sundrops for june 23rd

Every morning of my birthday, I have walked out into our gardens where I’ve observed that this quaint petit little yellow flower comes into full bloom. As such, I consider it my birthday flower because it is the most profusely blooming flower in our garden on this day.

The flower is called Oenothera fruticosa Youngii L.: narrow leaf Evening Primrose, or Sundrops. It is very common throughout most of Eastern North America and is very easy to grow. I realize that Hallmark and most other seller of birthday commodities consider the Rose the June flower and I have no objection to that as the Rose has its own charm. For me though my birthday flower remains the Oenothera fruticosa: Sundrop or Evening Primrose.

It’s easy for the Rose to gain more attention than the Sundrop with its large petals and marvelous scent and I do consider it royalty in the garden. Nevertheless, the meek and less pretentious Sundrop has its own splendid way of saying happy birthday to me with a smaller voice and after 50 birthdays, I do not think I want it said much louder than that.

This plant provides a great paradox for me, Sundrops by day but Evening Primrose by night. Bright and cheery through the day but also making it’s comment through the night.
That is what I appreciate about the meekness of this plant is that it gathers its name Evening Primrose because its scent is barely noticeable during the day but at night, it becomes subtly sweet and strong. That’s how I’d like to live my life: be bright and cheery and know just when to turn on the charms, remaining humble throughout.

GP

Robin (Turdus Migratorius or Red-Breasted Thrush)

I am a privileged human, blessed you could say. I get to make a living from two of the things I love most about life, art and gardening.

Today was a Nun day Monday where I worked at the Convent / Monastery. It was a beautiful last days of spring ‘day’, an early summer day, a workday.
We pruned the bottoms out of a grove of Aspen, de-seeded the Lilac with a light prune and cleaned up some dead limbs from a lovely White Birch Tree that’s going through some hard times these last two years. It is in a stand of about seven Birches trees, which I’m very fond of, the white peeling paper like bark.

One other thing I did today in my stewardship of the land was to clean up the broken body of a dead Robin. Its body lay in the middle of a grass field. From the damage done to the birds broken back, I can only think it was hit from above by a large Hawk. A large Red - Tailed Hawk lives in the woods nearby; one also lives near my house as well. I found it melancholy to have to dispose of its lifeless and already fetid decaying body. Such are my chores.

I not only found it sad because of death but I’ve been building a relationship with a family of Robins that have nested in our Norwegian Maple next to the deck. We watch the female and male coming and going laboriously with food for their three young chicks, which are rapidly becoming fledglings. I found this to be such a privilege, as I was writing my earlier post of March 29 “It is official, spring is truly here!” I couldn’t get a good photo of the Robin. Then as though a larger blessing awaited my earlier disappointment (May 31 “our garden becomes violet”, a mated pair of Robins built a nest in eyes view of my daily life. We sit on the deck and these birds provide us with bemusement as we try and not imprint too much of ourselves on them – I have been tempted to be Pavlov but resisted it – you know three trained Thrushes at my command like a Falconer – I don’t need that many worms.

As it is, I did climb up and take these pictures for you without coming to close or so I thought. When I first got up to the tree, the young birds reacted as though they heard an approaching parent and threw themselves up to receive yet another tasty morsel, their parents have been working so tirelessly.

After a moment or two, they realized that I might present a risk to them and pulled themselves deeply back into the nest, hiding in their own down comforters, cute really. I left them be and soon watched the father return with more food and everything was natural again. I only hope no Blue Jay hunting party discovers them, although they are getting large as chicks, Jays can be such raiders as beautiful as they are.

I’ll keep you posted on these birds. In the meantime, I’m getting weeks behind on all the flowers from our gardens. I think of it this way I’ll have something to write about in the winter.

GP

asymmetry - symmetry

I have never been one for perfection as in “the ideal”. I think it comes from the fact that I limp when I walk and thus I’ve been forced to see the world in an asymmetrical way. Don’t misunderstand my intent here I search for perfection but am continually reminded that because of the human condition it is fleeting, ephemeral or temporal.
As an artist for example, I see the conditions for perfect composition but I realize that in the Golden Rule the criteria for perfection is based on how to make the viewer read the painting and not necessary balance as in a weigh scale.

