Faces Light Up for Us

This holiday weekend, as we host my family members, I feel blessed by all their bright, smiling faces...

...just like those of the flowers we admired during our walk together after dinner.

Faces light up for us every day to remind us that their love for us is unconditional.

The Color Pink Awakens Us

Today I took a Monotype (Art) Workshop in the peaceful surroundings of Doe Orchards in Harvard, where I felt inspired to paint pink flowers such as these from Puerto Rico.

Walking along my neighborhood afterward, it was miraculous to find pink as the prominent color in almost every shrub and plant I came across. My eyes feasted on hot pink geraniums...

...pink knockout rose, with its inviting fragrance...

...pink rhododendrons...

...pink heather of sorts (my guess)...

...pink azalea...

...and hot pink azalea, among many other pink flowers. The color pink abounds and awakens us with its beauty.

All Life Flourishes

Today I was pleased to discover the Margaret C. Ferguson greenhouses at Wellesley College.

Among the flora in the Tropical House, I encountered bird of paradise, banana, mango and papaya trees, coffee and pineapple plants, and sugar cane growing right here in Massachusetts...

...and little nooks like this one where I sat and easily imagined myself in Puerto Rico.

All life flourishes when the time is taken to first understand it and then to tenderly cultivate it.

Freedom Awaits

Today, as I hiked the Acorn Trail at Great Brook State Park, I gave my attention to the weeds. 

Dandelions, ragwort, buttercups and bluets made quite a scene as they covered whole fields en masse.

As I walked alongside these little flowers, I felt wild and free.
"All good things are wild and free."~Henry David Thoreau