Some time passes

I want to pay tribute to a life lived.
To a mother's heart.
To the heart's brokenness.
To memory kept alive.
To stories told.
To the island that waits.

I pay with tears.
With my friend heart.

With love.
Always with love.

Pair of Albino Ravens

2010 begins with gifts from Nature.  One in particular was a surprise on Tuesday, January 12th.
The sky was blue.  I heard the wings and voices of ravens behind me.  When I turned around
and looked up to see them in flight, there were two flying side by side. White! They flew
over me and into the cedar trees.

It took a while to research the incidence of albinism in ravens and crows.........and the locations.  Someone suggested that I alert the Whidbey Island Audubon Society, and I did. The next evening they had their meeting. One of my housemates attended and said that they announced the sighting at the meeting....and that the announcement was met with disbelief and dismissiveness. I'm not a "birder," and the experts did not observe it, so it must not exist. I wish the experts would tell me what I saw and heard!  Another friend - and Island Woman - suggested that perhaps the pair of ravens had spiritual significance and were meant only for me.  I finally found an image, similar to what I witnessed, by Canadian photographers on Vancouver Island, who I credit (www.redtailsphotography.ca):

More from Shirley Jantz

Let us open our doors
to the songs of Nature

Expose ourselves to the Quiet Divine where it's now unthinkable ~
amidst board meetings, lectures, research, policy-making

Schools of thought ~
come bare to the sensuous outdoors

How would it be to listen to the Earth's Love
and shine it back to the skies...

For what are rites of passage
without the Cosmos and the Wisdom within

Be Daring! Bodacious even!

Come... Run naked with the Sacred
and let the World come Alive

Shirley Jantz
and this Old Earth



Shirley Jantz
T'ai Chi, Qigong,
�� and Foot Reflexology for Wellness

From Shirley Jantz -

Digital Image, Moon Over Saratoga Passage, by Ann Johnson



Awakened by Poetry

Full moon stirrings
nudge this creative mind

Images from day, dancing across flannel,
resting on feather pillow

Let me sleep, I beg
but the words keep arising

One poem, then another
A muse beneath the sheets
tickling my fancy with phrases

Who can resist these writer’s temptations?
A Lover knows not how
heart acquiescent, eyes softly open

Hand dreamily reaches for an instrument

Shirley Jantz
October 2009

*************

Ode to Autumn

Agh! look out below!
Walnuts being whirled from telephone wires
by determined Crows cracking shells upon pavement,
chasing tasty morsels downhill, as if for entertainment

Up! hands sheltering head ~
Robins every which way in a feeding frenzie
Discovering succulent tall tree berries
I wonder, should there be more caution
when flying while intoxicated?

Oh dear, deer and more deer
reaching for Gravensteins
while regal Stellar Jay repeatedly buries peanuts
where potatoes once lay,
soon to be undone by squirrels who become acrobatic
in a game of nut chase

Turning gaze from the festivities outside
to find one last large zucchini ~ waiting
“Later,” I say, with a sigh of satisfaction, a grin of gratitude
wide across my face, having recently completed
apple custard, crumble, sauce & slices
After all, these too, are a few of my favorite things

What a sight, we creatures of nature,
me in my apron, they in their glory
harvesting this bodacious bounty
Delighted in merriment, savoring the feast ~
soon to be settling in for a long winters snack

Shirley Jantz
October 2009

Discoveries - Dark of the Moon & Solar Eclipse

Digital Images by Ann Johnson

Fluid Summer

Digital Images by Ann Johnson

Go Slowly


Some would say
I should hurry,
move quickly,
time’s a-wasting

The conscious decision
to attend
requires
Not-Quite-Slow-Motion,
entering time differently.

The summer opens up
new knowings:
a soft flutter of bee’s wings kissing my hand,
a conversation with a preening crayfish
following a rainstorm,
bird voices tuning a morning meadow,
stained-glass chambers of light
in a sunflower leaf.

If hurrying, I would have missed
twin fawns playing
before my interview in the park.

If distracted in thought,
I would have missed the
waving pinchers of a roan stag beetle.

If too engaged elsewhere,
I would have missed
raindrops on strands of grass,
the iridescence of the beetle
sipping from wet globes.

Join me at this pace
in silence,
in unity,
in witness.

Robin's Entry

June 15, 2009
Five days until the summer solstice. These days leading to summer are what I live for the rest of the year, sad to say. Here on the island, the lengthening days, the cool evening shadows, the birds that wake me at 4:30 a.m., the doors and open windows, the cats and the dog in and out at their leisure – yes, this is a bit of paradise.

Today I sit at my computer rummaging through books to find citations for a paper on the mythopoetic adolescent – Homer, Melville, Morrison, epics and poetry. On the stereo a bit of world music, a bit of a French ballad, and every now and then Mary Chapin Carpenter’s pop country play as accompaniment. The maple tree just outside the window here at my desk is fully leafed out, gloriously green in her raiment. An island story says that about 50 years ago, I think, a local woman went around the south end of the island planting maple trees. I like to believe that this beauty that keeps my close company was one of hers. I know the time of year by watching the maple tree.

Beginning in March, I am always impatient to begin potting up plants and putting new perennials in the garden. Our last frost date is April 15, however. To plant any earlier is a bit of a waste of time. The plants simply sit quiet, not unfurling their leaves or putting out any hint of a blossom until it is warmer. May is a good time to plant. This year I have potted up nasturtiums which I love as do the rabbits and the aphids. I have some trailing violet-like flowers, variegated ivy, dianthus in hot and pale pinks – the rabbits love them all. I actually still have pansies from last fall still blooming, despite our snowstorms and freezing rains this winter. In the garden I have added some lady’s mantle because its leaves make such beautiful saucers for rain, hollyhock that I hope shoots up to the stars, more golden oregano, more thyme, and every year I have more columbine finding a bit of ground to claim. I can’t have too much columbine. It’s even growing in the old cedar tree trunk in the middle of the garden.

Through the long days of winter, I fret, whine, and drag myself through the days. They are difficult. I try to appreciate each day, not take myself out of the present moment by wishing for it to pass. But winters on Whidbey for me are very hard. I can get through them knowing that summer comes – inevitably, always. I am grateful and then pray that the earth will spin a bit slower so that I can soak these days into my skin, into my cells, so I carry light into the darkness when it comes again.

Welcome Summer. Well come.