*the sides of life

June is coming to an end and I have been silent here for a while. There have been quite upsetting happenings in my family which made our hearts tremble, our minds occupied and our nights sleepless.

Apart from all the worries, we were able to harvest our first cucumbers, peppers and zucchinis and I'm happy to be able to work in the garden again even though we are in the middle of a heat wave. We are having a big variety of butterflies this year and lots of mosquitos!

The whole summer lies ahead of us and honestly all I wish for is to fill it with simple joys, like reading, swimming, feeling the warm winds on my bare skin, listening to the nightingale's song and sinking into soothing self-forgetfulness whenever possible.

☙

*Into June with butterflies, snails & bees

{Music: Leaf – Matteo de Grandis}

June has started and it reveals a world in itself, a world of humming and buzzing and diligently business in the smallest areas of nature. The warmths activates everything in us. It is a soft expanding in all directions of life.

☙

*what is given

It is possible, I suppose that sometime

we will learn everything

there is to learn: what the world is, for example,

and what it means. I think this as I am crossing

from one field to another, in summer, and the

mockingbird is mocking me, as one who either

knows enough already or knows enough to be

perfectly content not knowing. Song being born

of quest he knows this: he must turn silent

were he suddenly assaulted with answers. Instead

oh hear his wild, caustic, tender warbling ceaselessly

unanswered. At my feet the white-petalled daisies display

the small suns of their center piece, their -- if you don't

mind my saying so -- their hearts. Of course

I could be wrong, perhaps their hearts are pale and

narrow and hidden in the roots. What do I know?

But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given,

to see what is plain; what the sun lights up willingly;

for example -- I think this

as I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch --

the suitability of the field for the daisies, and the

daisies for the field.

{Mary Oliver}

☙

*Welcome June – A happy list

A tower of the beautiful castle Raabs.

• dew drops on grass tops

• the scent of sun-dried laundry

• picking cherries & mulberries

• pink flower meadows

• watching "Where the crawdads sing"

• making fresh raspberry jam

(they got ripe so early this year!)

• planting a new blueberry plant

• my white oriental poppy is blooming for the first time

(I waited so long for this!)

• the return of the swallows

☙