It hasn't hit me yet...

After a whole season wishing for winter to melt away, why is it that one can actually start to miss it?  How contrary is that?  Spring is wonderful, but winter seems to allow more time for dreaming.  It's seems that it's time for action now, and maybe that's why, paradoxically, winter is missed. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crfpN3n8lR0&feature=relmf   Blue Rodeo video


" You say that you're leaving; well that comes as no surprise,
Well, I kind of like this feeling of being left behind."    
 by Blue Rodeo

I don't know if Bogart's Rick really did like being left behind; what do you suppose might have happened to his character after she was gone? Did he remain a cynic?  No one's written a sequel to that!

We miss what is no longer there.... or at the least, it does take a while to transition.



(Bacall looks cynical here, but then, she was married to Bogart!)

I will give you everything

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxEFF2gsUKM



"I will give you everything that you ever wanted.
With this promise I will give everything..."

Great Canadian  band ...

The picture below seems somehow to also imply a promise...

 

Great atmosphere in this picture.  The dark ominous clouds - although really probably just going to be a  heavy rain, and fresh, clear skies in the morning.  But for now...waiting... for what?  A dark moment.

Snow Reflections in the Spring

So it used to be marg- spider in the window.blogger.com? Now it's Spider in the Window.  I don't know if that will cause any problems for anyone who was following me.  I certainly hope not!




Alone again                                                    by Thomas Trofimuk

   
You take a deep breath.
You take a deep, deep breath
Inhale against this moment
You take your first breath in hours and immediately want to cry
You are tired and feel older than you are, and tonight it is snowing
and the snow covers the past and forgives the future

This snow offers an immediate salvation for everything you have done
You look out the snow at the window that is falling all around
You look out the snow at the window that is there
You look out the snow at the glass of wine in front of you
You begin to look out the snow at your life
You imagine the feel of falling snow on your naked body—
a million icy stabs on skin
each cold touch unique
because each cold flake is unique
And at first you can distinguish—shoulder, arm, elbow, nose,
cheek, belly, other shoulder, face, leg, thigh, foot, ear,
but then the points begin to meld
and in the end,
you are only cold

You order more wine
You ask for more wine
And the waiter brings more wine
And half fills a new glass with more wine
You look out the snow at the window that is there and you take a big breath.
You breathe deeply—inhale against the lurking sadness
But this resonates in the flow of life

Sitting by the window, the unspoken drifting past a café window
as you are warm with your glass of red and in the corner a crackling fire
and a waiter who knows exactly when to draw near with his lifted eyebrows
and arms akimbo

You wonder how many times you will have this scene
You wonder if the café is moving, or is it the snow?

You take a deep breath
You take a deep, deep breath
Inhale into this moment
You take another breath and immediately want to cry
You must breathe this snow without self-pity, or remorse
You will never find the beauty of snow if you are filled with self-pity
You look out the snow at the window that is there
You look out the snow at the world that is there.

You are simply alone in a snowstorm
And this is a far better aloneness
than the one you had with her.

Early spring in the Rockies. More concerns about spring blizzards than about rain  for us.

A Mountain Spring

Peace hath an altar there. The sounding feet
Of thunder and the wildering wings of rain
Against fire-rifted summits flash and beat,
And through grey upper gorges swoop and strain;  

  by Henry Kendall

Spring slowly approaches...

It's almost spring!  Winter has done its best this last week to linger, and may try again, but the spring sunshine is out again today.  I think May Day should really become an official holiday.  We could all wear white, and bask in the beautiful warmth of the sun (or dance in the rain).  It would have to be a day spent outside, with a beautiful table set up on the deck, or a picnic somewhere. Mother's Day had probably replaced May Day, but it would be wonderful to celebrate both.

How charming this illustration by Kate Greenaway is.

 Of course, we wouldn't have flowers blooming outside yet, but we could improvise.

Maybe forced blooms, or even pussy willows.

 Maybe people still celebrate May  Day in some places.  I can remember making May Day baskets in elementary school, but I don't think that happens anymore. Ours were made of colored strips or crepe paper.  You were supposed to surprise people with them, hanging them on doorknobs or leaving them on the steps.  Maybe I will make a May Day basket or two just for myself this year.

White is comprised of all the colours...

"The first of all single colors is white ... We shall set down white for the representative of light, without which no color can be seen; yellow for the earth; green for water; blue for air; red for fire; and black for total darkness." --Leonardo Da Vinci

In the dining room,  a little bit of extra brightness on a winter afternoon...

White orchids are like a Sunday schoolteacher's hat...

 

Or perhaps, like desire crystallized into the form of a flower...

 

Warm black teddy bear, basking in the sun....

 

Becoming translucent in the sun...

 

white and green

 

Frog in his formal attire...

 

I really like this picture ... it's not symmetrical in any direction.

 

The tulip's delicate centre...

The  tulips just radiate their white essence in this photograph.

Maybe Sylvia Plath should have been given a bouquet of white tulips instead of the red.  One can just gaze at them and feel at peace with the world.

Inspired by Janet Fish...

I have been inspired by Janet Fish's paintings lately, as you noticed in earlier post.  I would like to try creating photographs in the same manner.   These photos of my glassware show what I think I will start with.   These have a moody atmosphere, because they were placed on a lower shelf and so have a shadowed lighting effect, which I do like, as it reminds me of 1700's still lifes.  I will continue to experiment, and to think of what to add to the glassware to create some beautiful displays of glass and light.  

Now I need to find  different fabrics for the surfaces, flowers, maybe shells, other whimsical objects, and then decide how to set up the vignette.  And not to forget, Fish either sets her arrangements up outside, or poses them in front of windows. 

The Tulips were the Light's Receptacles...

SOMETIMES I AM CONVINCED NO FLOWER CAN RIVAL THE TULIP.

 

Tulips

An age being mathematical, these flowers
Of linear stalks and spheroid blooms were prized
By men with wakened, speculative minds,
And when with mathematics they explored
The Macrocosm, and came at last to
The Vital Spirit of the World, and named it
Invisible Pure Fire, or, say, the Light,
The Tulips were the Light's receptacles.
The gold, the bronze, the red, the bright-swart Tulips!
No emblems they for us who no more dream
Of mathematics burgeoning to light
With Newton's prism and Spinoza's lens,
Or berkeley's ultimate, Invisible Pure Fire.
In colored state and carven brilliancy
We see them now, or, more illumined,
In sudden fieriness, as flowers fit
To go with vestments red on Pentecost.
Padraic Colum

Tulips

By A.E. Stallings

The tulips make me want to paint,

Something about the way they drop

Their petals on the tabletop

And do not wilt so much as faint,

Something about their burnt-out hearts,

Something about their pallid stems

Wearing decay like diadems,

Parading finishes like starts,

Something about the way they twist

As if to catch the last applause,

And drink the moment through long straws,

And how, tomorrow, they’ll be missed.

The way they’re somehow getting clearer,

The tulips make me want to see—

The tulips make the other me

(The backwards one who’s in the mirror,

The one who can’t tell left from right),

Glance now over the wrong shoulder

To watch them get a little older

And give themselves up to the light.

Greetings, Spring

I like to decorate my house for Easter, but in a more low-key fashion than Christmas. This year I really wasn't planning on decorating at all,  but I found this very nice little glass "bird cage", and decide to make a little spring vignette.

A little world dedicated to Spring!

I had to add the little rabbit, because, I believe that a little bird was turned into a rabbit by Eostara, a spring goddess. and hence, the connection between the Easter eggs and the Easter bunny. 


My favourite rabbits decorate the kitchen this spring.

"If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall."                                                                                                                           Nadine Stair