Sing, Muse

Microseason No. 31, July 7-11

I accept the quiet times when they come. I welcome the pause. But lately, I’ve had almost too many ideas. A flood. It’s been a time to tread water.

This is how big projects go— they ebb and they flow. I must pace myself.

After some rest, silence, and many inches of rain here in North Carolina, the ideas are flowing smoothly again at Microseasons just like the creek up the road.

Even the rainy days have been full of goodness. I’ve loved the chance to stay home and work in my repurposed sketchbook. Right now, I’m collaging with pressed botanicals. Here’s a recent example made with Atamasco Lily, Cranefly Orchid leaf, Ghost flower, and a fiddlehead fern.

I’ve been trying to make time for the writing anywhere I can: sunrise coffees with paper and pen, or typing fast on my phone in the gas station parking lot on my way home from work. Sometimes I’m writing late at night, half-asleep at my desk when I should be in bed. Chasing the tail of a thought can be an irresistible force of nature!

I’m deep in it now, nearing the midway point on this year-long journey around the calendar. And I’m watching the map of the microseasons growing brighter day by day, revealing a glimpse into another way of being in the world.

Gradually, I’m being moved into an awareness of the pulse and beauty around me. I’m finding that there is an underlying stillness that is both peaceful and full of energy. Dropping into that feels like listening to really good music.

I have begun to think of each microseason as a new voice in singing the song of the natural year.

Each season adds a richness to the whole.

So thank you, Microseason No. 31. You are helping put together the words and music of the life around me right now.

This is my song today: I head out into the lush and humid forest early in the morning, which is the only acceptable time to hike to avoid the intense heat of the day. Since it feels like I’m walking around inside a life-size terrarium, I decide to make one by using an old glass fishbowl plus a few things from our yard.

It’s such an easy living art project: Make a few shallow layers of gravel, sand, charcoal, soil, and moss— and just tuck in whatever you find growing wild. I used a Striped Wintergreen. I’ve added this tiny world to my windowsill conservatory.

Children also love to make these little gardens :)

Much of this work is simply listening to what the microseason is, so obviously, telling me rather than imposing my ideas onto this time.

Collage and detail of DaVinci’s St. Anne, red chalk on brownish paper, c. 1501, with pressed Trout Lily in bud stage.

I’d like to welcome all the new subscribers who have found this space in the past few weeks. As always, I hope you’ll feel free to ask a question or offer your thoughts at any time. I hope this nourishes your own creative enjoyment of the place where you live.

Dear Ones, remember:

You’re a song,

a wished-for song.

Go through the ear to the center

where sky is, where wind,

where silent knowing.

“A Wished-for Song” in The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks

Here are some voices singing North Carolina’s song of Microseason No. 31, which is filled with birdcalls, insects whirring, sparkling sunlight, leaf shadows, and Water Striders making circles on the creek.