Pursuit Of Spark

I pushed my hood back to feel the warm sun on my face, and we listened to the windchimes and birds as we sipped our puerh tea.

A woodpecker investigated the bark of the massive maple tree, a cardinal perched in the mulberry, and many more birds celebrated the warmth of this winter morning. I sipped my green tea and listened.

It's been quite a year -- drought in Tuscany this summer, bitter cold now on the US east coast, and that's just what's happened in our gardens! But today in Maggie's Tuscan garden the sun lit up a rose that had just bloomed -- in December! In my garden, the weather was warm enough a few days ago that we finally cut back the irises, and seedheads on my tea tray look just like baby birds waiting to be fed. Maggie and I laughed about what is hanging on, what needs to be pruned, and what we are looking forward to in the new year. Sending love and wishes for a happy, healthy, blooming new year to you! Buon capodanno!

Sat on the porch swing listening to the soft chimes and the snow.

Maggie just returned to Tuscany after a week in Berlin, where her husband Joel Meyerowitz has a photography retrospective. I was eager to hear about her trip -- and also yearned for her wisdom about where we might find hope in the winter garden. The morning's frost on the fields outside her window gave us both inspiration, as did a poem Maggie keeps on her desktop, by Pablo Neruda: I sat in the garden spattered by the great drops of winter, and it seemed to me impossible that beneath all that sadness, that crumbled solitude, the roots were still at work with no one to encourage them. Photo for this episode by Joel Meyerowitz. You can find out more about Joel's retrospective here: http://www.howardgreenberg.com/news-and-views/review-joel-meyerowitz-retrospective-at-c-o-berlin

The wind was blowing, but the last few leaves were holding on tight.

As we finished our sencha we were treated to front row seats to the leaf ballet when a gust of wind sent maple leaves into the air.

Tea on the porch in late afternoon sunlight, watching a late ladybug.

Stole a few minutes for tea before diving back into preparations for tomorrow.

The wind picked up the leaves on the table and flung them all away, except for one.

I reached Maggie in her Tuscan attic studio on a late fall afternoon, and if you listen closely towards the end you can hear a riot of birds outside her window. Both our gardens spent the past several months longing for rain.

Friends sent a photo of late fall flowers in a vase I had made for them, which inspired me to pick a few of what's left in our garden while the teapot heated up.

A beautiful fall morning, green tea, crickets, and family.

The much needed rain made a lovely sound as we sipped our tea.

The volunteer asters beside the tall grasses could be called weeds, but they are still beautiful.

The magnolia seedhead offers daily beauty, change and strangeness for my tea.

Cool air, warm tea, and magnolia seeds beginning to swell

A grasshopper took shelter from the rain on our front porch, and so did we.

Tea this morning from two new little pots, pinched with love.

The layers of clouds on my gray celadon yunomi echoed the cloudy sky, and my eye was drawn to the vivid pop of zinnias on a gray day.