Song of Innocence... Morning

Morning creeps with long, grey fingers into my bedroom. The approaching day is still invisible and promises nothing. It hovers mysteriously between heaven and earth. I eavesdrop on its murmurs,
Its reluctant rebirth from darkness to the slowly awakening shadows shaping the new day.
I stretch and snuggle deeper under my soft and warm doona. I remain inert, faintly I hear my mother in the kitchen, the busy clutter and chink of cutlery and china arranged quickly for breakfast. My mind fastens on the day ahead, my favoured day of the week because the school library will be open.
I can already anticipate the familiar smell of beeswax, the mustiness of old books and tiny specks of dust settling. The shelves are packed with books ready for me to release all the treasures of a different magical world. My mind lingers on the books I will borrow something unfamiliar exotic tantalising my imagination.
Villas in pink and vanilla washes dozing under a hot sun nestled in gardens fragrant with the scents of exotic flowers with marvellous names like jasmine and frangipani.
Delicate butterflies, silky flecks with papery, brittle wings in the hues of rainbows dance and flirt in the balmy air.
Palms their massive, leafy fronds rustling, softly sighing, and whispering come! Silvery sands hiding treasures of ancient lands. A sea dramatic and secretive eternally conquers her shores. My heart lurches and squeezes makes funny little jumps I long so much to embrace this world.
The voice of my mother startles me. My hands outstretched to reach, my eyes open, it is Saturday morning.
Copyright T.S.

TODAY'S FLOWERS

Epiphyllum;

Epiphyllums are flowering now in my garden;

(please click on pictures to see details)

Epiphyllum ("upon the leaf" in Greek) is a genus of 19 species of epiphytic plants in the cactus family (Cactaceae), native to Central America. Common names for these species include orchid cacti and leaf cacti, though the latter also refers to the genus Pereskia.
The stems are broad and flat, 1-5 cm broad, 3-5 mm thick, usually with lobed edges. The flowers are large, 8-16 cm diameter, white to red, with numerous petals.

The fruit is edible, very similar to the pitaya fruit from the closely related genus Hylocereus, though not so large, being only 3-4 cm long.

Epiphyllums are very popular house plants, with numerous hybrids and cultivars produced. In fact, the term epiphyllum is commonly used to refer to these hybrids.

Wikipedia

For more Flowers please go to http://flowersfromtoday.blogspot.com/

Photos T.S.

Song of Innocence;

I have a quixotic streak. I am impulsive and sentimental. It was always there a belief and a longing for the fantastic. I rally my senses; I want to be released from this impractical and idealistic pact.
I, was born while a war was in the making. War, the word mentioned every day. To me it was an offensive word, with a threatening, painful sound spoken in hushed voices. Still people like to talk about war. They like war stories, war songs and war movies. Nothing reflects so much glory as a well-fought war. Medals glitter on proud breasts, and the dead lay dead. The word war will always be with us, we won’t get rid of it, it hangs on to mankind glittering and winking in its immoral purpose goes round and round in a never ending circle.
Before the war, after the war rings in my ears. It sounds like thunder, like the perpetual crashing of waves onto the shores of all the oceans.
The survivors are resilient. Hope is their key to everything. When they had a bad turn they recover, look forward to better days. They never give up, and start again it is in their nature. A survival moving force that is face to face with a moving force of power and destruction. Man the inventor of war.
In my veins circulates the blood of Europe. It is unruly, it pulses and broods and leaves my body shivering hot and cold, when I want it to be peaceful and sedate.
My mother, blue eyes in a broad face her mouth wide and generous. Her heritage goes back to central Europe, to the mountains and the rivers the vast, green plains under a changing, open sky without horizon.
My father, a proud man with good looks, mild, golden eyes and olive skin, dark haired, a reminder of the Romans when they marched over the Gotthard. He is a shy man, an atheist; he utterly dislikes the military and also authorities of Governments that hang around in idleness in puffed up self-importance.
I am an only child. For the most part I am left to my own devices. My Mother and my father are both working. I love my mother and I am sure she loves me too. Yet I do not confide in her. I am not invited to talk to my mother about matters of my body and neither do I talk about matters of my soul. She does not hug or kiss me but sometimes she slaps me, when she is tired and has no time for my tantrums what she calls it when I want to talk and find out things.
My father takes me for walks up into the hills and the woods. In spring I collect armfuls of soft blue, delicate flowers called “Leberbluemchen” and bunches of Lillie of the Valley. I must be careful not to tear out the roots because then there will not be any flowers to pick next year, says my father. We always go to the place where a badger lives. It is a little hill thick with trees, where he has made his hole quite well hidden. I always look into the darkness but I can only see just the entrance. He teaches me to shoot with a small but powerful rifle with a beautiful silver engraved stock. It is a poacher’s rifle because he can fold it together and hide it in the inside pocket of his jacket. He does not use the rifle for poaching so; he likes its sleekness and because he thinks it is very neat.

