapped in a grey down quilt of clouds, and it makes today the perfect day for a Thoughtful Walk.
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Loveliest of trees, the cherry now, / Is hung with bloom along the bough
And stands about the woodland ride / Wearing white for Eastertide.
And stands about the woodland ride / Wearing white for Eastertide.
- A. E. Housman
This morning I was wakened by a rather portly robin scuttering along the gutter outside my window. Winter is almost gone. Now I sit on a sun-warmed stone with my toes in an icy, chattering creek, sunlight streams through leafless trees, and there are songbirds calling from every side. Though another frost or four will certainly still come, it feels safe to say that spring is on the move.
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My thoughtful spot today is a lovely corner off a trail behind a neighborhood. Long ago some kind soul set stepping stones across this busy creek, or at least it looks as thought is was long ago, for the stones are very deeply set and covered in moss. And there is a quiet, thoughtful bench, and a picnic table, slightly the worse for weather, yet somehow made friendlier by that.
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Then was winter shaken, and fair was the earth's embrace.
- Beowulf
Green leaves are peering through the buds on a wild rose bush (Rosa canina), which is currently also home to a little nest. It is clearly last year's handiwork, but I've no doubt it will be made shipshape by new inhabitants in the near future.
Chickweed (Stellaria media) and henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) and blue creeping speedwell (Veronica repens), nestled deep in oft-overlooked obscurity, herald in their tiny, joyful way the sunny days and warmth ahead. And a single, bright faced dandelion (Taraxacum officinale,) on a tiny stem is the first brave one of its kind to emerge in this little thoughtful spot.
Chickweed (Stellaria media) and henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) and blue creeping speedwell (Veronica repens), nestled deep in oft-overlooked obscurity, herald in their tiny, joyful way the sunny days and warmth ahead. And a single, bright faced dandelion (Taraxacum officinale,) on a tiny stem is the first brave one of its kind to emerge in this little thoughtful spot.
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Nothing ever seems impossible in Spring, you know.
- L. M. Montgomery
The creek running over the stepping stones almost drowns out the construction trucks near by. There are millions of dancing stars on its surface, and gleeful little clusters of bubbles at the corners of the rocks. There is a sunbeam on the field across the creek, and I must follow it...
A solitary, empty, stone urn sits in front of me. A patinated pedestal filled with frozen earth, and beyond it a tidy holly hedge blocks this little corner of nature from the surrounding houses. It is a sheltered, sun-dappled place where I have sat often before, quiet and very nearly warm on these brightly brisk winter days - a perfect thoughtful spot. These really are the best days of winter: when the mornings are frosty and the air is almost too cold to breath deeply, then those mornings fade into afternoons like this one, afternoons of crystalline skies and almost warm enough sunshine.
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Glory be to God for dappled things!
- Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty
If you sit on the ground one of these afternoons, and close your eyes in a sheltered spot where the sun shines through and the wind is stilled, sometime between the frosts of morning and evening, you can almost imagine a whole host of tiny roots slowly waking up in the earth beneath, tempted by the sunshine warmth to rouse from their winter's rest, and beginning to think about sending out new shoots and new life. It feels as though all creation around me is tentatively, half-way waking. Perhaps, when the frost returns tonight, all those curious little roots and sprouts will nestle back down into the warm depths of the soil once more, realizing that winter isn't yet over with that wonderful feeling of waking too early on a Saturday morning, and discovering that there's no need to dash out into the chilly world just yet.
It was one of those days when...
it is summer in the light and winter in the shade.
- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Wild daffodil noses are peering up in the dappled patch of woods along the sidewalk. And a cacophonous pair of Canada geese have taken up residence, despite the glowering disapproval of the neighborhood homeowners' association, in the undergrowth of the tidy holly hedge. I've heard these next few weeks referred to as the quickening of the year. What a lovely phrase. It is the season when the first tiny glimpses of waking life are just beginning to appear again.
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... a new year, full of things that never have been...
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Though ice still clings to the grasses around the mouth of a little culvert nearby, and the bushes are still white with frost most mornings, still it seems that perhaps, slowly and happily, the world is indeed beginning to quicken.
