FRODO: I can’t do this, Sam.

SAM: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back; only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.

FRODO: What are we holding on to, Sam?

SAM: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

– J.R.R. Tolkien – The Two Towers

It wasn’t us.  We are devastated.

Praise Song

Praise the light of late November,
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not
despair. Praise what little there’s left:
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow
of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky
that hasn’t cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down
behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy
fallen world; it’s all we have, and it’s never enough.

– Barbara Crooker

As a passionate book and paper artist who has tried her hand at paper making, I have such affection for these little book artists and their lovely hand made paper. Learn more about bald-faced hornets here.

I was beginning to worry that I wouldn’t have an opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with one of my favorite native plants this year.  Blue Grama is Colorado’s state grass and a real beauty.  The prayer-flagged stems look like musical notes on a staff, the blooms like purple eyelashes.  The grass is said to predict the severity of the coming winter.  The more lashes, the more cold and snow.  I wear this plant on my skin, having had it tattooed along with a line from one of my favorite Wendell Berry poems.  This year I discovered just a few of the newly emerging purple blooms in the only remaining green grass on Buffalo Grass Trail – our private name for our “green” belt trail.  But at least I did not miss them completely.

I will serve the earth and not pretend my life could be better served.  My life is only the earth, risen up a little way into the light, among the leaves – Wendell Berry from The Morning’s News