As my own body is deformed by polio, defined by the ideal of perfect body, I’ve learned to love asymmetry. The wonky wheels, the broken, the not quite complete, all have formed affection with me. Myself being one, I have been a tireless crusader for imperfections beauty and value. Therefore, I can make a statement such as “I love my polio-withered leg as much as my very strong perfectly formed leg” (click to see image). These my two legs create a balance for me and remind me of our human condition.

Coy in my neighbour Hilda's pond.

So it comes to symmetry, I find what attracts me most is when indeed it comes about by coincidence, serendipitous almost an accident. This brings me to the two fish above which I photographed at exactly one of those moments of symmetry, while they swim past each other in the pond. They are in perfect symmetry, almost as though mirrors of each other, then in the blink of an eye they are not again; very satisfying to my eye and reassuring to my spirit. I think if we lived in a perfectly symmetrical world, it would be rather dull and lackluster. Sometimes we need the dull, the mundane, the serene, if only as a barometer to gauge the excitement of perfection. In other words, sometimes the little thing that people ignore as plain and simple can be the beautiful if only you spent enough time looking at it telling you that in its imperfection lies the truth of its beauty.

How does that apply to art? Well I find the characters in Breugel paintings much more compelling than the paintings of beautiful people such as Ingres. I admire that painters like Van Ruisdael always left the broken limb in their landscapes. I admire landscape painting that conveys both the beauty of creation but also the ferocity of nature. All of these types of work show beauty but also remind us of its temporality and our human condition. That to me is good art because it allows people to accept themselves for what they are. You can still see beauty but not feel measured by it. You can be beautiful in asymmetry - like me and my crippled leg, or a broken wing, or deadend limb.

GP

today i did what plants do

Today I took some rest, as prescribed myself and lay in our hammock in the gardens doing what the plants do; looking at the sky contemplating the weather. I'm feeling much better. A cold sky today after much needed rains.

GP

ps. thank you for your concerns

i'm still under the weather

Okay, well I’m still as sick as a dog and probably from overworking. Did not sleep much last night because of dry hacking cough but I feel recovery coming and think the worst is behind me.
Subsequently, to my regret I have not felt like doing much work of any kind including this blog.

Therefore, for today, I am just going to catch you up on some beautiful images that I didn’t include in some of my posts below, or these flowers have only just come into bloom in the last week.

pink peony detail - gotta love these delicate petals

gorgeous yellow artic peony detail

a better image of the artic peony in full bloom
as seen in this post below

more stunning poppies from our garden

Wish me well and there will be more on the way in the days to come. I hate summer colds and this humidity doesn’t help with the breathing, fortunately I do have central air conditioning.
Sick I must be, because even as bad as I felt today, I went out to the garden to take more photographs. I really need to learn how to rest.

GP

lupine

I begin my blog today by saying that I am too sick to be writing or doing much of anything else. I worked Saturday pruning the bottoms out of large trees to allow more light under the canopy. I then proceeded to prune all the shrubs and hedges. After about 13 hours, I was totally spent. Then I paid for it Sunday, spending the entire day in bed only wishing I were in a comma so that I wouldn’t have to feel the pain. How bad was it, well picture this: I was staring off into to oblivion when I realized that mucus had been pouring out of my nose onto to my upper lip, dripping to my lower lip then running back into my mouth which was open trying to get extra air as my lungs are so restricted. Not a pretty picture and that about sums up how I feel – what a mess. I dragged my sorry arse out of bed today to walk in the garden and make this post for you. Now I’m going to lie down and leaf through the yellow pages looking for an oxygen tent – what a mess.

This pale Lupine gets its name from the Great State of Texas, home of the President of America but I can’t remember either of their names. I know it is something spindly and not bushy.

Lupines as Fox Gloves don’t live that long lives so you need to guard your seedlings from ‘the bad wabbit”. I do admire the floral spike that rises from the plant until it hoists its floral head above the foliage revealing itself for all to see. It is a splendid flower and I love the mountain meadows covered in Lupine, the ones in Italy, Austria, France, Spain, or Switzerland, they’re all equally beautiful. Meadows of swaying Lupines gently persuaded to dance by the winds.

