Author: Sharon

Remembering

I am so delighted to be offering my original illustrations on a variety of products. This blue bird of happiness perched upon a sea of delicate mushrooms and small purple flowers expresses thanks for the blessing of beautiful memories. The Chinese characters, 记住, can be translated to the English “remembering”. A sweet card to say thank you or just tell someone that you are thinking of them. Inside the card is plenty of blank space for your own sentiment. Additionally, there is a quote by Khalil Gibran on the inside top of the card: “Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.”

Sunflower Thinking

For a few years, I tried growing sunflowers in my garden at home. To my delight, they would sprout and grow. Apparently, their growth was also the delight of other living beings in my garden because they never got past three-inches. I tried covering them, using chicken wire to protect them, and a variety of other techniques to no avail. When I started gardening a plot at the Duxbury Community Garden five years ago, I was joyful to find that I could direct sow sunflower seeds and the overwhelming majority grew. As part of our goal is to repair and enrich the soil, I planted a great many types of sunflowers. They are amazing soil cleansers and remove metals and other toxins.

My hands down favorite sunflowers are these The Birds and Bees (affiliate link) sunflowers from Renee’s Garden. They are also the favorite of the chickadees that express their joy and gratitude with lovely songs in my garden. If you are going to plant sunflowers in your garden, then these are the ones I recommend most highly for genuinely happy plants that bring joy to all the living things.

The truth is that my favorite season here in Vermont is winter. Snow brings a kind of quiet to the woods that brings me peace and a sense of cozy well-being. The glow of a full moon on deep snow is like a prayer. The winter offers a permission slip to just stop or to slow down and focus on what matters. So, when mud season starts to arrive, like it is this week,I can’t help but feel a little sad. Not only is mud season a difficult time when getting up and off the mountain can become impossible for days or even weeks at a time, but it is followed by black flies. It feels like my peace is melting along with the snow.

It is precisely this moment when I re-frame this season of change and being in between as a time to get serious about garden dreaming and planning. Thinking about chickadees these happiest of sunflowers help me get through this muddy and buggy time.

I am a Renee’s Garden affiliate. This means that I receive a small commission when you purchase items from Renee’s Garden following a link on my blog. It does not cost you anything additional, but it certainly does help me with my gardening fund. I appreciate your support.

Art Yoga Classes

Art Yoga is a form of yoga that is open to absolutely everyone. Allow yourself to play with color, shape, and your beautiful imagination. No experience with art or yoga is required. Register here sometime before class on Thursdays so we know to expect you! All the information you need to prepare for class and get the art supplies you will use in practice are in the online course. The class is from 6:30 to 7:30 on Thursday evenings (this is my time in Vermont).

I hope to see lots of Yoga Matrika yogis!!! It would be so much fun to practice together again. We meet online using the same link every Thursday: https://whereby.com/shuru

It’s Tea Cup Season in Vermont

‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); ‘now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!’ (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). ‘Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can;—but I must be kind to them,’ thought Alice, ‘or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.’
And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. ‘They must go by the carrier,’ she thought; ‘and how funny it’ll seem, sending presents to one’s own feet! And how odd the directions will look!

Alice’s Right Foot, Esq.
Hearthrug,
near The Fender,
(with Alice’s love).

Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!’

Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.

Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again.

‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ said Alice, ‘a great girl like you,’ (she might well say this), ‘to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!’ But she went on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall.

After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, ‘Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won’t she be savage if I’ve kept her waiting!’ Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, ‘If you please, sir—’ The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go.

Cultivating the Unique Talents of Neurodiverse Students― Reading, Writing, Spelling for Everyone

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice ‘without pictures or conversations?’

So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!’ (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled ‘ORANGE MARMALADE’, but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.