Sunday, October 21, 2012

Mockingbirds Are Singing My Hymns




I trimmed the wisteria yesterday, to the best of my ability. There are still tendrils which reach up and grab the pecan branch above the trellis but I can't get to them and so it goes. I hope I didn't cut away all of the growth which would provide blooms when spring comes but it had to be done. The vines will snake their way under the lap siding of the house beside the trellis and separate boards, one from another. I wonder if we'll get a good azalea bloom next spring. This year's was sad and extremely limited. The bushes were full of just-opening buds when we got a hard freeze and that was the end of that spill of color.

I looked out this morning to see that a butterfly lily was blooming.


The butterfly lily and the tea olive are the sweetest smelling flowers in the world for my money. The tea olive's blossom is tiny but powerful.


I never notice it until its scent catches my attention and then I look for it and yes, there it is. 

The Confederate Rose is still blooming, gaudy as a tutu. I never get tired of it. It has no scent that I can discern.


It's amazing, really, that so many flowers bloom here in the fall. My neighbor's sasanqua is in full bloom, the pink petals litter the ground beneath it. My camellias, the sasangua's cousin, are all budded up and there is one blossom on the Sea Foam in the front yard which is actually opening which seems early to me and I wonder if this portends something as to the winter we may expect. 



I spent a few hours in the yard yesterday with my loppers and my pruners, dragging my Rubbermaid cart around. I cut and trimmed a few of the sago palms and the two cabbage palms which I planted in front of the house to be sentinels, gardians of the front porch. Mr. Moon is constantly reminding me that I planted them too close to the porch and he is right, but as they grow tall their fronds will be high enough up not to be an annoyance. This is my theory, anyway. 


The one on the right gets more sun than the one on the left, thus its bigger size. I wonder if I fertilized the smaller one if it would catch up. Perhaps. I doubt I will.

I love my yard and it is a magical place to me. Some of the things I planted myself. The camellias and the palms (although not the sagos). Some of the things were here when I got here. The wisteria, the firespike, the elephant ears and bananas which never bloom or fruit but I leave them where they are as I love their leaves, 




and feel that they are beauty enough to allow them to take up space. Their fronds are turning yellow 


and before long I will cut them down to the ground, my sharp knife sinking through the soggy flesh of their trunks with ease but for now, I let them stand and the chickens scratch underneath them. 



Everyone who has ever lived on this two acres in the past one hundred and fifty years has added something, I am sure, some of it still here, some of it gone forever. I hear there were once grape arbors and I can't believe that before I moved here there were never camellias or palms or fig trees or a mulberry tree although there were none when I got here so I have rectified that. 

I just went out to let the chickens out of the henhouse (another thing we've added to this property and you KNOW it's not the first one ever to be built here) and I discovered that the red passion flower I planted on the fence is blooming again. Such a drama queen, the passion flower!


Such a prissy little spaceship of a blossom! 

My grandson, Gibson, is being baptized in church in Tallahassee today and I am not going. I went to Owen's baptism and that was enough of that for me. The boys' other grandmother is the church-goer, the one who wants them to be baptized and that's fine. She loves church and it's a part of her life but the whole experience is an anathema to me. The Christian rock band, the people singing with their eyes closed, heads down, arms stretched into the air, wasting, in my opinion, a perfectly beautiful Sunday. If I went, I would just be judgemental, silently thinking about what Roseanne Barr said about Christian Rock which was, "What's next? Christian PORN?" and I'd be wishing I was home in Lloyd in my yard where my trees and flowers are, where the hundreds-of-years-old oak trees rise up into the sky, their branches draped with Spanish moss, where I feel the holiness lies. I have no need to eat the flesh of Christ or drink his blood and in my opinion, the first time Gibson got his head sprinkled with rain drops was his true baptism and besides, I have no desire to put on a bra. 

The next time the boys come out here, I'll take Gibson around the yard and show him all the flowers blooming and direct his attention up to the highest branches of the oaks and down to the tiniest ants on the ground and we will feed the chickens and the cool air will kiss him all over and he will hear the birds singing, just as I am hearing them now and he won't have to wear a long white dress and I won't have to wear a bra. 

