Yes, I've been home, home, home for a month now--aaahh! While settling in, I felt a wariness in the part of me that wasn't quite certain I was really, truly back home to stay. In another part of me, being in Edmonton felt so natural that perhaps I hadn't been away after all. I felt confused about what season and month it was, having returned from a glorious New England spring and summer to Alberta's end-of-winter/early-spring brownness and barenness. I came home to an instant life, swept into the busyness of family and events and things that needed doing, that had nothing to do with being a graduate student! I've been dabbling in this and that since my return home, not seeming to accomplish much and feeling the lack of rhythm and regular routine in my life. Home is belongingness, confidence, inner peace, and joy.
I'm the one who wanted to hang a bird feeder at the corner of our downtown balcony, and Ken humored me by installing it about a year and a half ago. We watched and waited in vain to be discovered by the wee feathered folk. This winter, the pillar poplars seemed to enjoy a growth spurt, and they are now as high as the balcony above ours. And we have birds! They are mainly LBJs--little brown jobs--and they are oh, so welcome, with their entertaining twittering and flitting about.
On this particular day of the year the French Republican Calendar honours the honeysuckle. There are 180 species of this plant, at least one of which grows wild in Alberta. It attracts hummingbirds, and some caterpillars feed upon its leaves. May your day be as sweet as its nectar!
Our focus tends to be outward, during this season of waxing warmth and light. (Our feeling soars into wide realms of space; we notice the ascent of the sun; inner events are experienced but dimly.) Here is this week's verse from Steiner's Calendar of the Soul:
To summer's radiant heights
The sun in shining majesty ascends;
It takes my human feeling
Into its own wide realms of space.
Within my inner being stirs
Presentiment which heralds dimly,
You shall in future know:
A godly being now touched you.
