Spring Equinox

Now the rain is falling, freshly, in the intervals between sunlight,

A Pacific squall started no one knows where, drawn east as the drifts of warm air make a channel;

it moves its own way, like water or the mind,

and spills this rain passing over.  The Sierras will catch it as last snow flurries before summer, observed only by the wakened marmots at ten thousand feet,

and we will come across it again as larkspur and penstemon sprouting along a creek above Sonora Pass next August,

Robert Hass

Spring is already established, the date only makes it official.  The time has changed--lighter in the evening.  Substantial rain at last.  A relief, if only partial.  The garden is flourishing--lots of new vegetable seedlings going in: lettuce, artichoke, parsley, tomatoes.  Summer starts to appear in the mind's eye.  Plans for household projects start to push up to the surface.

Lots of work in the studio. Paintings and design ideas.  A bit difficult to slow down to the tempo of the blog, but this is it's purpose. A chance to pause a moment, look around, to see where I am.

October Full Moon

Spider season. Hard to walk anywhere in the yard without getting caught in a web.  Also raccoon season.  Matt chasing them off the deck in the middle of the night and battening down their hoped-for nesting places.  Unusual amount of rain this early in the season but some warm sunny days in between.  Still plenty of tomatoes and apples.  We ate the first winter squash.  Bidens goldilocks and lantana are the main show in the front garden.  Gazania doing a new round.  My favorite sunny sitting place in back is now in shade.

Settled on a painting program.  Making progress in tai chi--started a second class.  Beginning to feel some of the connections between painting and tai chi.

Feeling the fluctuations of dark and light in the weather, in my physiology, working with black and white in the paintings.

Swinging on delicate hinges

 the Autumn leaf

Almost off the stem.

Jack Kerouac

Autumn Equinox

Autumn slanting light and summer weather.  This is our Bay Area climate.  The vegetable garden is winding down.  Time to freeze tomatoes, pesto, applesauce.  Shell the dried beans.  Soon the sad day will come when I have to buy lettuce.  The peppers have been great this year.

Flowers winding down too, things starting to look overgrown.  Trying to keep the new plants going until the rain starts.

A feeling of unsettledness. Uneasy about the national and international news.  Family complications.

Getting back into the painting groove.  Aiming for "lightness".

Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn.

Elizabeth Lawrence