Wissahickon Style X: The Dogs of Pastorius Park

Post 58

Still not breathing well, which I will take as an excuse to cheer myself up, and I hope others as well, with a slightly off topic post. Yes--dogs again.

If I felt better, I have no doubt I could (seemingly,) connect dogs, style, gardening and dogparks in a twinkling of a sentence or two. (Yes, I won the Golden Shovel Award at college.)

But do cute dog pics really need an excuse, bald and slimy as an old tennis ball or not?

A crowded dogpark of creatures would vote no!

So, what good would any place be, Wissahickon or not, without a proper place for a frolic?

And if a garden is a place for flowers to frolic then a dogpark, a place for dogs and their humans to frolic, is analogous (told you I could do it, just needed to  warm up.)

I

I've waxed elsewhere about the Woodward family and their many gifts to this area. One of my favorite of these gifts is Pastorius Park, a small, English landscape-style park, where nature, in general, romps in great style.

So, now that I've pretended to justify myself--unleash more cuteness!

Is joy not a style?

And if it is, then Joy to the World  (and the Wissahickon Watershed.)

 P.S.--Thanks to all the people who have seen me in the park  aiming my camera around and have allowed me to celebrate their animals and them. If anyone objects to a pic, just let me know and I'll take it down.

Dog Days

Post 46

It is the dog days.

Time for play

.

For ice-cream

For hanging out

 For doing nothing

Except maybe going swimming

Though if you fall in by mistake you might be perturbed.

Still, time for smiling

And joy

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In case you are interested interested, I also have a more personal blog at Lord Kayburger Wisniewski's Backyard

Fire and Snow, or Impossible Beauty

Pastorius Park

Post 13

Mid-storm in the garden

Post 13 was going to be about bringing in the pots. But it seems the unexpected can happen with # 13.  So,  cold, wet winter snow overtook dry, crisp, and still-blooming autumn. Snow and fire. We never get snow before late November, early December, never that is, till now. So, any pots should have been in long before their usual date. Who knew?

First came the storm, darkening the day with clouds, brightening it with snow, but snow illuminated by bursts of color.

Morning on the road

Then the aftermath, a bright, cool sunny day with the ground and sky both blue and white, and the mid-horizon blazing with turning leaves. 

Pastorius Park

It would have been easy to have gotten upset, pouting over early cold. But it is hard to pout when surrounded by beauty.

Pastorius Park, -- Run Lassie Run

And oh, what beauty.

What unusual, surprising, impossible beauty

Pastorius Park

We were lucky to get just enough snow for beauty, not enough for damage. It was a good balance of opposites, for which I am thankful.

Furture like a Tree

Post 12


Cultivating The Cosmic Tree Hildegard of Bingen



Pastorius Park

"AS AN OLD MAN was planting a tree, three young men came along and began to make sport of him, saying: "It shows your foolishness to be planting a tree at your age. The tree cannot bear fruit for many years, while you must very soon die. What is the use of your wasting your time in providing pleasure to others to share long after you are dead?" The old man stopped in his labor and replied: Others before me provided for my happiness, and it is my duty to provide for those who shall come after me. As for life, who is sure of it for a day? " Aesop's Fables Copyright 1881 Translator: unknown

Laurel Ridge Foundation, Conn.

Since moving to our property my husband and I have planted 8 small trees: 2 Cherries on the hellstrip, a Crepe Myrtle and Pee-Gee Hydrangea (more a big shrub I'm pruning into a tree,) in front, a Southern Magnolia and a Smokebush( also pruned into a tree,) on the side and 2 Japanese Maples, one on the side and one in back. Because we are on a budget, all these trees have been bought small, one of the maples is only a foot high. These trees will be at their best long after we have sold the house.

But the best trees on the property are the two native Dogwoods that were there when we moved in.  In Dogwood season parts of Northwest Philly transform into a continuous Dogwood forest as property lines fade beneath an aboveground sea of pink and white.

Many people I know are uncomfortable with institutional religion. But if asked, they will mention that they know there is "something" there, something they can feel that runs through all creation. They are mistrustful of closed mindsets, power structures and claims to authority by, well, people who do not seem to make the best case for such authority. Many try out Eastern paths to enlightenment or turn to ecology, gardening, wilderness, food, art or intellectual and political inquiry and action as nurturing and sustaining goods.  Which they are in perspective. But beyond them is a common longing for something hinted at, something like the force that through the green fuse drives the flower (apologies Dylan Thomas.)  For that, I think of an unusual woman in a world where woman were close to nonentities, a Medieval nun, author, composer, healer , and, oh yeah, mystic: Hildegard of Bingen and a word she coined --Viriditas

" Viriditas-- Greeness, derived from the Latin...One of the key terms in Hildegard's writings and her view of the world. It signifies the life-force, freshness of life, constant vitality, or fecundity, and is also a metaphor for virtuous living and a spiritual existence." from The World of Hildegard of Bingen: her life, times, and visions By Heinrich Schipperges, John Cumming

No dry authoritarian, closed-system here. Hildegard is writing about the Life behind life.



Monhegan Island



The Deep Life which we instinctively feel is home.

Pastorius Park

It is not odd that almost every spiritual path features a tree: the Tree of Life, the Bohdi Tree, Yggdrasil, and more. There is something about a tree, its age, its size, its open-armed call and embrace, its greeness, its beauty, its fruitfulness, that makes us feel a sense of a Tree behind the tree: The Tree, Viriditas.

Tree Of Jesse, Chagall



"What is the use of living if not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?"- Winston Churchill

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How-to Tree: Mid-Late Fall, up through Thanksgiving, is the best time to plant a tree.

A good link on tree planting is here.  A list of recommended trees for our area  is posted by Fairmont Park. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society has a lot of information on trees here.

Look around. What do you see that is thriving and looks good to you? Ask around to find out what it is. Young trees are not that expensive, especially if bought on sale. And they are a fine shout-out for the future, our sense of the life that is both within us and beyond us.

Monhegan Island