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They are another abstract flower to me, these spiky, conical towers that rise from divided leafs of emerald green foliage. Looking from above they provide a marvelous sight of slowly unwinding conical forms, spiraling up gaining in colour saturation as they ascend a staircase to the blue heavens of sky above and the warm sun that inhabits it.

Remember that I love spirals and look for them everywhere. This Lupine provides such a stylish spiral as the flower pods ascend ever upwards, swelling until they climax in full bloom. It’s my imaginary floral phallic hanging out of a pair of 60’s green pants. Something Sigourney Weaver conjures up in your mind.
Happily I’m a flower that has both sex glands so this isn’t about sex, or is it Mr. Sigmund Control Droid, spidering this site looking for dissent?… lol :)~ This is just the flowers, birds and the bees part of that equation. Sexy don’t you think?

Okay, my favourite Mel Gibson line “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they are not following me!”

Jeez what a post this is, Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, Sigourney Weaver, Mel Gibson, phallic flowers, it’s like Hollywood, Bollywood all rolled up into one and for the same great price. Thank you Lupines, for exorcising my garden demons. You see more proof that gardens are good for your state of mind.

So how’s your sex today, I mean how is your day?

I’ve completed my text on William Burroughs

Gerard Pas and William Burroughs, Brussels, Belgium 1979.

It seems fitting that I would write about the beauty of the Poppy, its bountiful seeds, and its pernicious sap on the same day I announce that I have complete my text on “How I came to know William Burroughs” which I have written about earlier below.

It’s a sultry tale from my twenties while I was living between Amsterdam and New York. I hope that when you read it you understand that it is a chapter of my life and not my life. An important chapter and one that I felt after these almost 30 years I should write. Well I did and its ready for you to read. Just Click on the link.

“How I came to know William Burroughs
Confession of a wild boy”

By Gerard P. Pas

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So now Poppy Flowers – complimentary flowers to a lurid tale but not an ending.

poppies | ={pas -|- sap}= |

Now I’ve had a long standing relationship with this flower. It has been my master once or twice in my short life. Yes, the sap of the Poppy has lorded over my being both in its raw but preferred in its refined way. I have supported many Afghan, Burmese and Thai farmers during the course of my addictions and not in a spiritual way.

This is my “Beauty and the Beast flower”. Consummate beauty and pernicious bestiality locked within the Disneyland inside its addictive grasp. True escape from pain and no worries or cares about the search for meaning, lies within its power. Dr. Feelgood until you run out of Dr. Feelgood, then the demons come out.

Now I get to see it just for its beauty, I have been freed from the shackles of needing to stare at the picture for hours longing for Junk. I have been liberated from not understanding pain and suffering and needing to cover that understanding in a opium haze, further clouding the issues. I no longer need to suppress those issues with that addiction. I still have others addictions, tea, beer, good wine, slabs of red-meat, grass and Arsenal Football Club; not in that order. God answered my deepest prayers inside those opiate deliriums and like Jonah in the belly of the fish (death); he reached out to give me life.

Now that I am freed of my bonds to it, I can see the Poppy for the beauty it possesses. I want to share its beauty with you below. I like that about sanctification it cleanse you of your previous ways and allows you to view it from a redeemed perspective. What a renewing of the mind!. The plant gives such a gaiety as a flower and not an addiction as its sap =(sap -- pas)=.
We have many, many Poppies in our full sun garden. They are with us almost all summer through their various arrays of species. I even grow the Afghan version as a botanical curiosity. Here then are just a few that are in bloom from the garden of delight.