You got your holy and I got my holy and right now, I'm feeling mighty grateful for the Church of the Batshit Crazy. Instead of communion, we'll be having some eggs because my hens laid me a few yesterday. It's as fucking beautiful here this morning as it is anywhere on this earth and instead of sitting in a church, I'm just, as I say, cutting out the middle man and worshipping the creation instead of listening to what the creator will do to me after I'm dead if I don't follow the rules. 

I personally feel that my grandson was born a Buddha, a Jesus, just as all babies are and that no baptism is necessary. He is a miracle and I am wallowing in miracles this morning, simply wallowing. My spirit is reaching up to the sky just as the wisteria is reaching up to the pecan tree and all, for this moment, is right with my world. The promise of a heaven where we will go after death is one that no one on this earth can guarantee but the heaven that I am surrounded by right this second is real and true and I am paying attention to it, I am tending it and I am glorying in it. 

I am alive and I am in heaven. I am taking the Sabbath and I am keeping it holy.

Happy Sunday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon






14 comments:

  1. You and I have the same kind of holy. Where is it if not out under the dome of the sky and the arches of the trees bending overhead. Happy Day of the Sun to you.
    x0 N2

    ReplyDelete
  2. I came here hoping for a sermon, and I got the best kind. Thank you, Ms. Moon. I adored the part about Gibson's baptism -- especially the disparagement of Christian rock. It's always nice to have one's deepest convictions confirmed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Christian rock at baptism... arg.

    Yeah, I have issues in this area too. I'm a heathen and my babies are heathen for the moment, unless we REALLY need to get them in to some school or other... sigh.

    And if that happens, we'll go Unitarian, where they just make the parents promise to do the best they can, I don't think anyone has to renounce the devil or anything.

    Your flowers are gorgeous, and most definitely on the side of Light.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your yard is beautiful! I have never seen anything like that passion flower.

    And just so you know...not all churches are like the ones you describe. Doesn't mean you would like the others any better, because people are people everywhere, and someone is always going to be judgmental. But not all Christian services are about sin and punishment or Christian rock or modern praise music. And whether you wear a bra or not is entirely up to you.

    Julia

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lisa- That makes me happy.

    N2- It IS a Sun Day. And a good one. Rare indeed.

    Elizabeth- Owen's baptism sort of made me want to die. Which is why I did not go to Gibson's.

    Jo- Yeah. I'm not sure Unitarians even have to believe in god. Which is fine. But I always wonder- what's the point? Doughnuts? Maybe.

    Julia- Hello. Thanks for coming by here and for commenting. Believe me- I know that all churches are not like that. I have been to many churches of many different faiths and I don't especially like any of them. I don't have the religion gene but I do understand that many people do. And that's okay. Having said all of that, I hope you'll come back.

    ReplyDelete
  6. That passion flower is the most beautiful thing I've see today. F'ing beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Beautiful words and beautiful photos. I always look forward to reading your posts.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Now that's my kind of church -- the church of the backyard, of the banana leaf! Those banana leaves are amazing, by the way. And I love the passion flower, too. You're definitely having some religious experiences wandering among all your plants!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love that space ship of a flower. That is one of the most amazing things I have seen lately. I hate bras, too. It's all I can do to wear a heart rate monitor. Too much stuff around the ribcage!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Re Unitarians - oh, there were always only biscuits here. Hmm.

    I liked the thinking they do, it's stimulating and entertaining. In truth, they're very Protestant. Some people like community and ritual, I guess?
    I wanted to get married in a church (seeing as the alternative was a registry office), and I've no regrets about that. I liked the minister a lot. I liked the readings people brought, I found there to be wisdom and kindness there. I wouldn't embrace it as a way of life, but it doesn't ask you to. They do meditation meetings. They do a fair bit of cultural education, I guess? It's a good half way house if you're someone who doesn't want to reject it altogether? I dunno. I like it. I don't go, though, as it's too far away now. And on Sunday morning, and all.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Found your blog not too long ago and I must say I am enjoying your posts soooo much. Really, they make me smile, they make my day and with every one that I read I think how much I would probably enjoy having a real live conversation with you. Too bad I'm way up in the Great White North (Canada). Please keep doing what you do, your honesty refreshes me and keeps me smiling all day !!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I like the bebop music at the AME country churches. They have a rollicking good time at funerals even. But other than the occasional burying, I don't go to church. I think that the boat is a kind of church for me. It comes the closest anyway.

    ReplyDelete

Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.