The Winds of Change

My garden is a reflection of my visions as a life painter. It shows my voice and the joys, pains and hurts that colors my life in the rolling mounds of green that are a precursor to the flowers that are to come this summer.

I love the varying shades of emerald and forest that shine through the leaves of the various kinds of flowers that populate my little triangle in our sea of grass and all that is wild in an unfertilized space of green. I also have some of the problems that go with the natural world - like an over abundance of ant hills. But it's not hard to live in this kind of place. It does not yell or change its mind as the wind changes.

Foxglove

I'm waiting for these beauties to climb the stalks with those velvety leaves and pop out with those glorious pink bells! So many of my perennials did not survive this past winter and I feel these holes in my garden, severely. I've filled in many of the holes with annuals, and they're ones I've not used ever before. Sweet Peas, African Daisies and Calendulas. Mostly through seeding an area since the cost of the plants are too much so the seeds will have to do. I'm impressed with the lovely green leaves that are surfacing from those seeds now. The sunflowers look rather a lovely, sturdy green already too.

I actually counted the perennials that I lost and it is over 15 different plants! But the annuals are filling the voids rather well and that is thrilling for me.

So despite the tough times, my garden truly holds a special hope for a beautiful plot of petals and leaves by mid-summer.

Reading the Written Word

I'm a writer, and a reader so when I look for material to digest I tend to do more than an ordinary person in the volumes I consume. Like food, a good book can leave a taste in your mouth that says, "I want more!" or a stomach turning disgust. Since I'm picky I tend to carefully choose what I want to sink into a comfy chair with these days.

Being a history buff I often look for authors that can take me back accurately and offer a good read too (That's a gift that many authors don't succeed at in my opinion.). Some of my favorite authors are not the ones that are often found on the New York Times Best Seller list though. But some are old favorites to many readers that I know.

Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey books fascinate me as do Margery Allingham's Albert Campion series. At present the world of the mystery novel has my total reading attention and I am enjoying that delicious tingle as the book takes me between the covers and into the lives of the characters.

What makes a really good mystery novel for anyone? For me the formulaic crime novel totally fails in the long run. I really enjoy a good series where in each book we are taken in a new direction and where we can watch the main characters grow. In fact that is the best part of most stories in my opinion. In books, as in life sometimes people aren't allowed to, or cannot grow and we lose the intrigue for those life stories then. I have to have a well created yarn within the confines of a fascinating setting as well.

So right now if I had to choose a favorite mystery character it would have to be....hmmm, Hercule Poirot, no maybe Inspector Morse! So...who is your favorite mystery character?

New Arms

The limbs push through
They enter sleeves
Then gently wrap arms 'round
The trunk
Embracing,
Stretching forth
To greet the sun.

Is God Really A Mathematician?

A book that surfaced in January of this year has many of we math phobs (My word - those of us with terrible dread of math of any kind!)more than a bit concerned. Though much of the world has been defined and explained mathematically, the idea can send some people into that nasty nightmare about entering heaven only to be faced down by St. Peter at the Pearly Gates with the story problem of all story problems as a test to finally gain entrance into that heavenly abode - "A train left Denver at 2:00 p.m...."

There have even been cartoons about these fears of even the most basic of numbers problems, equations or formulas that touch way to close to home for those of us who struggle with that language called mathematics! For you see we know it is a kind of prose where the "letters" change with each new level of the discipline that unfolds, and as we learn each new structure of that way of communicating we sink deeper into a frozen state of fear.

From addition to subtraction, and multiplication to division we see the sum or product of the numbers change and that fear mounts as we see the hold we have on one area not seem to translate to the next. It sometimes seems to be a quite a difficulty as to how we can take those simple basics of one problem or solution and translate them from point A in one level to point B or C in other levels of the family tree that is the math we know from school today.

So to see any concept of God that might depicts him/her as a hierarchical being, and one with whom we have to deal with on a mathematical plane can be extremely daunting. I think I will have to step away and go join those who muddle over letters, words and phrases instead, somewhere far away from the very idea of a math centered doctrine!