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I begin by showing you the story of one Poopy, as it works it’s way from bud to bloom. These images where taken over the course of the last two weeks.

the bud

the bloom creeps outwards from the bud

to reveal itself as the wonder it is

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The next three images are from blooming Poppies in our garden of delight. I have photographed them all as colour mandelas for you. They are so incredibly delicate, as though made of thinly woven silk or paper.

pinks

saffrons

Saffron wheel Mandela

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Lastly, some petit, simple Poppies, that seems to grow on a vine producing blankets of flowers. I will have many more Poppies over the next months to show you. I’m still a Poppy lover just in a more positive way. When close to death with aging and or in pain maybe the other way again as in the “pain control pump” beep, beep, beep, ...

tiny miniature poppies

In memory of William Seward Burroughs.
GP

peonies

Just three of the different coloured Peonies that grow along the southern exposure of our home. What a delightful and rewarding flower is the Peony, all of them right up to the Tree Peony.

what a delicate Mandela

This white Peony is my favourite of all our Peonies. Its supple petals are so subtle to look at, as perfect a Mandela as the Lotus Flower. I really love this flower because of how the white petals work as colour, a good subject for an oil painting.

I am currently using a full 768 x 1024 version of this above flower as my desktop image and am offering it to you as a download by clicking here “Pas Peony Wallpaper”. It truly is a beautiful desktop image and easy to use: just click on the link and then save the image (right click or apple key to save). I assume you know the rest but if not just ask I'll be happy to help. The jpeg image is 570kb and 768 X 1024 pixels.

My gift of flowers to you, enjoy – it’s a nice way to start your machine and your day.

Artic Peony

I love the soothing cool yellow with its peachy inner petals of the Artic Peony, this one has already started to drop it’s petals.. My dad gave me this one so I think on him when I look at it. Aah, dad we shared one common love of flowers, wait he’s making sculptures out of clay and I’m… oh yes, he still loves his flowers to.

bright

This Peony no matter when I photograph it comes out with these vibrant magentas and shocking reds. It is so bright that it’s gaudy! I just can’t imagine anyone wearing this colour except maybe Liberace clones in Las Vegas, looking for the where about of Elvis, after a recent spotting of him at the Wal-Mart; or which ever store needs some quick press.That said it does look nice in a cluster.

GP

iris and lilac

These pale yellow Iris are my favourite Iris in the garden. I had to take this image at dusk so that I could show you the colours, as the full sun washes out the yellow. This yellow flower grows under my Japanese Red Maple next the purple Rhododendron, which makes a nice complimentary show of colour.

These Iris are more showy alone and don’t require the subtle surroundings as the above Iris do. They grow in our primary garden in full sun all day.

I’m so far behind with the images I want to show you that I’m only just getting to the Lilacs, which bloomed over two weeks ago. They are so sweet with fragrance that when a gentle east or southeast wind blows it scents our bedroom delightfully, where it grows next to the east window. You can see our bedrooms other south window in the above image, just left of the Iris.

Turned on the central air conditioning today for the first time this year as it’s getting as hot as hell out there; predictions of a humidex of 40 Celsius for the next few days. The plants are going to love it; we on the other hand are going to suffer as with that humidity the sweat has no place to go. I love it more than winter any day but not every day.

I'm just going to be bringing images and short narratives for the next while to catch up with the flowers. May and June are such wonderful months for Perennials.

How was your day?

GP

money and reilgion - thrift & star of bethlehem

Well, another scorcher of a hot day in the sun, too much sun for me but the plants sure love it! We planted all the Annual Flowers at the Monastery today. Yes, I’m two weeks late but the nuns didn’t mind – I give them a good deal for my labour, so me thinks they have little to complain about anyway you look at it! It was a very common commercial planting of Impatiens and some cutting flowers like Snapdragons, rather drab really. No money, no funny, and they lack the vision to see that with unlimited resources I could turn their Canadian Headquarters into a slice of paradise with Perennial Gardens. More work equals more money, equals threats of cheaper wetback otherwise slave landscapers to replace me. You know “blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth,” so be it, I give what I can and you’d be surprised what people will take. I always hoped to work for the Pope but I had visions of painting his ceilings. On the bright side, I at least get to cut his lawns, provide sustenance to his gardens and trees, even if that is not what I had envisioned. He pays the bills on time to, unlike me always trying to scratch up enough coin. All this talk about money and religion made me think back to living in The Netherlands, Dutch Thrift to be exact.

Armeria - Thrift, Sea Pink, Cliff Rose

This plant reminds me of my native homeland of Holland as it grows along the North Sea shoreline. Many times, I have walked the coastline of the North Sea and I very much love doing it. I also like the Northern Coastline of the Province of Gronnigen moving South-West towards the Wadenzee and Friesland.
America has many different colours and flowers from mid-spring to mid-fall. Not bad considering how long our winters are, brrrrrrr. I grow a few clusters as borders around our primary garden. This flower has given me some trouble documenting it – it keeps telling me to get an upgrade from my current Nikon Digital, to the newest model with a closer macro range. $1,000 dear me, I wish I had it but alas I do not and I am Dutch :)

Things are happening fast with flowers in the gardens and I’m running behind in all the images I have for you. I may spend the next few weeks just dumping images with fewer texts to catch up with the cornucopia of flowers in our gardens.

Suffice it to say when my loved ones and I go out for an evening walk, on the lawns and in the gardens, it brings calm as you stand before the wonder of such beauty as the Creator has provided. It surprises me not that life began in a garden and evolves into the City of God, Jerusalem.
What’s nice is that I live almost in the middle of the Forest City (London), fifteen minutes by bicycle from the downtown core. Yet, I have been blessed to have this marvelous forested garden because on these old inner city blocks the land parcels where all very large and some people still keep woodlots or forested backs like us and all but one of my neighbours, my next door neighbour.

I thought I’d leave you with this dainty little flower, it deserves to have so much more said about it. It’s tiny but it has a big and interesting storey dating back to before the Greeks, too big to blog here but if you’d like to read it then click here.

Thus the Dutch Thrift and the Star of Bethlehem – money and religion. My ode to the nuns of the monastery -- all that and a Dutch Gardener to boot just not to hard as it hurts.

Star of Bethlehem - Ornithogalum umbellatum

coral bells

coral bells

Common Name: Alum Root, Coral Bells, Rock Geranium
Botanical Name: Heuchera micrantha 'Palace Purple'

Just a little red bell against a vibrant blue sky. We like these plants as borders and they can tolerate drought and love full sun.

Me I’ve had too much sun. Being a gardener is not for the faint at heart unless you work small. With all our beds I spend a lot of time working in the gardens. Yesterday was one of those days, all day. Today I worked the beds from 6:30 until 9:30 after working at the monastery cutting very long grass all day on our big tractor, 6 hectares of long grass. I’m tired and I’ve had too much sun.

I like working in the garden in the evenings our early mornings when the sun is not scorching down on you. I look like a bloody lobster today, from top to bottom except for my candy white ass. I think the nuns might get alarmed if I cut in the buff, besides my posterior would still be white as I’d be seated on the tractor. You know, I think maybe I’ve had too much sun, damn I’m writing about my behind. Sorry!

Enjoy the Coral Bells. How was your day?

great Solomon's-seal

great Solomon's-seal

Great Solomon's-seal (Polygonatum canaliculatum).

I like this plant, it uses rhizomes and therefore spreads well in the shaded, semi-shaded areas of our gardens. For parts of our woodland beds we use it as a groundcover, see above image.

flowers of the Solomon's-seal

I like the fact the name conjures up King Solomon for me. I think he must have been an incredible person, a Renaissance man long before the Renaissance. This guy was the real deal, a poet, art connoisseur, architecture "the temple", a scholar, righteous, a King and lover of God. If you have, any doubts read this poem, which he wrote in his Book “Song of Songs”.
I mean I get hot when I read this. It’s a very sexy poem. I want my lover to write me such words and desire me as much. Is this not a song of love? Is it a song of longing for the City of God? It's good...

Song of Solomon 7 (New International Version)

Song of Solomon 7

1 How beautiful your sandaled feet,
O prince's daughter!
Your graceful legs are like jewels,
the work of a craftsman's hands.

2 Your navel is a rounded goblet
that never lacks blended wine.
Your waist is a mound of wheat
encircled by lilies.

3 Your breasts are like two fawns,
twins of a gazelle.

4 Your neck is like an ivory tower.
Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon
by the gate of Bath Rabbim.
Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon
looking toward Damascus.

5 Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel.
Your hair is like royal tapestry;
the king is held captive by its tresses.

6 How beautiful you are and how pleasing,
O love, with your delights!

7 Your stature is like that of the palm,
and your breasts like clusters of fruit.
8 I said, "I will climb the palm tree;
I will take hold of its fruit."
May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine,
the fragrance of your breath like apples,

9 and your mouth like the best wine.

