2 poems, beekeeping, and a new moon
+ being quiet is just as necessary as being really productive
Today:
being quiet is just as necessary as being really productive
sewing seeds during a new moon
old poets, older poetry
treeplanting in the service of honeybees
There has not much been very much of anything creative happening this week, in my life at least. Successive sicknesses are kind of dragging me down a bit, and I’m just tired. I’m sure you can relate.
So instead, I’ve been letting things percolate in my mind and generally not beating myself up that I haven’t finished all the endless things on my to do list, or the projects that aren’t shipped yet. Doing nothing is as much an act of self care as doing something. Repeat after me: I am not my productivity, I am not my productivity, I am not my productivity……………………..
Sewing seeds during the new moon
Today is the new moon in Sagittarius, so maybe this time of rest is bringing something really quite special (I still don’t really know if I believe in astrology, but hey, why not):
The soul is reborn upon the sun’s shift into Jupiter-ruled Sagittarius; its mutable fires enlighten and enchant us with hope, magic and mystery. King of the Gods and the largest planet in the solar system, almighty Jupiter reminds of that great, big, beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of everyday. - Stylecaster
Old poets, older poetry
Flipping through poetry that’s so old, I’ve forgotten where the drafts were written nevermind who I was when I wrote them :
paper poets I can’t outrun the poets I read first. They scrab to crawl their way, loose, clawing at air, at breath, at light, left over. The litany Who shall say I am not the happy genius of my household? of names is too tedious to speak - attention spans, like t-shirts, are shorter now. Their teeth are silent but in flecks of light they shine. I bit my copy of collected Plath to mark it mine (a pure half-moon in teeth marks) in some misguided youthful flash where we were all altogether (all together?) possible. Poets bide their time. They find me in blank windows, at night, to mouth and mist the glass: The wet centre is bottomless.
ark house
My collections are too many
to mention.
Rocks, traffic crashes,
Business plans.
The history of trees.
Words in a combination
lock whose various constellations
could have changed
the course of history.
Birdsong through the year.
Thin afternoon light
in the electric blue gaze
of my nana
as she lay dying
of leukaemia.
Cinema
ticket stubs, rubbed
to nothing. The diverse
ways to spell my name.
Judgements, impressions
clanking together inside me,
coalescing with age. My stockpile
a survival.
I grow fuller and fuller. I am the moon.
We
age independently, these
anecdotal evidences, split
seconds,
this lonely planet burning
with everyone I’ve ever known
with everyone I’ve ever been.
The bee bee bee bee tree (treeplanting for honeybees)
As I’m a registered beekeeper under the Flemish Ministry of Agriculture, and a member of a recognised ‘bee guild’, I get subsidies - with my guild members - for lots of things, including, this year, to plant specific trees.
We were given a list to choose from (above), and so at last, last night, the waiting ended with us dragging this completely adult tree from the boot of our car. I hadn’t been expecting a fully grown adult tree!
It’s a Tetradium daniellii, known as a ‘bijenboom’: a bee tree. It’s an extremely important plant for the late summer and deserves ample planting in parks, gardens, forest edges.
As a fruiting plant, this tree can easily fill the gap that arises after the linden bloom, thus making an important contribution to the development of healthy winter bees. It’s also called ‘stinkes’, from the German 'Stinkesche': the leaf resembles that of the ash, and the rubbed leaves of the bee tree have an unpleasant smell. Apparently. I’ll bear that in mind and rub NO LEAVES in my garden.
It’s interesting that the Flemish government are granting subsidies to plant these to boost local biodiversity, seeing as the tree I’m planting is actually native of China and Korea, but I’m sure they have their reasons. As a species it was discovered late and only gained attention as a bee plant in the second half of the last century.
(Re)wild Imagination is Jessica Maybury’s digital newsletter focusing on making art as an act of self-care, and local biodiversity empowerment in response to ecological collapse. Feel free to share parts of this letter wherever and with whomever you’d like. If you want to support my work, subscribe to this publication and/or visit the shop. Thank you.
may I ask your opinion on some work I've written. I have very little in the way of money and was wondering if this might be a wise decision to invest my little in subscription here I think one can see my page through the icon on the left atop this post. If you wouldn't mind and you have some time, your opinion would be very valuable to me as I've no one else to ask and again I need to try to make the little I have last as long bas possible. I thank you in advance for your honesty and God bless you either way. Thank you for your time.