the life I picked

a bushel of gumption, an ounce of grace

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of grace, heat, hummingbirds & dragonflies

September 9, 2015 by the life I picked

Early September has been marked by some pretty high temperatures and ongoing dryness. Tonight, finally showers, and when I let the dogs out after dinner the scent and feel of dampness was incredibly welcome.

Thankfully it is about to cool down the next few days. Has been a solidly good summer: tomatoes very happy after an early blight scare; most crops have done well.

There have been more hummingbirds about than usual, something I know only from my all-too-brief forays to tend the garden, where I am nearly accosted by their sweet hummingness. What is that muted buzzing behind me, am I about to get stung, ah, it’s you, gone!

I never have time to grab a camera. These brief encounters are sweet as nectar. One can’t cease to be amazed by their tiny bodies, suspended in midair by the propellants of their exceedingly fast wings, with their long beaks made to drink flower juice. Pure grace, pure love.

Then the dragonflies. There has been like an inundation, not sure what this is about either, but they too are so, naturally, amazing– their gorgeous iridescence, their gossamer wings with which they can fly in all directions, their slightly unnerving gigantic eyes.

Grace of end of summer. The bittersweet of the light shift, if not yet temperature shift. Knowing what is coming heightens the brilliance and desirability of the moment. What would have merited AC in July, now, well maybe we’ll just sweat it out. For tomorrow there may be frost…and the Farmer’s Almanac is saying…

Ah, never mind, for the lesson of the hummingbird and the dragonfly both is grace in the face of change, adaption, transformation, and living in the present– be it sweet, bitter, or indecipherable.

And in that tug between the known and the unknown, the safe and the feared, between status quo and change, intuition and logic is a space where something else takes over, comme le dit Pascal:

Le cœur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point.

And that, is all she wrote.

 

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