Some time you wake in the morning and you are cranky and blue, maybe you haven’t had much sleep…but the dogs will NOT allow a morning without walk, rain or shine and yesterday was rain. They started on the crest of the hill, an unusual place as they are usually in a shady cove, a feminine place. Then I remember we had a big women’s gathering in this very spot many years ago and it is full of feminine energy.

And every patch that I had been watching over the last month grew exponentially overnight…areas as big as my living room covered with their spiraling beauty, caressing every plant within range…this was abundance like I have never seen…this was beauty like I had never seen…this was joy like I had never felt. I know that this is a once in a lifetime event, that the conditions are perfect and only occur a handful of times a century. I call my neighbor and tell her she has to get out here before they close their faces in the day.

I usually don’t pick them, but there were so many that I did, and wrapped them around my neck like a lei and breathed them in and beed with them and I even took a selfie because I knew the bloom would fade quickly now…and by the time I got home and put them in water they had all retreated to get to the business of propagation.

Here is my new self-portrait, one that I will use when I am supposed to provide a picture of myself…I have for many years provided the shadow pictures that used to be and currently are the banner to this blog, because I really have been and felt like a shadow…but…maybe I am ready to show my face and maybe the morning glories will whisper how…to shine even a fraction of the joy that they bless this morning with…I am in their debt forever.

And a fat toad that played in the rain yesterday:

And a dear friend that has fallen in the last few days having drunk too much rain and gotten too top heavy. She will linger and feed the desert for a while yet, but soon her mutated beauty will fall back into the earth:

And this awesome cross in the sky the other morning: