The Fire of Summer

Post 93
Oh, the beauty of the day and all that belongs to it. I thought I would be sad because I have not one hydrangea bloom this year. But no, the lack of blue just heightens the harmony of the hot colors of present flowering.

Only when the light is this strong can white, red, pink, orange and violet (tempered by green) be so right together.

Everywhere there are ditch lilies, the common day lily that looks like fire. It spreads too fast, takes up too much room for its 2 weeks of bloom, has boring and then tatty foliage, and is loud, vulgar and joyous. Almost everyone has some. In the pic on left you can see it with betony, cosmos, monarda, clemantis, honeysuckle, biswort, rugosa rose and a touch of oak hydrangea in the back.

Do all these colors go together? They do for me. I tend to be both bold and intricate in what I create. That goes for everything--garden, art, writing, craft. Perhaps this is because I have a hard time being the right kind of bold and intricate in my life. Either I come on as too bold, or I am too unsure what to do, or most awkwardly of all, I hit upon an ungainly combo of the two. Are the fire lilies and scarlet monarda compensation? Perhaps. But also more.

Below is a spot in Mt. Airy where the day lilies line the block and perfectly offset the permanent, grey stonework The two together make for balance

 The stonework alone is just cold dreaming; fire lily alone and it's a short burn. Together though, you get something worthwhile.

Life these days midst a roaring media and alienating stresses can become overloaded with fanciful dreaming and artificial spices. True imagination and meaningful action are harder to accomplish, harder to develop and hardest of all to fully understand. Yet, as one who who tries to show what I can barely trace with my metaphorical fingertips, I feel that heaven has a possible space here in this world, and that that space has something to do with grace.

No more theology, though it would be easy to expound. I guess my point, intricate, bold and inadequately worded as it is-- is that no system humans can devise for anything is always going to work perfectly. Even with the best of intentions there are always possibilities of mishap, misunderstanding, unintended consequences and a host of other bumblings. And from those with less than the best of intentions--Oy Vey, even more so.

And yet many humans (some who follow some spiritual discipline, some who do not,) have from time to time stumbled on what they know is more than what they deserve. Some inner and/or outer generosity that forgives, heals, restores, does whatever is needed and wanted, a whatever that humans can rarely pull off by their own plans.

                                                                                                  So, when the garden gives more than seems possible, in an exuberance of color that makes my heart glow, I feel in it a small similarity that suggests grace.  

And, per the spirit of this post, please forgive or ignore any inadequate words, misunderstood notions or inapt tropes that I have used. This goes for all my writing. I am just another fallible punter exploring why and how gardening can gardened a gardener.