Autumn Color in the Blue Ridge Parkway – Cherokee to Asheville, NC

source link Driving the Blue Ridge Pkwy ©2018 Bo Mackison

follow link The idea is to fit the Parkway into the mountains as if nature has put it there.
~ Stanley Abbott, Landscape Architect for the Parkway

https://menteshexagonadas.com/2024/01/31/8716fzu What a grand day for an autumn color drive! The sun was bright, the trees were in peak colors at the lower elevations, and, surprisingly, the traffic was minimal on a Monday in late October. We were heading to Hendersonville, North Carolina, en route to Patti Digh’s Life is a Verb Camp. (More on camp coming in later posts — it’s my annual recharge!)

https://bakingbrew.com/recipe/jivhzxgx We left the Cherokee Visitors Center in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park around noon and headed south towards Asheville.

Buy Ambien Cheapest Groundbreaking for the 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway was in late 1932, but it was officially dedicated on September 11, 1987, fifty-two years after construction began.

https://www.skipintros.com/photos/98539/pezzreh3qta After President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Virginia’s first Civilian Conservation Corps road building camp where they were building the Skyline Parkway through the new Shenandoah National Park, he approved a similar CCC project, with the intention of creating jobs in the rural areas of North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Zolpidem Online Cheap Blue Ridge Vista ©2018 Bo Mackison

https://www.broommanufacturers.com/2024/01/31/2stq4dx Plenty of opportunity to pause and gaze at the scenic mountains in the distance. It makes for slow travel, but every stop is worth it.

https://feriadelavivienda.co/8eu69v2g73 Log Hollow Overlook ©2018 Bo Mackison

click Trees! Shades of oranges and reds, yellows and browns, with a scattering of evergreen green. Log Hollow Overlook offers a stunning view of Looking Glass Rock, one of the largest masses of granite in the Eastern United States. This rock gets its name from the shimmering mirror effect when sunlight hits its surface after a rainfall.

source link Blue Ridge Parkway ©2018 Bo Mackison

https://nycfoodguy.com/2024/01/31/lwfnvt853 Nearly 200 parking areas and overlooks were incorporated into the Parkway’s deisgn so that motorists could enjoy a leisurely ride through the mountains. The road rises to 6,000+ feet at Richland Balsam Overlook in North Carolina. Up and down and around every curve — beauty!

Ambien Sleeping Pill Online Blue Ridge Autumn Glory ©2018 Bo Mackison

https://ipaxcabinetsdirect.com/uncategorized/eavbo4g We only drove about 70 miles on the Parkway, but it was a leisurely drive — is it possible to have a drive too leisurely on this scenic road? — with many stops at the overlooks and a desert and coffee break at Mt. Pisgah Inn. This inn, at nearly 5,000 ft elevation, is the highest place for lodging on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Imagine how gorgeous is the view from the motel rooms’ balconies! (Sorry, no photos of the Pisgah Inn — we were in a hurry to get to our cabin in Hendersonville by night fall!)

Calling Forth Courage while Contemplating Lessons from Nature

Bridge over Starkweather Creek

click Bridge over Starkweather Creek © 2014 Bo Mackison

https://proventsystems.com/3jfy2fuf “If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

https://www.ipasticcidellacuoca.com/x0679xliku Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused…

go site If I did surrender to the earth’s intelligence?
Surrender to the earth itself, like a seed dispersed in autumns’ winds.

https://www.larochellevb.com/2024/01/31/fu7tz5lbeer And drop upon the earth – dark, dank, ripe. Drop upon the earth
and settle in, as layers of leaves and autumn litter cover me, intact, protected.

Footbridge

https://www.eastcotesignanddisplay.co.uk/79tes69c9t Crossing the Footbridge © 2014 Bo Mackison

https://www.broommanufacturers.com/2024/01/31/yfwilui So like children, we begin again…

Purchase Ambien From Canada to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.”

https://comercialfuentes.com/aj00uv0x ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

go This seed of me, it embraces the darkness
and in the waning light, holding my stories of decay and decline,
enters a period where the only light source is that of inner reflection.

Embraces shadow as darkness makes ready the parts hungering for new life.
Waiting, waiting
in anticipation of unlimited possibilities.

A Country Road Meander — In the Midst of Wilderness, In the Presence of Divine

Door County in Autumn

Tree Line ©2014 Bo Mackison

In the midst of the wilderness, in the presence of the divine.
Perhaps there is nothing astonishing about this meadow with its spattering of seeded sumac
Or a dense tree line that separates the land from the cloudy skies.

Meandering on a country road in the middle of this northern county,
two miles west of Lake Michigan, an endless expanse of water to my eyes
and two miles east of Green Bay, again, with no distant shore in sight,
only a few bay islands splashed by frothing waves, inhabited by seagulls.

Door County in Autumn

Door County in Autumn © 2014 Bo Mackison

Who thought, many decades ago, to say no to billboards, to shopping malls,
to franchises of any kind – no hotel or restaurants, fast food or not,
that represent giant corporations instead of families and local businesses.
Some one did.
You can’t recognize this part of America by familiarity. Only by its neighborliness
and small town pride and heritage.

In the midst of wilderness, in the presence of the divine.