Beloved
May the wine go straight to my lover,
flowing gently over lips and teeth.

10 I belong to my lover,
and his desire is for me.

11 Come, my lover, let us go to the countryside,
let us spend the night in the villages.

12 Let us go early to the vineyards
to see if the vines have budded,
if their blossoms have opened,
and if the pomegranates are in bloom—
there I will give you my love.

13 The mandrakes send out their fragrance,
and at our door is every delicacy,
both new and old,
that I have stored up for you, my lover.

Courtesy of http://bible.gospelcom.net
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under great Solomon's-seal

wisteria vine

wisteria vine flowering

Sadly, in every garden, there are those plants that want special attention and what is surprising is that sometimes that special attention is to shock or brutalize them somewhat. Our Wisteria Vine above has the most magnificent cascading waterfall of colour when it comes into bloom this time of spring.
The last two years it has failed to flower for us. I know it is because it gets so much attention growing next to my principle garden and thus within the reach of the sprinkler. It’s just too happy and needs a jolt. That means work, as you have to root prune the plant, which in our case means root pruning a tree, as this Wisteria is very large. So I’ll spade out a trench inside the drip line, then using a deeper reaching shovel, cut a complete circle around the plant severing the roots. This will shock the plant and it will want to reproduce producing flowers next year. It’s a lot of work.

wisteria vine cascading a waterfall of colour

But then look at the above detail of our Wisteria blooming and tell me is it worth the effort? Nature needs to be nurtured sometimes and when done properly it produces some startling results. I try to think of the work similar to my Bonsai trees needing root pruning but on a grander scale with the same wonderful results when you sit back and enjoy them. I want to be a good steward of the gifts creation has bestowed me with tending like our garden, our trees, and then outwards from there to forests and our environment. I start at home and then take small steps outwards, hoping that they can and will have a positive and enduring effect. I know the Creator wants it this way and I am willing to be the steward. What a privelege it is to tend this garden in all it's beauty and hard work.

what the stars say to me

Before you read on, I am not trying to proselytize or even get up on a soapbox this is simply my accounting of how my view of the Universe changed.

When I look up at the myriads of stars, on a clear waned moon night, I no longer feel insignificant in the Universe. Knowing that pain and joy, the travails of life all have meaning changes the way you see the night sky. The stars answer you and say “You have such value that the God of Love gave you birth so that you could have the benefit of marveling at its astonishing wonder and awe”. No shit! It blows my mind! It is bigger than big-bang!

When I was a young man, I’d often lie on the sandy beaches of Lake Huron, far from the light pollution of the cities and look up at the night sky. I’d cry out in PAIN to the stars beseeching them to answer my call as to “Why such pain had to BE?” Looking up at the stars, then sometimes under a veil of tears, I always felt so small, microscopic, insignificant, next to a spiral galaxy some 60 million light years away – Virgo - in the Milky Way.

Messier Galaxy

As I laid there alienated from myself and blemished in creation the stars reply was silence; deafening and resounding silence. My tears were met with a numbing stillness until the LOVE of GOD was revealed to me through Christ. His gift to us in dying for pain had such meaning and value that God himself was humiliated onto a Cross, for my sufferings and to liberate me from them. Christ died so that the pain of sin and our estrangement from creation would be remedied.

