For me,
photographing
the spent blooms has also
been an invitation to see the beauty
embodied in decay, especially
during the past 3 years,
when she has been
in decline.

This
first 'dried
flowers' photograph
is part of my original "Compost
Composition" greeting ​card collection.
There is still a limited supply available, which
I hope to get out into the world. Please express your
gratitude for the US Post Office by writing
cards to those you love. Rumor has
it that these images make
people feel good.
Here's a
link.

I believed
& it was true. Wear
a pair of black leather boots &
you, too, will feel powerful & confident.
It's been five years since I first purchased these on
consignment, polished them up and
faked it till I made it. They
worked their
magic. 

After
wearing them
a few times, I started to
actually believe in my power - -
not in a dominating way, but in a deep
visceral kind of way that flowed from my fascia
and radiated outward. These boots
lead me to the edge of
​my ​known
​world....

And
maybe there
is more power in a
backward glance made with
curiosity, wonder & the core of who
I am, than there is in a pair ​of
boots & a projection of
false confidence.

Colors.
Textures. Shapes.
Invitations to pay attention.

Gorgeous Garbage. Mixed
up and mingled.

Curious
about time & the
need to document how I
use it...Fear emerges: Will we
have the time we need?
Thoughts shift. 

Trump's
election sparked
my initial focus on compost.
Since then, the pile has shifted from
metaphor for America (a diverse soup), to an 
invitation to explore my relationship
to just about everything and
everyone...including
​myself.

So I've
been hanging
out with tea-cups
submerged in ponds and
feeling the power of
moss while in
prayer.

I wonder:
Will I take this invitation
to change, to emerge from this time
with renewed interest in what's possible? Or
will I hold on to what I know & to
what feels safe because
​I am afraid?

If, for
example, she
can't actually walk in
other people's shoes, she can
at least experiment with wearing her
own in new & different places.
Or, perhaps, not wear
​any at all.

The dress,
like so many past
beliefs is gone, blowing
in the wind, beautiful but not
useful anymore. 

And I
​recline on a
wood pile, wearing
those cool black boots from
The Pink Alligator & a black shirt
dress from Revolution.
It all feels quite
​liberating...

Now
the demitasse,
filled with coffee, sits on
the coffee grinds from which it came,
connected and real. In times
like this, it helps to
stay real.

And then
I remembered
how powerful I felt
when we ​first installed our
solar panels in 2010. For less than
the cost of most new cars, we could actually
generate power - - 56,000 Kwh to date, in fact. So
I created this self portrait, wearing those
same black boots & holding a mug
of coffee made by a good
friend. This
is ​real.

And
this is real
too. So after the
photo shoot at the panels,
I filled in my ballot & delivered it
to Town Hall, feeling very very powerful.
I hope that on November 3, 2020 you will vote
as if your life & the lives of your children's
children's great grandchildren
depended on it.

Because
here's the deal.
If you can, do. If you
believe in your power, you
can generate power, not just with
solar panels and your vote, but with the
very core of who you are. I'm a mover & maker,
so I learned to embroider so that I could
share Whitman's poem, This
Compost, and the oh
so powerful final
​stanza...

Renewal
is the operative
word.  Like all this stuff
about demitasse & cotillion dresses
& going deeper into who we are & what we
believe. It's so much easier to
explore when feeling
​powerful. 

it took
over a year,
for the dress and
the woman to emerge -
smiling. ​

"I am
terrified at
the earth," but I
drink my demitasse
and smile. Really? Is that all?
What an incongruous
sham!

But am
I allowed to show
fear or anger? Do I even know
what ​these emotions feel like? And if I
can't show them when no one
is looking, will I ever
be able to be
​real?

I've
buried them
for so long, always
hiding behind that ​smile.
Don't get me wrong. I've only
recently understood how beautiful it
is. But just as the demitasse is a
curious distraction, so is
a smile a fabulous
​cover. 

Perspective
changes everything - 
not just what and how I see,
but also how I feel as a result of that
investigation. On this particular Indigenous
People's Day in Maine, following
fractals made me ​feel
​very humble.

Common
Milkweed is really
not so common. The pods,
like a bird's beak, or perhaps an
alligator's head, add texture
​to the early Fall
garden.