It's been a balmy December. The warm, damp, mizzle-filled days have felt almost spring-like, and the scent of moss and old logs is at once new and nostalgic. I'm wandering through the woods today with the people I love best, and finding perfect thoughtful spots around every corner of three winding miles of trails. The green, almost rainforest atmosphere of these woods is deliciously conducive to thoughtful spots, and every other step there is a log or a stump or a lush moss carpet on a stone, just waiting to be comfortably sat upon as a vantage point from which the deep valley and the creek below us might be enjoyed.
Along a stream that raced and ran / Through tangled trees and over stones,
That long had heard the pipes o' Pan / And shared the joys that nature owns,
I met a fellow fisherman, / Who greeted me in cheerful tones.
- Edgar Guest, The Fisherman
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We stumbled upon the foundation of an old home beside the trail. It was settled in a perfect corner between large trees, and just a few steps down the path away from it a bridge led over a small waterfall. What a pleasant place to live it must have been. The dried flowers of the wild hydrangeas still look as though they're blooming, and the mountain laurel is everywhere. In the spring this path must be overwhelmed by their pink and white blooms.
An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
- Henry David Thoreau
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Fairy places, fairy things,/Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,
Tiny woods below whose boughs/Shady fairies weave a house...
- Robert Lewis Stevenson, A Child's Garden of Verses
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But then, then we clambered through a creek, rounded a corner, passed a tall ledge of sharp layers of slate and bedrock, and arrived at a waterfall of glorious proportions. No words can do justice to this glassy torrent. It was magnificent.
The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon;
- John Clare, A Shepherd's Calendar: November
The morning mist is frosty. The dried seed heads of the iron weed are encased in a feathery shroud of white, and they glitter in the early morning light. The air is cold and bright, and all the world seems awake and gleeful and scattered with twinkling dust. I'm in somewhat unfamiliar woods, I've walked them before but I don't know them like my woods at home, so there's an air of discovery around every turn: a little bridge to span a marshy patch of trail, a bramble of wild roses covered in hips, a little grove of cattails. They all come as a surprise, little gifts of wonder on this most stunning of frosty mornings.
| Listen… With faint dry sound, Like steps of passing ghosts, The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees And fall. - Adelaide Crapsey, November Night |  |
A mocking bird is trying to balance herself on a swaying wild hydrangea, the beautiful dried flower head is tossing even in this gentle breeze, yet she is holding her seat gracefully. Her long grey tail flicks this way and that as the branch moves, the only sign that she is having to exert any energy at all to keep her delicate perch.
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The frost flowers have bloomed in abundance this morning. The delicate tendrils and ribbons that cling to the dead stalks are utterly marvelous, and every one unique. I wonder what it would be like to watch them form, to see that thinnest, most delicate layer of frost twist and curl out from the stalk and create these magical little clusters of ribbon-like ice.
November has always seemed to me the Norway of the year.
-Emily Dickinson
I love how the frost makes everything sparkle, yet at the same time hides things, just a bit, from clear sight. It softens the edges of the dried grasses, and accentuates the broad veins of the fallen leaves, and harmonizes in such a bright yet gentle way all the colors of the landscape. But there are some colors it cannot soften, for here, lurking patiently beneath a twining profusion of grey-green, frost-embroidered leaves, is a spark of red. A brilliant, red, still-blooming honeysuckle, it seems a reminder that summer has only just fallen asleep. This ice-encased flower must be one of the most beautiful discoveries at this misty morning thoughtful spot.
Autumn is a second Spring, when every leaf is a flower.
- Albert Camus
I am sitting on a bench overlooking a small duck pond, which is currently divested of its few waddling inhabitants, as it is late afternoon and they know by habit that if they wander over to a certain house in the neighborhood about this time they are ensured a hearty dinner. This sun in bright and mellow, "the maturing sun," Keats called it, and that seems to describe it perfectly today, it is not exuberant, but constant. Above me is a canopy of brilliant orange, made even more intense by the sunlight, and just across the street is a row a gold.
As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas, and colors
enough to paint the beautiful things I see.
