Welcome spring!

March 20, 2019March 19, 2019 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

It’s not yet warm enough for New Englanders to return to the outdoors quite like this, but we’re feeling the stirrings. Many of the Boston Revels’ performances celebrate the changing seasons, and the annual Spring Sing concert just took place in the United Methodist church in Watertown, Massachusetts. This scene with Mother Goose preparing to float toward the stage is from last fall’s equinox RiverSing in the Herter Park amphitheater along the Charles River in Allston.

The kids in the procession were lots of fun. We had two excellent children’s choirs participating.

I’d still take the room atop the tower

March 10, 2019December 8, 2018 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

I can easily imagine a large extended family like Cassia’s living in a big house like this. Throw in a constant array of guests, too. If it were only pink, like the one in my novel What’s Left!

A view over the barn

February 17, 2019December 8, 2018 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

There are days our world awakens to this.

Light-cicles

February 3, 2019December 8, 2018 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Kitchen floor pattern

January 27, 2019December 8, 2018 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Didn’t mean to take this shot, but I do rather like it. The black-and-white diamonds are a remnant of floor covering from when we remodeled the bathroom.

Fresh snow in our driveway

January 20, 2019October 19, 2018 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

And we still don’t have a snowblower. It’s all shoveling by hand.

Lamprey River Band

January 13, 2019October 18, 2018 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

This country dance band has been together since 1983, performing principally in the Seacoast Region of New Hampshire. Its first-Thursday-of-the-month New England contradances in Dover’s city hall welcome sit-in musicians and guest callers. That event started out in a neighboring town as band practice … and if the band was practicing, so could the callers … and if they were calling, why not have dancers? It’s a great event, and beginning dancers are always welcome.

Winter windows

January 6, 2019October 19, 2018 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Our landscape’s gone monochrome. Here’s the view from inside.

A FLICK OF THE LEO MANE

July 31, 2018May 5, 2018 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Just a taste of what’s popping up. In case you were looking for a prompt.

~*~

This shift in my wilderness destinations, from mountains to ocean. When did that happen?
The ripening of peaches spurs trips to our favorite pick-your-own orchard a half-hour to our north. More trips will follow for apples.
Maybe I really am an “advocate of living-up-the-world-in-your-own-village,” as one comment chimed.
I do like the concept of transitioning, rather than progressing, with all of its assumptions.
Overheard at Walden Pond: “No, they won’t even get in a car anymore. They ride their bikes everywhere.”
The Wiggly Bridge for hikers beside the York River. One way to get over high tide.
Home Depot workers call their pesticide section the Wall of Death.
So many field notes from spiritual aspiration and practice springing from a muse of fire. The one that’s sometimes scorched me.
My life as a failure. There’s no autobiographical novel to be written on my last 30 years.
A bumper sticker I’d like to create: I’D RATHER BE READING.

~*~

WELCOME TO AMERICA

July 4, 2018May 5, 2018 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my new novel, What’s Left, her mother’s grandparents sail from Patras, Greece, to America in the years just before the First World War. In contrast, her father’s side appears to have farmed the Midwest in the oblivion of forever.

In observance of Independence Day, here are images from the Library of Congress in homage to those immigrants who arrived in that period by way of Ellis Island in New York Harbor.