Copyright: T.S. Photo: T.S.

TODAY'S FLOWERS;

I am posting Native Flowers of Australia;

Varigated Westringia (Coast Rosemary is the common name.)

Callistemon (Pink Bottlebrush.)

Bottlebrush (Callistemon) is a genus with 34 species of shrubs in the family Myrtaceae. The majority of Callistemon species are endemic to Australia; four species are also found in New Caledonia. They are commonly referred to as bottlebrushes because of their cylindrical, brush like flowers resembling a traditional bottle brush. They are found in the more temperate regions of Australia, mostly along the east coast and south-west, and typically favour moist conditions so when planted in gardens thrive on regular watering. However, at least some of the species are drought-resistant. Wikipedia

For more TODAY'S FLOWERS go to:

http://flowersfromtoday.blogspot.com/

Copyright:T.S.

Photos T.S.

Money...

"You don't put robbers to work in a bank" - American Proverb


I hate banks. They do nothing positive for anybody except take care of themselves. They're first in with their fees and first out when there's trouble." - Earl Warren (American Republican Politician and Judge, 1891-1974)





A little satire about Money;
It was told, it was Eve (naturally a female) who seduced Adam to eat from the forbidden apple and created in doing so the ills of the world.
I rather think it was like that.
There was the Land of Utopia. The land where milk and honey flowed. People from all makes flocked there and lived in harmony together. They respected each other and their individual peculiarities. They bartered their wares and worshiped their gods in mutual respect. They greeted each other: How is your god today?
One morning something changed everything. A man (naturally a man) sat at the table eating his breakfast. A lamb chop on his plate which he pushed away. Wife, he called, listen I have eaten chops every day I want something else. His wife said; We have so many chops left I have to cook them or they go bad. I wanted to barter them but nobody wants chops.
Sitting at the table he thought about that. Suddenly, with a glint in his eyes he stood up, paced up and down and finally locked himself into the parlor.
Nobody saw him on the streets, not even his wife knew what he was doing.
From a piece of paper he cut out rectangles, wrote on top “I trust in my god” and the number 100. After many days he emerged, happy and with a light step he carried a sign, which he nailed onto his front door.
It read BANK in capital letters. Naturally all the people came and wanted to know what this was all about. He was ready. They all thought what a splendid idea. Each left with a handful of paper money.
He, the banker has already become a rich man. ( bankers usually are.) The people had their house, their work, their business, their children, anything worthwhile mortgaged to him. Now a lot of activity started. Everybody was very busy; it was like a new life had come upon them. They did not greet each other with “how is your god today; now they said how much money did you make yesterday. This way of life went on for years and years .Some became very rich, some rich, some a little rich, some stayed poor and some very poor. As richer they became as greedier they were. With their money they could now buy anything and anybody. They became very powerful.
The people honored and bowed deepest to the ones who owned the most money and power. As most people like to be honored and bowed to it was a great money making fair.
Everybody wanted to be in this game. It was like a sickness, it spread and consumed everybody. Nothing else was important. They lost their ideals. They lost love and romance. They lost their love for animals. They even lost their love for their children; there was no time for them anymore. They lost their love for nature, their very environment.
It was exploited for money and became a dumping ground for filth, a trash can.
As time went on their world became like an apple which starts to rot in the middle. On the outside it still looks fine. Nobody can see or suspects the brown rotting mess inside There were faint cries for help that nobody in earnest acknowledged or answered.
When the cries get louder they are quickly subdued.
By creating enemies to be feared; to feel anxiety on account of some expected evil. It lets the people forget everything else in their created patriotic frenzy. The rot still spreads over boundaries, rivers and oceans.
It depresses me and I shiver. I do not want to think about it now, perhaps TOMORROW.
Copyright T.S.


Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace": Charles Sumner

No Trees, No World;

No trees, No world,
The soil is naked, burned and red;
The trees all gone,
Hacked down and dead.
No shadows,only bleaching sun;
The creatures too their course has run.
Milky blossoms are no more,
Caressing the air with balmy scents,
A deadly quiet world expands.
Cpyright T.S.

Native rain forest tree in my garden; (Tag with name got lost.)

Driveway up to the house along the orchard;

Native Frangipane tree; Hymonosporum Flavum. Every Year I look forward seeing this tree in flower. It is a sight to behold. This is a very tall tree. It is covered in gorgeous sweetly scented yellow white flowers.

Please click picture for a better view.

Reading;

Seed;

I am reading a book called "The Lost City" by Henry Shukman. Published 2007.

I am not writing a review. I am not making a judgement, as books are a highly personal thing what one likes to read. The books I adore you might think, are utterly boring or just not your cup of tea!

I like this book and I am only quoting: Gripping, vivid and hauntingly beautiful.

It starts with a poem by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden came to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Voltaire

"So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men" : Voltaire.