- Vincent van Gogh
Four young ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) trees, resplendent in drooping branches of brilliant yellow leaves stand there, to walk beneath them is to enter a great hall of golden arches, with a golden carpet underfoot. I've always loved ginkgo trees. I love their tenacity and longevity even in harsh environs, their legendary benefits for the mind and memory are fascinating, and their graceful, almost willow-like branches, which earned them the common name "maidenhair tree," are stunning. But I think my favorite thing about them is the curious fact that these leaves must not be harvested while green and thriving, as one might expect, but now, in all their golden glory, just as they fall from the tree.
Lo! I am come to autumn / When all the leaves are gold...
- G. K. Chesterton, Gold Leaves
Along the tops of all the yellow trees,
The golden-yellow trees, the sunshine lies;
- George MacDonald, Autumn's Gold
I cannot resist gathering up a great armful of these brilliant leaves and tossing them into the air to watch them tumble down. This cheerful little thoughtful spot is chilly but bright on this glorious, final shout of color day. What a perfect ending to autumn.
Since I first began to visit it a year ago in midsummer, my Thoughtful Spot has been a haven, a refuge of permanence and rhythm, a place without chaos, and filled with the marvelous. But even as the seasons have changed in my thoughtful spot, so the seasons of life change.
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Another year is upon us and it is time to seek out new challenges, and mine is to find Thoughtful Spots everywhere. I have recently moved from my quite rural nook to the outskirts of a busy downtown, and, though sorely missing my pathless woods and lonely pastures, I am discovering that quiet thoughtful spots, little corners of beauty and wonder, can be found wherever you may be.
Always be on the look out for the presence of wonder.
- E. B. White
So join me on this new adventure of searching for a little hermitage, surrounded by the beauty of nature, to study and observe and marvel at, every month. Whether it be an old log in the hundred acre wood, a mossy rock beside a waterfall, or a path to the grocery store through maples that are just beginning to turn, these thoughtful spots must be sought after and discovered, wondered at and then shared, as they teach us to never take for granted the glorious minutia of daily life, and the overwhelming beauty with which God has filled the world around us.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road and, if you don't keep your feet, there's no telling where you might be swept off to.
- J. R. R. Tolkein
Many complaints have been made against the hot and muggy southern summers, but I have always loved them. There's a calm and stillness in the humid air that is not as unpleasant as it's made out to be, and provides a lovely contrast to three other seasons who's scents and breezes are filled with eagerness and expectancy and energy. So I really do love a southern summer, I love the tall iron weed and the garden's abundance and the few, brief months in which there are leaves on the black walnut trees. But this summer I experienced what I have not seen for many years, a New England summer, and it was spectacular.
Great is the sun, and wide he goes /Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days /More thick than rain he showers his rays.
- Robert Lewis Stevenson, The Summer Sun
A few quiet corners of New England beach and bike path became my Thoughtful Spot this August. The colors struck me the most, just the endless, shimmering shades of blue would be enough to instill wonder, but then there is the neon pink of the beach plum flowers and the dusky red of their fruit against deep, green leaves and many-hued pebbles and fallow sand and suddenly this seaside world is a vibrant, exuberant tumult of of perfectly clashing colors.
My grandmother and I went shelling at my New England Thoughtful Spot. This odd promontory of land that wraps around a little harbor has provided us with many treasures in years past, and today it turned up the rarest find yet, a tiny shard of tumbled blue beach glass. The tide nearly trapped us on a cluster of rocks between the beach and the path - isn't it marvelous to watch the tide come in? It seems as though you can see each wave inching just the slightest bit closer, ever so slowly, but if you stop watching for only a moment, the beach is suddenly, all at once, several feet narrower that it was before, as though the waves are playfully teasing you, and creeping up while you aren't looking.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.
- Ben Johnson, The Noble Nature
There's a wonderful feeling of smallness that only the ocean can inspire. I stood at the top of the seawall, staring first down at a gentle surf collapsing against stones and dissolving into clouds of raindrops below me, then out to the indiscernible horizon It is impossible not to think that every worry or trouble is somehow less significant, for if I, in all my vastness and power respond in an instant to His word, the ocean seems to say, how can your cares be too great?
