Category Archives: Nature

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Halloween

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At the Botanical Gardens
Enjoying the warm sunshine and a glass of wine at the vineyard in the Botanical Gardens

Last weekend I spent a day at the Botanical Gardens with my new friend, and fellow-teacher, Sybil. Coincidentally, Sybil is from South Carolina so we automatically have a lot in common! The weather has just been spectacular here in Prague for weeks, so I have taken every advantage of it by spending most of my free time in the outdoors. I have heeded the warnings of everyone that when November comes, it will be cloudy and cold most days. But this particular Sunday could not have been more perfect! See for yourself.

  • Sybil gets credit for this gorgeous tree shot

Tonight Sybil and I are going to do Halloween right- we are going on a ghost tour of Old Town including the old Jewish ghetto and cemetery. The cemetery dates back to the first half of the 15th century. Approximately 12,000 tombstones have been counted here, but about 100,000 people are buried here! I will share more about the old Jewish ghetto of Prague in a later post. I can’t think of a better place to see a ghost, can you?!

Happy Halloween from Prague

Swing to the Jazz of Spring

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With Spring just arrived, and in honor of National Poetry Month, The BohemianFreethinker is delighted to introduce Wilmington poet and photographer Marie-Claire Lander, and to share with you a selection of her previously unpublished poems and photos.

tulips

Swing to the Jazz of Spring

Rouge, blush, orange…
Tousled petals
Jostle in the breeze
Cheek to cheek.

Swing to the jazz
Of spring, heads bowed
To the rhythm of the wind,
Tulips dance, lanky and tall.

Crowned heads will soon shed
Their lipstick red,
Gushing yellow,
Brazen pink, and pious purple…

But for now
They can rest easy
On their green sepals,
Pedestal of spring

white blossoms

First in Bloom

Ah, the honor
Of being first
To bloom!
The first splash
Of blush
In the whole drab world.
Cleome Hassleriana,
Can I call you Spider Flower?

Your sisters will join you soon,
But for now, you swoon
And caress the air
With your smug pink corolla
Just because…
You know that only the first
Bloom counts,
Like the first kiss
Of spring.

daffodil1-e1522857098148.jpg

Petal Alphabet

I don’t speak daffodils
Or dogwood.
I’ve never learned
The petal alphabet.

Would it go something like this?
Azaleas
Blooms
Chrysalis
Daffodils
Elderflowers
Fields
Garnered
Hills
Jasmine
Kniphofia
Lantana
Magnolia…
All the way to…
Zinnia, Elegant Liliput Mix.

I am not fluent by any means
But I speak bud a little,
Blossom occasionally,
Delight, always.

heron.jpg

Heron

Still,
In the presence of the wind,
Cold
But stoic.
Life as a heron
Is heroic.
When the only defense
Is mere fluff and feathers,
A passive wait is the only way.
Still,
You remain,
Let the air ruffle you at will
As if it didn’t matter,
As if warmth came
From a wisp of hope
And wishful thoughts.
Still,
You remain tranquil
For so long the wind winds down
to the occasional ripple
and deserts the creek.
The taunting is over.
Still,
You stand your muddy ground,
One stalk-like leg steeped in muck,
The other tucked in.
Acrobatic feat,
Singular triangle-like stance,
A balancing act
Stilled to perfection.

airlie fountain

Airlie Gardens, Wilmington, NC

A native of Anjou, France, Mrs. Lander received her Bachelor of Arts in English from the Université Catholique de l’Ouest. Her sense of adventure led her to New Zealand where she studied at Auckland Teachers College and began teaching French in high schools. It was while in New Zealand, that her first poems were published in the University Journal.
She now resides with her husband Hal in Wilmington, NC where she continues to pursue her life long passions of poetry, nature photography, and French translation.

All photography and poetry copyright Marie-Claire Lander 2018. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

 

Winter Gets Down to Business

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Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

In January, winter really gets down to business. Just ask any of us here on the east coast, from Florida to Maine, who endured last week’s vicious attack of ice, snow and obscenely cold temperatures. We are just now emerging from our dens with a shaky confidence that life above ground will go on.

Listening to NPR, I learned that we were the victims of a Bombogenesis, an apocalyptic- sounding, meteorological term for when the barometric pressure drops steeply in a short period of time and so creates a “bomb cyclone.” Indeed it felt like a bomb, disrupting life wherever it hit.

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Photo by Nathan Wolfe on Unsplash

Now, everyone experiences a bombogenesis in her or his own way. As for me, icy roads are my kryptonite. I feel a sudden onset of paralysis and can’t leave home. Apparently, so too, do most Southerners. At the mere threat of inclement weather schools close before the first snowflake falls, sometimes as early as a day before. This same rationale grounded garbage trucks from their rounds last week, prohibited the mail from delivery, and left many businesses shuttered early.