A Time of Fruition, Celebration and Letting Go – Rituals for the Changing Seasons

Bench with a View

Bench with a View © 2013 Bo Mackison

“Ritual practice is the activity of cultivating extraordinary ordinariness.” ~ Ronald L. Grimes

This is the bench where I sat while I contemplated the day, the seasons, nature, my life, the world, even the boundlessness of the universe. I was restless. Untethered. Once again I was facing changes – changing seasons, changes in responsibilities, changes in my business.

It was a time of fruition and celebration, and it also was a time of saying goodbye, letting go, even a bit of grieving.

Realizing this is a common reaction to change — joy coupled with letting go — I sat in solitude and let my mind wander. I decided to create a ritual to recognize both celebration and closure.

I paid close attention to my surroundings.

The prairie grasses were browning, flowers had set seed. The apple trees were over laden with ripened fruit, and many of the apples had dropped onto the earth and begun to rot. Cracked walnuts were along the paths. And still there was evidence of bustling life all around me. Geese were flying in formation, back and forth from their feeding grounds, the harvested cornfields.  The late autumn flowers of the prairie spared from the last frost — showy goldenrod, purple asters, daisy fleabane — still blossomed in protected areas,

That All May Be One

That All May Be One ©2013 Bo Mackison

I searched for a ritual, one that offered a feeling of comfort and acceptance, one that said goodbye while also looking forward.

What could I use as a guide? What would be in a transitioning ritual,  in a healing place?

  • the night sky, dark, abundant with stars
  • open spaces, open minds
  • spiritual spaces, resting spaces, thinking places
  • a container that contained my curiosities, my questions, my collections
  • quiet, slow, peaceful
  • folk art, expressive art, art that tells a story, art that has heart
  • kindnesses and little gifts (When traveling it is customary to bring tiny gifts in exchange for kindnesses received along the path and to those who share their stories.)
  • a place in nature, ecological, in balance
  • a place my great-grandmother would have loved

The last thought — a place my great-grandmother would have loved — helped provide the answer to my longings.

I thought of the many things I’d learned from my great-grandmother when I was a child, of the many things she’d loved. I thought of the changing seasons, of the routines we had made extraordinary in their repetition, chores we did with love and respect and companionship.

We gathered the last of the harvest from the vegetable garden, cleaned and cut the vegetables, and made huge pots of vegetable soup with my grandfather’s help.

We made dough, rolled it out, and cut the dough into long noodles. We dried herbs on racks in the pantry. We raked the garden and added to our compost pile. We pulled the quilts and blankets out of storage, and draped them over several back yard clothes lines to air in the breeze.

Pears

Pears, Ripe on the Branch © 2013 Bo Mackison

We adapted our evening rituals to the sun’s earlier setting.

Instead of sitting on the porch after supper and chatting with passing neighbors, we set up a table in the kitchen for puzzles and games. We fell into a simple routine of cleaning the kitchen, then playing games of Parcheesi or Pokeno. We took an evening walk around the outside of the house just before bedtime, making sure all was tidy while admiring the starlit skies.

So much love and care and honor went into these simple actions. Home and hearth. Routines and rituals – all good for the soul.

Do you long for a way to honor the changing seasons, for the ordinary turned extraordinary by the practice of ritual?

Today I jotted down a few reminders – ways to prepare for the changing season, routines to ease the change from busy day to rejuvenating evening, rituals to remind me of the sacredness in the ordinary. Simple actions – gardening, cooking, preparation for winter.

What might you add or subtract from your day in honor of the ordinary, the sacred?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

This post was adapted from one published on another autumn day just over a year ago.

 

 

Kangaroo Lake in Door County – The Magic of Studying Details, Then Turning Around

Kangaroo Lake

Kangaroo Lake – South View © 2014 Bo Mackison

The mid-October day was mercurial – one moment skies were blue, the next a wave of gray clouds pushed in from nearby Lake Michigan. Blustery winds buffeted me, causing me to lose my balance more than once. Then calm would descend for a brief respite for the wind and chill.

October in Door County, for sure, Wisconsin’s northeastern most point, a peninsula sticking out into tempestuous Lake Michigan.

Kangaroo Lake is one of the more protected places on the peninsula in fresh water lake in the center of Door County, and a wonderful place to go during the autumn festival days. Most of the crowd who comes to enjoy the views hug the shore of Door County, bay side and lake side. But there is much to be said for the wild beauty of the interior, too.

I loved studying the autumn changes of Kangaroo lake, standing on a narrow bridge of road that crosses the northern most bay. Fallen leaves were bobbing on the surface, the reeds were stripped of there green finery and their fuzzy seeds, and stood knee deep in the cold, stunningly blue water. Beyond, fir trees lined one side of the lake, and deciduous trees in this year’s last blaze of glory hugged the opposite side.

Then the sun disappeared in the scattered clouds.

Once I had taken in the scene with all my senses, as is my habit, I turn around to see what is behind me.

Kangaroo Lake

Kangaroo Lake – North View  © 2014 Bo Mackison

And the sun slid from the cloud cover, causing the lake ripples to shimmer in a sheet of dancing light.

A solitary island caught my attention. Birds were darting from the trees to the water and back again. Creatures were slipping in and out of the shadows and the shoreline brush.

Kangaroo Lake — its two faces. Both to be explored and adored.