Magical, Mystical RAIN!
Investing in beauty is an investment in my soul.
Muse knows that I’m excited this early morning, the second day of summer (Happy Solstice!). I’m immersed in the motion of summer, engaged in a project that has long been a dream. An unexpected trip to a regional nursery is on today’s agenda. Beauty is on the horizon.
A pre-Solstice heat wave was followed by much needed and blessed rain along with cooler temperatures. Rain over several days moistened the parched earth and left behind shining rocks that look as if they’ve had a good scrubbing. Birdsong seems even more cheerful, and I sense the unseen Beings in the woods out back are dancing with me in celebration.
Nature has awakened to her season of growth. Cones are forming on the pines. Cacti are blooming. Mother Earth delights in the softness of the moisture and watching her progeny grow.
Just as I imagine the fay dancing, my mind’s ears hear a dialog among the pinons. “I’m starting my cones today,” says one. “I’m gathering my energy to begin. Maybe tomorrow or …” replies another. In the world that I know as reality, their underground communication network is in full swing, collaborating to make the best of conditions above and below ground.
I too am in motion. The expanding collection of geraniums has been moved from their winter home indoors to the outdoors, bringing life and eventually color to the deck overlooking the woods. Moving and caring for them at the season’s change has become a ritual of creating beauty.
This season a project that’s been a dream for some time is coming to fruition. One side of my home is quite barren. Seemingly it was more impacted when the home was constructed and never received any TLC. Then last year installation of the solar system disrupted it further.
After construction was complete, I asked the area what it wanted, hoping that its desires would align with my long-held ideas. The area seemed to understand that it couldn’t be returned to its natural state and simply asked for beauty. ‘I just want to be a part of the beauty of this place, the home, Nature, and the woods out back,’ is what I sensed the area to say.
Since that ‘conversation’ I’ve envisioned creating beauty that would flow visually into the woods. This week finds me putting that vision into reality. Co-creating with Nature and a creative partner who knows what plants thrive here in the mountains. He has a keen eye for creating beauty and a strong body to dig in our rocky soil. He loves doing so and engages the process with keen awareness and meditatively. A joy to create with and to watch!
We’re using, with permission, the gifts of rock and driftwood, the trees and natural terrain of this landscape adding drought tolerant, deer resistant plants many of which will attract butterflies, bees, and the hummingbirds that nest here in the summer. I’m beyond grateful for his creativity, knowledge, strength, and the level of consciousness he brings each step along the way.
As I walk among the almost overwhelming choices of plants at the nursery, I come to realize that I’m creating a landscape that I’ve dreamed of long before coming to the Rocky Mountains. I’m filled with gratitude that I can invest in creating beauty and that, even before the project is complete, offers deep nourishment to my soul. Ever-present, Muse reminds me: Investing in beauty IS an investment in the soul.
A Bounty of Beauty