Delicious vegan mozzarella with vegan seed crackers with edible and bright orange shades of nasturtiums from our garden.
Y4 – Day 127 – Vegan Snacks
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Category Archives: Nature
Y4 – Day 125 – Faith
I have faith there is some sort of Higher Order, perhaps a Multi Universal Entity, one or many mathematical equations or some such that resolves, creates and completes everything.
The natural earth cycle seems to be circle like, spiraling.
We are arrogant to think the sun, moon and stars are just for us. There is so much more out there and around everywhere we can’t even see, but I am telling you, it exists. We only see 2% of electromagnetic waves and that is limited to color.
Like Dr. Seuss’s, Horton Hears a Who, there is a whole world in a speck of dust. I know a whole world exists under our feet, in the dirt that most of us never think about. It took horticultural classes for me to realize the magnitude of living organisms that call soil their home.
We have observed and dissected plant parts, theorized their evolution and studied their reproduction but where did it all start from?
Now scientists are discovering and measuring vibrations and waves of sound from plants – what every tree hugger, indigenous tribe, poet, metaphysical creative and ancient seer understood intuitively is that nature has its own sound, its own movement and now they are proving it true for the people who made fun of these sensitive, sentient beings.
I begin to believe in my own way, the truth really was always in me.
Click your heels three times, Cecilia.
Y4 – Day 123 – Addict Thought
Why can’t I be addicted to exercise, housekeeping/management and eating only whole foods in moderate quantities?
Instead I am addicted to sugar, carbs, reading, lounging, Bravo and HGTV.
Well, at least I am a moderate when I cook, garden and write.
Rare coloring in sweet peas, from SLO Botanical Gardens heirloom seed collection. Fragrance abounds in our front yard!
Y4 – Day 121 – Silence
” I search for the sacred in the ordinary with gratitude in my heart.”
– Sarah ban Breathnach
I know that gratitude and silence are gateways to reverence and grace for me, in my life, on a daily basis. – cecilia
I seek silence today.
May 1, 2016, Newport Beach at sunrise.
Y4 – Day 120 – HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY 2016
Thank you to all the moms who have ever steered me right and to my fabulous children for their affection. And, thank you to the love of my life for without you, I would not have been a mom to the best chickadees in the world!
nor received such exquisite orchids
Y4 – Day 119 – Bring Nature In
It is true that every space needs good bones, or at least halfway decent but even the most strategic and staged or stark and contemporary or pale and frilly decor needs a touch of nature.
Making or breaking a look generally comes down to the details. Layering the room with lighting, texture and color gives the room cohesion but also tension. You want a soulful kitchen or perhaps a spa bathroom but it is the composition and play of materials that give it that feeling or not.
Collaborate with nature and you have a winning scene every time.
Every style is graced by bringing in something alive, natural or depicting nature.
Take my pinecones off my distressed, vanilla cream colored tray and you lose the subtle connection. Omit a painting of a still life with a wooden bowl of fruit and your room suddenly seems dull. Move any of my amethysts or crystals and literally the energy of the room will be askew, unless it is time to move the energy around.
Have you ever had the experience of killing off a plant, tossing it and then walking back into the room and feeling something is missing?
You can enhance every space in your home with simple touches of nature and it does not matter if it is real or replicated.
Here are some ideas I came up with:
A real plant in a pretty pot. A small desk fountain with smooth blue stones or one made of slate. A botanical print. A piece of driftwood. A wreath of succulents (but not dried flowers according to all feng shui schools of thought – supposedly they suck the life right out of you and your home). A living bouquet or a single flower in a vase. A primitive wicker or richly woven, grass basket filled with fresh fruit, veggies, unshelled nuts or pinecones. A tray of seashells, crystals or herb pots. A mineral, crystal or rock specimen atop a small mirror. A vase of branches, with leaves or bare. Sprigs of rosemary or lavender hung upside down ( rubber band the ends and it will catch on a nail on the wall ) wrapped with raffia or ribbon. Blue green Aruacana chicken eggs in a wire basket (see older post last month with picture). And of course, pets and animal prints, but not too many!
When you feel your home needs warmth or realism, give a nod to mother earth and bring in the outdoors.
Y4 – Day 109 – Gardens
Everybody has their own type and speciality of garden they are especially drawn to.
Vegetable gardening can be as different from a flower garden as night and day. And, so are the practitioners.
An English formal garden is pruned and stately, yet, an English cottage garden spreads, cascades, reseeds and is never trimmed, just deadheaded of spent flowers and divided up of crowded bulbs.
There are succulent landscapes we add to a xeriscape.
There are shade gardens that rely on moisture and dampness.
There are decorative flowers for show and bouquets and then there are edible flower plots, grown solely for their taste, having the strictest of requirements for organic culture.
Which reminds us, there are organic, small farms and the complete opposite – the harmful reality of commercial, government subsidized, fungicide and pesticide laden ones.
Some of your neighbors may be using Round-Up this weekend instead of pulling out weeds by hand. You can kill weeds between cracks in cement with hot boiling water and a dash of vinegar, there is no need to use chemicals dumped on our society purely for profit without a wit of thought to anyone’s health or the future of our planet.
There are gardens set up, grown, established and maintained to attract and invite butterflies or birds. There are deer and rabbit resistant gardens to ward off pests and keep nature away.
If you are an avid gardener, you may have many types of areas for every interest.
In my own backyard, I have rose, succulent, flower and vegetable/herb gardens.
Every cook or foodie with a decent palate craves a kitchen garden at their fingertips. You can distinguish freshly picked, a moment ago, homegrown from trucked in grocery store produce if you take a simple taste test.
Otherwise, why would you pluck tomato caterpillars and slugs off your nightshade plants, hand water your thirsty herbs during a hot spell and hand pollinate your squash and cucumbers to ensure fruit?
Which, by the way, we get a hoot calling that in particular chore, hand delivering pollen from stamens to receptive stigmas, “sex in the garden”.
Y4 – Day 106 – Spring Arrowhead Flowers 2016
Woodlands are blooming in full regalia this year.
Y4 – Day 101 – Peace 101
I choose peace.
Wonderful sunsets and then twinkly lights.
A level playing field.
Loving to paint, write, act, draw, play an instrument, take photographs, design and whatever else expresses itself creatively in you and you losing all track of time because you are in the flow.
Envisioning and meditating for any length of time, the more the better.
Respecting, Trusting and Being in Love with Someone who returns it.
Springtime.
apple blossoms, I believe, in Arrowhead, yesterday on a walk with Cindi
Y4 – Day 99 – Garden Update 2016
I am still in the mountains. The longest I have ever stayed up here. Consequently, I walked with my next door neighbor, chatted with the couple down the block who gave us St. John’s Wort plants as we strode by and was shown what a Manzanita tree looks like.
And that was all before 11 am.
Lots of living to be done here – Meanwhile down at our other neck in the woods, hubby sent me tomato progress!