It was summer, and the days were perfectly warm and breezy, the sort of days that seem to demand and deserve to be spent wholly out of doors. On the rare occasion when it seemed necessary to be inside for a while, the sunshine peered in through every window, as if searching for company and wondering why everyone wasn't out enjoying its exuberance. It was a summer of discoveries, adventures, and great wonders, of meandering down wooded trails, and stumbling upon breathtaking mountainscapes with little wooden benches perfectly situated to view them. This was the summer of 2019, two months of which I spent in a tiny town nestled in the Swiss Alps where a rather lovely thoughtful spot can be found.
This thoughtful spot was introduced to me by a friend when a few of us set off for a walk on an early summer evening. We turned by a fountain down in the town and started up a road, quite a steep road and as narrow as a sidewalk. We lumbered up this hill, admiring the views of the town gradually sinking below us to the right, and little chalets built against the supporting mountainside to the left, and then we reached the top, to be met by a barrier of trees and scruffy underbrush, which did not seem a terribly exciting vista at all. But then we rounded a corner.
Settled on the edge of a grassy field, surrounded by foreign pink and yellow wildflowers interspersed with familiar lacy yarrow and tiny self-heal blossoms, just off a little footpath shaded by a still-blooming elder, was a bench. It was one of those perfectly shaped wooden benches, the kind you can sit on comfortably for a long while, and you could smell wild mint every once in a while when you sat there, though I never could discover where it grew. In front of this bench, just two steps away, was a very steep slope down to the little town again, and straight out in front of it was a truly majestic view. That evening we wandered further around the tree line to see a tiny sliver of Lake Geneva, far below and away from us, and stayed to watch it turn to a bright red crescent in the sunset. But that first walk was far from the last time I visited this thoughtful spot. For it was a wondrously beautiful place to pray, to read of great ideals, to write letters to the people I love best, to think, and to marvel. It also became the site of a rather painful injury when I discovered a old metal tram rail hidden in the grass by tripping and cutting my knee on it. The yarrow and self-heal were my faithful friends then, and helped turn an ugly gash into a now fading scar.
I often wonder who is sitting at that thoughtful spot now, though I have no doubt that it is beloved by someone and its peaceful solitude is enjoyed by many. It's easy, though now two years later, to let my thoughts drift to a sweater discarded in the sun's warmth, cheery wildflowers, resplendent purple and blue mountains, and a little wooden bench from which to enjoy it all. A great many memories can be summed up in a photograph, and so it always makes me smile to see that, though still in Switzerland where I sincerely hope it is the favorite spot of many other thinkers, my beloved thoughtful spot of yesteryear also resides, quite happily, at the top of this page.
I often wonder who is sitting at that thoughtful spot now, though I have no doubt that it is beloved by someone and its peaceful solitude is enjoyed by many. It's easy, though now two years later, to let my thoughts drift to a sweater discarded in the sun's warmth, cheery wildflowers, resplendent purple and blue mountains, and a little wooden bench from which to enjoy it all. A great many memories can be summed up in a photograph, and so it always makes me smile to see that, though still in Switzerland where I sincerely hope it is the favorite spot of many other thinkers, my beloved thoughtful spot of yesteryear also resides, quite happily, at the top of this page.
The sky is dark and soft, and the air is filled with the scent of a brewing storm. But the grey of the cloudy sky has its magic, for, in the absence of the blinding summer sunlight, I can look straight upward at the sky. Dozens of songbirds and their fledglings are scattered in a crowded, busy silhouette against the grey. I don't know if there are always so many at the edge of the woods when I walk here, but they are remarkable today.
 | Green is the grass and the leaves of trees, Green is the smell of a country breeze. Green is a coolness you get in the shade Of the tall old woods Where the moss is made. Green is an olive, and a pickle. The sound of green is a water trickle. Green is the world after the rain, Bright and bathed and beautiful again. - Mary O'Neill, What is Green? |
Here at my thoughtful spot the dark sky is hidden by the engulfing, dancing shades of green and growing things. Not a flower bloom is to be seen - the jewelweed is late this year - everything is all rich, deep, multi-hued green. Even the oddly handsome little fellow who has decided to sit next to my mossy rock blends almost invisibly into the green around us. He looks like some sort of Katydid, but I can't seem to identify him concretely.