To non southerners this behavior may seem paranoid, ridiculous and downright silly but I think it’s actually pretty ingenious. Southerners just know how to nuance a snowstorm better than anyone else. We have an unspoken but tacit agreement amongst ourselves that it’s okay to cancel all sorts of activities using the weather as an excuse to play hooky, and not just from school. There is a collective sigh of relief when the team practice, the

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Photo by Alex on Unsplash

book club, and the church committee meeting are all suspended until further notice too.

Because modern life is a sea of constant activity, we adults long for a chance to stop and rest. An opportunity to come in from the cold, to acknowledge and respond to our primitive instinct to hibernate in winter. Forecasts of snow and ice provide an excuse to stay home, to withdraw from the outside world and to draw near to the warmth of our own hearth. Witness the people all rushing to the grocery store to buy not only the obligatory bread and milk, but the hot chocolate, the wine, the popcorn. We are all planning and hoping to be captives in our respective dens and we want the larder well stocked.

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Photo by Teddy Kelley on Unsplash

And, if only for a few brief days, we want to enjoy the satisfaction that comes from a good excuse to cancel school and other obligations and just stay home and sit by the fire.

 

ILLUMINATION

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It is the season of illumination. Photo by Lena Orwig on UnsplashIn every town, large and small, on land and on sea, on foot or by car, through historic houses, gardens and even battlefields, you can experience a candlelight or electric light tour sure to get you in the Christmas Spirit. If the tour is by purchased ticket, they sell out weeks in advance. If it is open to the public, like our town’s Holiday Flotilla along the inland waterway, you must set out hours in advance in order to navigate traffic, parking and jostling crowds to claim a vantage point. As one advertisement for the Flotilla read, “80,000 people can’t be wrong!”

What feeling, or emotion is everyone seeking to experience through these hugely popular events? I believe the answer lies back in time and in our communal humanity. Photo by Davidson Luna on UnsplashThe appeal of light in darkness is as great with modern Peoples as it was with our Neolithic ancestors who celebrated the Winter Solstice. With the onset of winter, with it’s shorter days and longer nights, we are drawn to the light.

Ancient Peoples may not have understood the science behind the Solstice but they understood that all life depended upon the light of the sun. Taking nothing for granted and assuming nothing as certain, they paid homage to the sun and beseeched its return with rituals and celebrations. Naturally, those rituals revolved around the light of the fire rlm4wq96h_0-chuttersnapwhich symbolized the sun and its life-giving energy. Eventually, Christianity superimposed their Christmas celebrations onto those familiar ones of the Winter Solstice incorporating many pagan rituals of illumination which we still recognize today.

In essence, nothing has really changed except for the multitudinous number of ways we humans can now create light. But the appeal and the sense of well-being light brings us, as we draw near to it, contemplate it, or surround ourselves with it, remains the same. As Moderns we may understand the astrological science behind the Solstice and we may not fear a never-ending winter, but we still feel winter’s cold, especially in a hostile and angry world such as the one in which we now live. Now more than ever we need the warmth and good cheer of colored lights, candles gleaming, and a roaring fire on many a dark night.candle-light

Dear Readers, the Winter Solstice occurs on December 21st for us here in the Northern Hemisphere. On that day be sure to raise your glass and say a word of good cheer for the return of the sun!

One Very Brave Cardinal

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Curious_little_cardinal

By Heather Katsoulis from Southern NH – Vertigo, 

I’m holding my breath. Will he or won’t he? A handsome male cardinal is perched on a low branch near my bird feeder and he seems to be considering sampling the black hulled sunflower seeds that it contains. I recently hung the feeder and have been watching it expectantly for days but have yet to witness any takers. He would be the first, and hopefully an example for other birds to give it a try.

As I watch, he leans forward in lift-off position and makes the short fly-hop over, lighting on the spindly perch. He plucks out a seed and cracks it open with his strong beak, a perfectly designed tool for such a purpose. I can see the little dribble of hulls fall below him. Success! And I’m thrilled!

I pause to think about why this gives me such pleasure, such delight? I guess it’s knowing that I have no power to coerce this beautiful wild creature to take what I am offering. He deigns to accept my hospitality on his own terms, in his own time. In that moment I make one small connection to the Natural World bigger than Humanity. Will he come again? Will others follow suit? I hope so. But in the meantime, it is enough for me to watch and wait.

Dear Readers: Are you a bird enthusiast? Please share your bird watching story here!