Who
knew that all
kinds of bugs, in addition
to the well-known Monarch Butterfly,
appreciate the seeds. Is this one searching for
food, finding material for a nest, or
just playing in the lacy
​fibers?

Just
up the hill,
more pods open,
their silky seeds seductively
swaying, inviting me &
​my camera
to play.

These
Swamp Milkweed,
planted for the first time this
year, reminded me of the Monkshood I
planted for the first time earlier this summer. Their deep
​purple flowers, shaped like the cowl of an
actual monk's hood, captivated
me, as they, too, danced in
​the late afternoon
​light.

You
can imagine
my surprise when
I learned that every part of
the Monkshood plant, also known as
Wolfsbane, is highly toxic - - & I had planted
it by our terrace, right next to where
we sit! Of course I quickly
moved it to a more
​remote spot.

These
plants got me
thinking. I make so many
assumptions about plants & people.
Milkweed is quirky, but valuable for insects
and fiber artists; Mugwort might be considered a weed,
but it's capable of calming nerves; And Monkshood,
named for people who serve & protect 
is poisonous. 

What is
a gal to do? Every
year, it seems, putting the
garden 'to bed' inspires reflection.
This season, for example, I experienced the
impact boundaries have on the flow of energy as well
as the value of plant placement
to ensure safety.

What's
next? I have a 
hunch I'll be digging
into the power of assumptions
not just in the garden but also in the rest
of my life. There are just so many
beautiful plants & people
​to behold.

A worm
or some other
bug took a few bites 
out of these apples. Question
for the day: Do I hide or celebrate
these 'ugly fruit'? I'm increasingly done
with perfection of any kind, so here's what
emerged. I say, "welcome sweet
creatures. There's plenty
to go around."

It made
me think: Who
really said that a bite of an
apple leads to banishment? What
an absurd story. Apples provide essential
nourishment for the body, mind,
heart & soul.

And our
particular tree,
a gift from my in-laws
in 2014, bends but does not
break with time. What does it take
to be so flexible? What does
it understand & what
can it teach me?

While
I 'compost' the
issues -- race, political
discord, economic disparity and,
yes, that nagging issue, Climate Change,
it feeds on living mulches, provides
perches for birds & in spring
is a beautiful focal
point in the
garden.

It seems
ironic that this
year, with drought and
psychic tension in the universe,
it is more abundant than ever before.
This portrait reveals a collection of apples
from a much older tree that predates us by a few 
decades (on the left), and a few of our
yummy Honeycrisp in a bowl
made by my husband
thirty years ago
(right).

I love
how the soft
light plays on these
discarded cores and peels,
their transformation from apple to
delicious desserts & beautiful compost
a lesson in mindfulness.

While
turning the
apples into desserts, I
remembered when our apple
tree first produced five years ago. My
sister and I harvested the entire crop of eight
precious fruit to bring on a cross country road trip from 
New Hampshire to Idaho. We rationed those
home grown Honeyscrip, allowing
ourselves one a day -- each
bite, a precious
gift.

We
experienced
joy and a powerful
sense of abundance even
though there was scarcity -- Only
one apple a day. As we drove across North
Dakota & into Montana, we ate the
final apples, savoring their
​crispy juiciness.

This
year, there's
drought. The leaves
are sickly. My gratitude is intense,
but subdued. Will this more fragile tree
break from the weight of it all?
Did I care enough?

My
relationship
with this tree is ancient,
and I know it's too late for regrets.
Between wheelbarrows full of mulch I stop
and eat an apple. "Don't worry," it
seems to say. "I am strong
and so are you."

Over
time, the ideas in Toby
Hemenway's book Gaia's Garden, 
transformed my thinking, inviting experimentation
with fewer paths, more curves & the
integration of pollinator-
friendly plants.

My family
thinks it's crazy to
redesign the garden every
few years as each one seems pretty
cool, like this rounded mounded central axis
filled with a mix of annual vegetables and perennials.
But for me, these changes reveal how this garden was becoming
more than just a space to grow vegetables. It was
a safe place for me to connect with and
explore the power of the
earth herself, this
thing called
Gaia.

But
that's just
what I did, creating
a circular space aligned with
the quadrants of a compass and based 
on historic herb garden designs.
I didn't know what this
new space would
be like...