Merci

As I've noted before, I'm a huge believer in birthdays. Shoot, if you're not entitled to one measley day out of every 365 that's all about you, you, you, well, shoot, that would be silly. You won't find me shying away from birthdays, pretending that mine doesn't exist, going, "Oh, no, I'm too old; I don't have birthdays any more." I LOVE birthdays. I love celebrating my friends' birthdays and letting them know how glad I am that they were born. And I love my own birthday, the merely-hours-away Ides of March (my dad swore that I was born yelling Sic semper tyrannis! I like to think that's true).

So you can imagine my delight when I came home this evening and found a birthday gift from Lenore and Bob in Georgia; but, really, you can't imagine my delight until you read the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful book that they sent to me. Gardens for the Soul by Pamela Woods is, I think, one of THE lovliest garden books that I've ever seen, and, as you can imagine, I read a number of garden books. It's imbued with Goddess spirituality and is the witchiest gardening book that I've ever read, and I've read books that purported to be specifically about witchy gardening.

There's a picture of Sternbergia lutea on page 121 that is the emodiment of everything that Rumi tried to write. There's a picture of a germinating seed in damp Earth on page 138 that is everything you've ever thought, or felt, or longed for about Spring. There's a picture of mushrooms and Autumn leaves on page 143 that makes me long, right now, for Autumn, that reminds me why Autumn will always be the time when the veil between Here and Fairy is tissue thin. There's an idea on page 56 that is going directly into the plan for my backyard patio. This is a garden book with a lot of text and I'm looking forward to reading all of it.

So namaste and many thanks to Lenore and Bob for the gift (and the lovely birthday message). I'm going to savor this book for quite some time.