The earth has donned her mantle of brightest green;
all things are glad and flourishing.
- Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
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There are candy-pink mimosa blooms, and the red and yellow honeysuckle, and the lacy cream blossoms of the elder tree just around the corner, over the hill, and beyond the little bend in the creek. But in this little hollow of moss and tumbling water that I have come to love so well, there seems to be no need for such ornaments, lovely though they be. It is perfect today in its unique, subdued sort of monochrome. How different it looks from midsummer a year ago, when iridescent dancing damselflies and sparkling orange jewelweed blooms met me for the first time at this thoughtful spot. How pleasant it has been to return to it often, and to glimpse the ever changing yet ever present beauty of this little place. How quickly this year in my Thoughtful Spot has passed by.
And so... with the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow fast in movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
The air has cooled in an instant, a rumble of thunder is overhead. Old childhood words dance through my thoughts, as they always do in this particular sort of weather. Wind's in the east, mist's blowing in/Like something is brewing, about to begin...
Over a thousand years ago, in the forests of Germany, a wandering king stumbled across a rose bush. He believed this rose symbolized hope and health and built a cathedral around it, a city soon sprang up around the cathedral and the wildflower grew, undeterred by the passing centuries, until the cathedral was bombed during World War II. The ancient rose, too, was thought to have been destroyed, but the next spring saw it valiantly blooming once again among the ruins. This Hildesheim Rose still flowers every spring and is believed to be the oldest living rose bush in the world, yet throughout its history it has been celebrated for more than just its legendary age, for it, like most roses, also possesses many medicinal benefits. As spring is upon us and wild roses are bursting into bloom in our own back yards, the perfect time has arrived to learn about the medicinal uses for this fragrant herb, and to preserve its healthful properties to be enjoyed throughout the year.
Roses have always held a prized place in the herbalist’s materia medica. Rose petals have strong anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and astringent properties and are very high in antioxidants and vitamin C. They are a valuable first aid herb and can be used topically to soothe and ease inflammation caused poison ivy or similar skin irritations, and the petals have been used for centuries to aid in wound healing, as they relieve pain, prevent infection, and reduce inflammation. An infusion of the petals has been shown to relieve headaches, help lower a fever, and support the immune system, and, of course, the marvelous scent of roses has also gained this herb lasting fame. The essential oil has long been valued for its ability to lift the spirits, and both historical herbalism and recent studies agree that the fragrance of roses can aid in relieving anxiety and stress.
Wild roses, a general phrase for a multitude of unique species, grow throughout most of the United States. Commonly found varieties that are excellent for medicinal use include Rosa mulitflora, Rosa palustris, and Rosa carolina, all of which are thorny shrubs that produce strongly scented, five petaled flowers in the spring, and bright red hips in the late autumn. Many cultivated roses also contain medicinal benefits, particularly older varieties with a strong fragrance, however, roses that do not have a scent or have been sprayed with pesticides should be avoided.
Once you have selected a rose bush, the petals can be harvested by holding the flower over a basket and gently tapping the base of the flower head so that the petals fall. With this method, just the petals are removed, leaving the rose hips on the plant to ripen and be harvested in the autumn. It is best to gather rose petals just after the dew has dried but before mid-day to capture the maximum essential oil content. The harvested petals can be spread out on a rack to allow any insects that might have been hiding in the flowers to make their way out.
There are many ways to preserve medicinal herbs, and one of the simplest methods of preserving rose petals is to simply air dry them on a mesh rack, or in a low dehydrator. They can then be stored in a glass jar with a tightly fitting lid and used for blending teas or making infused oils and vinegars. However, my personal favorite way to preserve fresh rose petals is to steep them in honey. Honey preservation has a long and fascinating history, and as honey is recognized as one of the few foods that has an indefinite shelf life, it is the perfect method to both preserve and enhance the medicinal properties of fresh, low-moisture herbs. It is always best to use raw honey, preferably from a local source, when making herbal preparations.
