Satisfaction Saturday ~ March 27

Perhaps one of the more pleasant surprises I've experienced in a while is the new movie,  HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON. I almost always love my time in a movie theatre and when a movie delivers, it has me. This movie was so satisfying. The animation is detailed and interesting and beautiful. (I want a dragon.) And the story was full.
Animated features can be great and they can be just a cartoon. This, for me, was up there with THE IRON GIANT, my hands-down favorite animated film. Watching this adolescent Viking work his way into come into his own was an enjoyable venture. I leaned into his heart and differences as I watched him struggle to own the ground between him and his father, the Viking leader.

There's much packed into the story. Lots of fun and way more dragons than I'd ever have imagined could be imagined.

I'd see it again. But in the mean time, I'm going to find out if Vikings really had Scottish accents.

Russelina ~ Day 6

I'm not really sure I ever noted, with such watchful eye, the change in a rose. Old Russelina is wearing her petals a bit lower as she eases some of them down to the ground.
It looks to me, rather poetically, that her friends form her crown. 

A gentle turning ~ Russelina ~ Day 5

This morning I note the gentle turning.
A hint of browning.
All the more lovely.

Several years ago, when my darling cousin, Wendy, was wildly in love with a German artist and Fulbright Scholar, we all had dinner in my little apartment near the beach. While I was busy preparing, Wolfgang was chatting me up on many important visual ideas. We immediately agreed on this: the spending of a flower is worth as much as the budding. He was commenting on some tulips that were turning and dropping on my kitchen counter. I thought they were wondrous and worthy. And so did Wolf.
This affection doesn't always work for me, when I'm the attentive gardener. When I'm the attentive gardener. Flowers spent need to go. As I understand it, they extract energy from the plant needed to form new buds-to-flowers-to-groundward-petals. I become conflicted. I want the new and I love the early turn.
So here we are and here we will be. Observing the turning of Russelina at the expense of that which will follow.

The last of the hardy, fragrant, Freesia.







Tomorrow? Shall we turn to the glorious creation called the Redbud Tree?

How long is it beautiful?

Like ideas, and fashion, and art, the rose will be beautiful. Eye catching. Captivating.

I track it each day, intrigued at the grow, bloom stage. It opens (like a flower) and reveals more ruffley beauty in pink each day.

I'm interested to watch, to see when and if, it falls out of fashion.

Let's see.

Quotable Sunday ~ My Grandfather's Blessing

"Recovering a greater compassion may require us to confront the core values of our culture. We are a culture that values mastery and control, that cultivates self-sufficiency, competence, independence. But in the shadow of these values lies a profound rejection of our human wholeness. As individuals and as a culture we have developed a sort of contempt for anything in ourselves and in others that has needs, and is capable of suffering. It is not a gentle world."   

-Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., My Grandfather's Blessings. 

A wonderful gift from my friend Heather in 2001. A huge gift today.

And Russel's Cottage on the 3rd day.