Dear Reader:

Look at these beautiful asters…lavender and pink…just gorgeous! Doodle dropped them off yesterday in this adorable basket. So pretty! To top it off we also had a chance to really sit down and talk and catch up on life.

After she left I kept thinking where I had last seen the two colors of lavender and pink blended so beautifully. And then I remembered…the sky Saturday night when we came out of the Oaks restaurant downtown for my birthday dinner. Just beautiful!

 The new moon was edging a little closer to a quarter moon but still everything looked so bright and clean with the sapphire blues and shades of rosy pink Saturday evening. Tonight will be the official quarter moon…the famous crescent and South Carolina flag emblem.

The moon and the colors reminded me of one of Archibald Rutledge’s  (Hampton Plantation owner) stories about new moons and his sharecroppers’s unique tradition each evening of the month) on the evening of the new moon.

No matter what the sharecroppers were doing on Hampton Plantation…as if on one accord…without fail, everyone would fall on their knees in front of the new moon.

It never ceased to move Archibald Rutledge when his workers fell down on their knees in reverence for a new phase of life…blessing the “new moon” and their own presence to see it.

They didn’t take life for granted and they knew how fortunate they were to be seeing another new moon appear…life is fragile… but so beautiful! A gift given by God once a month without fail.

Another religious tradition the sharecroppers observed dealt with a newborn baby’s first outing…the first time the baby went outside the cabin with his mother. As the mother walked towards the door with the child in her arms…she did not walk alone.

Another member of the family,  would start talking to the baby’s spirit, for fear that when it came under its native sky, the soul would suddenly want to return home. So the spirit would be told what a beautiful, joyous and wonderful world this is, in order to reconcile it to its sojourn on earth. 

*When I pictured this scene in my mind…all I could hear was Louis Armstrong singing “It’s a Wonderful World” to the little baby…for me that would be all that was needed to make any infant stay longer on their own personal “earthly sojourn”…and  let heaven wait.

Louis Armstrong – What A Wonderful World (Lyrics) – YouTube

One of the topics Doodle and I discussed yesterday was premised on the CBS Sunday Morning Show. One program was talking about new nature programs targeting baby boomers and retirees…helping them go back to nature to find healing, health, and spirituality. In his book God’s Children Archibald Rutledge realizes the same thing as he contrasts the sharecroppers simple life and religious beliefs against more structured forms of religion.

One night Captain Rutledge was lamenting to his foreman the death of two close friends. The foreman listened in silence, but made no comment…his expression held less sympathy and more disappointment in his Cap’n. Finally he said:

“How Cap’n,” he asked when I had ended my sorrowful tale, ain’t you got no hope?” It was a just rebuke, prompted by a deep religious sense.

“To me it has always appeared that a simple faith is far more natural to people rurally environed than to those amid the artificial palaces of civilization. From the dawn of history shepherds and herdsmen and woodsmen have been natural worshipers. Lying from birth on the ample sweet bosom of nature, nourished at those fragrant breasts, they who are country dwellers never find it hard to sense the nearness and the power and the love of God; whereas the city dweller, surrounded by the work and the power and the imperfections in character of man, are less free to feel God with them. So, at least, it seems to me. “

Doodle and I said that we thought this was the draw for us with our gardens and yards…the yearning to return to nature…the yearning to listen for God among the trees and flowers.

So until tomorrow….

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Every day more signs are popping up showing me that October is knocking on the door. The neighbors have their orange lights strung on the tree, pumpkin patches are popping up everywhere, mums, and autumn signs…

A new home as autumn arrives… filled with beautiful mums and “budding” little boys!