There are many ways to preserve medicinal herbs, and one of the simplest methods of preserving rose petals is to simply air dry them on a mesh rack, or in a low dehydrator. They can then be stored in a glass jar with a tightly fitting lid and used for blending teas or making infused oils and vinegars. However, my personal favorite way to preserve fresh rose petals is to steep them in honey. Honey preservation has a long and fascinating history, and as honey is recognized as one of the few foods that has an indefinite shelf life, it is the perfect method to both preserve and enhance the medicinal properties of fresh, low-moisture herbs. It is always best to use raw honey, preferably from a local source, when making herbal preparations.
To make rose petal infused honey, fill a jar with the freshly harvested rose petals and cover them with raw honey. Stir gently to remove any air pockets, cover the jar and allow the honey to steep for at least several days before using. The rose petals will break down slightly and the honey will become infused with their flavor. The resulting herbal preparation has a very long shelf life, and can be used in a variety of ways. Rose honey can be stirred into tea or spread on toast to support the immune system and as a daily dose of vitamin C; the combination of roses and raw local honey has also been shown to be a very effective remedy for seasonal allergy symptoms, especially when taken preventatively; and, as both honey and rose petals possess legendary beautifying qualities, rose-infused honey can be used as a moisturizing face mask, either on its own or combined with white or red clay.
These beautiful flowers have delighted gardeners, poets, and herbalists alike for centuries, and the healthful benefits of this herb can be easily infused into daily life. So next time you pass a rambling bramble bush, stop, and smell the roses, and then gather their petals and enjoy the beautiful medicinal properties of this wildflower.
Rose Petal Honey
These beautiful flowers have delighted gardeners, poets, and herbalists alike for centuries, and the healthful benefits of this herb can be easily infused into daily life. So next time you pass a rambling bramble bush, stop, and smell the roses, and then gather their petals and enjoy the beautiful medicinal properties of this wildflower.
Rose Petal Honey
- Fresh rose petals (enough to fill a jar)
- Raw honey
It's a cloudy and chilly day in the midst of a cloudy and chilly spring. The sun has been bashful, the flowers have been reluctant to make the grand entrance we would wish of them, and my little thoughtful spot has remained wrapped in a protective quilt of clouds and downy gray. It's been a peaceful spring, filled with the promise, if not always the actuality, of the season's change. It's this predictable changeableness of the seasons, each time as surprising as the appearance of the first crocus in January and as reassuring as the sunrise, the rhythm of this glorious creation that never ceases to amaze me. What an enchanting, marvelous mingling of the familiar and the new.
Spring is a lovely reminder of how beautiful change can be.
- Anonymous
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
- Albert Camus
Within the clouds and raindrops of this late spring, early summer is showing it's face. It's in the brilliant color of a tiny wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca) that is hiding beneath a clump of violets. It's in the first red clover blooms (Trifolium pratens), which always seem to appear earlier and disappear later than I expect, their lengthy blooming season providing plenty of opportunity to harvest and dry them for a tea to support the lymphatic system.
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
- Lao Tzu
The new season is in the may-apples (podophyllum peltatum), with their tiny yellow fruits forming under the swaying villages of their umbrella leaves. And it's in the massive and delicate fiddlehead fern that almost blocks my view of the waterfall as I sit here, its lacy fragility dances in the slightest wind, yet it is secured so resolutely to the corner of rock on this little ledge.
Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection...
in every leaf of springtime.
- Martin Luther
It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
And then there is the garden, the clearest sign of summer's closeness. It is filled with lettuces and radishes that would make Peter rather hungry and Mr. McGregor proud, and a spring bounty of asparagus in beautiful green and purple spears. Isn't it amazing to see how differently plants grow? There's the asparagus, tall and sentry-like straight out of the ground, then the radishes, hiding beneath the soil, yet colored a pinker pink than any crayon box could offer.
Here comes the sun, little darling...
It's been a pleasant spring, in it's dreary quietude. Sometimes it's the hush, the grayness, and the extended season of waiting that makes that expected, surprising change even more beautiful. And there's a whisper, a promise here in my Thoughtful Spot this afternoon, louder than the rippling bubbles of the waterfall, than the birdsongs and the squabbling of squirrels overhead, than the distant rumble of a lawnmower, Courage, Dearheart, life has seasons too.
Sometimes it seems like spring creeps up on me. The crocus and daffodils bloom and are joyously welcomed while the world around them is still brown and frosty, the grass slowly begins to don a hint of green, a pale and subtle cloud of pink or bright lemon-green buds appears around some of the trees. Then one day I look around and realize, all at once, that the sleeping world has wakened, and winter has burst into spring.
Now crystal clear are the falling waters, /And bonnie blue are the sunny skies.
- Robert Burns, The Smiling Spring
My thoughtful spot is cacophonous with the sound of gleeful songbirds. Today, to my utter delight, it is just barely warm enough to walk barefoot in the creek, and so my walk here was through the shallow, sparking water. A very small copperhead startled me along the way, sunning himself on a large rock that wasn't quite underwater. His presence made me reconsider my intentions to clear away the jumble of branches and leaves that was diverting the creek, as it looked like the perfect haven for any of his cousins that might be living nearby, and I didn't particularly like the idea of disturbing them.
Through the woods, along the creek bank, and surrounding this little moss covered seat, all around me, at my feet and clambering up the the slopes above me and down the rocks to the creek below is a tiny, wondrous world of wildflowers.
Through the woods, along the creek bank, and surrounding this little moss covered seat, all around me, at my feet and clambering up the the slopes above me and down the rocks to the creek below is a tiny, wondrous world of wildflowers.
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A violet by a mossy stone, half hidden from the eye
As fair as a star, when only one is shining in the sky.
- William Wordsworth, The Violet
A study of wildflowers could consume a lifetime I think, and a very pleasant lifetime it would be. No two are alike, their miniature faces droop demurely in the shade or toss joyfully heavenward to bask in the sun. Some are five simple petals, like the flowers we first drew as children, some intricate orchids with bright yellow throats. The chickweed blooms (Stellaria media) in starry white clusters beside the pale pink petals of spring beauty (Claytonia virginica) and the fragile but valiant bluets (Houstonia caerulea). And the violets! There are Common Blue violets, (Viola sororia) most denying their name with deep purple shades or pure white blooms; there are the minuscule bearded dwarf violets, so detailed they almost need to be examined with a magnifying glass to be fully appreciated; and yellow violets, their sunny color warning that, unlike their companions, they are inedible.
| Some days are fair, / And some are raw. The timid earth / Decides to thaw. Shy budlets peep / From twigs on trees, And robins join / The chickadees. Pale crocuses / Poke through the ground Like noses come / To sniff around. - John Updike, March |  |
Though its beginnings might be so subtle they slip by if we're not paying close attention, there always comes a moment when spring undeniably, irrepressibly, gloriously takes over the quiet contemplation of the winter season and replaces it with an explosion of joyful celebration. In this little Thoughtful Spot, that moment has just arrived.
I woke this morning and the world was white. From the pale, luminous opacity of the cloudy sky to the soft, glowing blanket on the earth, it's as though the world has become a de-saturated photograph, a vintage world of black and white.
White is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. God paints in many colors; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.
- G. K. Chesterton
Now it's nearing evening, the white sky has turned a dappled blue, and the slanting light has turned the snow on the pasture above me to the gentlest blush of pink. But my Thoughtful Spot remains, in its shadowed little hollow, a magical world of dark and light. There is so much life in this little corner of the world that I never would have noticed without this snowfall. Among the drooping frozen grasses miniature songbird footprints scamper about in happy disarray, I envy their light-footedness, as they leave the tiniest of impressions in the snow, and I trudge through, digging my boots through a layer of ice beneath the snow to keep from slipping. Wild turkeys have passed by this way too, a straight and plodding trail of three-toed tracks that seem giant beside the dainty prints of cardinals and sparrows and juncos. There are the delicate tracks of a fox, the hand prints of a racoon, and a crowd of coyote tracks are just around the corner.
I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, 'Go to sleep darlings, till the summer comes again.'
- Lewis Carroll
As long shadows grow and the sun begins to set on this downy white world, a splash of color fills the sky. Azalea red, daffodil yellow, and bright peony pink. It's spring in a sunset, bidding farewell to this peaceful, sleepy winter of a day.