If God is Love and in Love, no evil can dwell, God gave forewarning to our forebears what the knowledge of Good and Evil would result in -- DEATH. Sin is the cannibalization of our existence through pain, suffering, consternation, alienation, and finally death. Death being the absence of life is complete estrangement from GOD, the Ying of Yang without the Taoism, LIGHT and not DARKNESS, nor LOVE but EVIL. Death is the outcome of knowing evil and I have known such evil. I have been in the belly of the fish and scorched my flesh on the ambers of HADES – complete estrangement from the God of Love but for grace.
The stars only began to answer that I truly had value in the cosmos when I realized this truth and acted on it in faith, accepting Christ’s gift of forgiveness and honouring God by trying not to sin again. Yes, I have failed miserably too many times but God’s love is bigger than my hubris.
I have never seen an angel or spoken to a fiery bush. Waves have not parted before me, nor have I survived the terror of pestilence by a mark on my door. My good friends always asserted that when I became a Christian it was a result of too many pressures. That my traveling the world, exhibiting, performing, lecturing and with my then chemical dependency of living the life of a junkie. They said my visions of “hell in paradise” were the manifestations of a nervous breakdown. I never discounted that as certainty but the fact remained that the God of Love used those experiences to reveal the truth of life and death, good and evil, to me. The fact I may have had a nervous breakdown could not remove the truth revealed to me through coming to that point and having a breakdown. Where it not for God’s message, that all sufferings have such an inexorable value that Christ gave his life for it, were it not for that I would be dead.

Tribeca and the World Trade Center Towers
New York City, spring 2001

I would not have suffered the indignities that life and I myself have served out. There have been days when the cruelty of life outweighed life itself. Such terror, human depravation have I seen in life, climaxed with the coming down of the World Trade Center Towers in New York while working there on an exhibition of my art. I would have joined Camus and Socrates, nodding in accord to the Apostle Paul with his conclusion that “If the truth of Christ is but a lie and dead are not Risen, let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.” I might have even speed the process up had I the same elevation as the victims above the 80th floor, forgive the metaphor. No, I have always chosen life and life is to know and experience love!

Whirlpool Galaxy

Now when I look up at the night sky knowing what I do, I feel as though I truly belong. Indeed, it says that I am whole with the universe, as well as dwelling in it. It says to me that I, all of me, my joys and consternations have value, my life is meaningful. My pain is sanctified in the marks left on Christ’s Resurrected body. Yes, Christ carried the marks of his wounds even to have Thomas investigate them empirically. My only reply is to say, Alleluia, all praise, honour and glory be to the God of Love made manifest in Christ Jesus. No greater JOY have I ever known; oh death where is thy sting, oh grave where is thy victory? Let us sow, sustain, harvest, and be merry for tomorrow we will be resurrected carrying our wounds as marks of our sanctification in Christ.

GP

columbine

Here are just some of the Columbines that grow in our garden. What a delicate, almost fragile flower it is. Columbines are glorious in form and striking with diverse colours; an amazing plant. I only regret in my contaminated mind that when I hear Columbine, my mind conjures up Columbine high school in Littleton, Colorado and the massacre which occurred there. Truly the images I will show you next are what Columbines should always awake in our thoughts, sweet tender beauty. In Good versus Evil, Good will always prevail.So now some Columbines from our garden.

This flower can be paper-thin and its petals are transparent allowing light to pass through them. They make for interesting studies when backlit by the sun as seen in the above photo. I’m very happy with this image, both as composition and as a study of light. Columbines are such a thing of beauty.

I thought I’d share my photography method for documenting flowers with you. First, I compose the image and take a photo or two. The above is one of these and is wonderful just as it is, although it does not convey the details of the flower well it is artistic.

Then I take another shot of the same image but this time I “flash fill” the subject. In other words, I simply force the flash to work and provide the light I need to document the subject matter as seen in the above photo. This too is a great image and conveys the anatomy of the flower. Both images were shot with in seconds of each other as the clouds convey; both have their own separate charm.
I love the sharpness that the flash creates and how the camera “stops down” to give more colour in the sky. What I love most is the subject matter and that’s what makes for good art: knowing it, understanding it and loving it. This white Columbine is simply exhilarating with its cool white petals against the tall cumulus clouds in the background. I know that they’re no longer rare or stricken to Alpine Meadows like Lupine but I still enjoy them nevertheless.
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These are some of the yellow Columbines from out garden. I just marvel at the complexity of these dainty blooms. This image was taken in low light so that the subtle yellows could receive better saturation on the image plane. As these grow in the shade these plants are long and leggy making for an almost oriental presentation. We’re waiting for pink and purple Columbines to come into blossom soon. I love these tender delicate flowers they’re just stunning.

What’s not to love about the Columbine? May God have mercy on the survivors and show his grace to the victim’s families. Help me also to think of Columbine for what it is, such a delicate handwork of creation.

GP