Tag Archives: outdoors

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of the air and water

Great blue herons never look like they are of the earth to me. They look like they are of the air and of the water. Unearthly. I keep wondering if they are angels.

Eagles do not look earthly either. They do land on the beach occasionally but I see them in the air or in the trees most of the time.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: unearthly.

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angels

The Ragtag Daily Prompt is halo, and I wrote this yesterday, after a discussion with a new friend about angels and my angel dream.

______________________________

angels

light angels fall into dark

dark angels fall into light

there is no separation

we are longing for the Beloved

we are longing to be reunited with the Beloved

we have never been separate

we are one

light falling in to dark

dark falling in to light

seeing both is grace

no separation

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sun halo

I search my phone photographs for moon and come up with this photograph: an eerie sun and cloud photograph with a halo. Sometimes the clouds and fog combine with the sun to form frightening light, even though it is beautiful too.

The computer also picked this picture in the moon search. I’m not sure what that is about. Elwha had hopped into the bathtub not realizing that I had just gotten out. He was soaked and howled, because he couldn’t get out. He was a very grumpy kitten, grooming for an hour.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: halo.

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foxglove

The source of digoxin and digitalis. I am interested when people tell me they don’t take prescription medicines and that they only take “natural” medicines. Meaning pills. Pills do not grow on trees or bushes and are made by human beings. How exactly is the person defining “natural”?

My father said that anything a human could think up was “natural”. “Though that does not mean safe.” Think wingsuits and basejumping.

Digoxin and digitalis are used less than in the past, because there are many other medicines to choose from to control heart rate. However, they are still used because digoxin is one of the very few rate controlling medicines that does NOT lower blood pressure. Most of the others do lower blood pressure. When nothing else works or is tolerated, the cardiologist may sigh and say, ok, start digoxin. It is a tricky medicine because levels that get too high are toxic and the dose is different for each person and the dose must be lowered as kidney function changes with age. We still use it, though.

About one third of prescription medicines originate from a plant source like this, where the plant actually makes the active substance. Plants and animals and humans evolved together. We have deer all over town and they do not eat the foxglove. They love roses but stay away from foxglove.

I am seeing advertisements for a book to make your own medicines at home. I have not bought it. I would stay away from any recipe with foxglove: I want a lab to test to get the dose exactly right.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day. Heh, it turned into an essay of the day too. Wordy, wordy, wordy.

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portrait

Sol Duc loves the neighbor’s back steps. I have permission to walk her in their yard. Walking cats is quite different from walking a dog. It’s more following the cat around. Elwha is quite scared of being outside in the day, partly because we live on a busy street and there are all those NOISES. Sol Duc is braver, but tends to stay away from the roads in the daytime. Cats like edges and shadow, except when sunning.

When I walk them in the early dark, they are both much braver. Sol Duc has gone around the whole block. She is annoyed when I won’t let her go under a house or way into a yard where I do not have permission. And she has seen birds and deer and another cat and dogs and other humans! Whew!

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hot weather flower

Yesterday the downtown bank recorded a temperature of 87! And this is after six months of seeing the sun about once every two weeks, and temperatures mostly in the 40s and 50s.

The beaches have been EMPTY. The delightful Salish Sea gets to a high of 55 degrees, so anyone who swims is brave. But yesterday the beaches were FULL again! Tourists and locals, summer is here! The water temperature yesterday was 9 degrees C, which is 48 F. Cold for swimming.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.