We have a small orchard at Bogota, with dwarf pear and apple trees. The orchard is flanked by crabapples and a few ornamental cherry trees, with a glorious “Snowball” Viburnum bush nearby. This collection consists of apple, crabapple, Yoshino cherry and Kwanson cherry blossoms, and the fluffy white heads of one of my favorites: the […]
One of my very favorite flowers is the peony. It makes a wonderful photographic subject due to the intricacy of the blossom and subtle shades of color. The blossom is beautiful at many stages of its opening. All of these peonies came from my mother’s peony garden at Bogota, our family property. Some were taken […]
Along with the “Snowball” viburnum blossom, few native spring flowers are as gorgeous as the iris or as delicately lovely as the apple blossom framed by its leaves and the curving branches of the apple tree. While the apple blossoms are short-lived, and must be photographed within a few days time, the irises in our […]
These hothouse roses were photographed against the sky on a clear sunny day at Bogota, our property near Port Republic. The photographic conditions were perfect: early spring weather with no humidity and a magnificent blue sky with wispy clouds.
I live in an old Southern plantation home (“Bogota”) built back in 1845, a few miles from Port Republic, Virginia. My parents spent many years restoring the home, preserving the original condition as best they could. Most of these roses (hothouse roses, not grown on our property) were photographed in our double-parlor or in the […]
I have always been fascinated with still life painting and photography, for which fruits are wonderful subjects. Pears have subtle colors and a very appealing shape. And apples are iconic images of the earth’s health and vitality. All of the featured apples and pears came from our small orchard at Bogota, our family property in the […]
The delicate haiku in Rebecca Lilly’s A Prism of Wings are vivid in detail, fascinating in philosophy, accurate in science, and gorgeous in coloration. The same can be said for the full-color illustrations that illuminate the book. If you weren’t one before, you will be an aficionado of butterflies and moths when you put down […]
This sequel to Rebecca Lilly’s lovely collection of butterfly haiku, A Prism of Wings, is another triumph, combining philosophy, botany, and poetry in ways that allow us to share the author’s emotional and intellectual joy in the wildflowers we all too often take for granted or know little about. This is a book which will open […]
Ego is your mind-based sense of self. Inherently dualistic, the ego is founded on a distinction between what ‘I’ am and what ‘I’ am not, and it maintains itself by desiring (pulling towards itself) what supports that ‘I’ and resisting (or pushing away) what threatens it. All psychological suffering comes from this dual movement of […]
The Insights of Higher Awareness offers in-depth, but concise, explanations of essential spiritual truths thought to be common to all religions and spiritual paths, as well as practical guidelines on spiritual growth. The book is both a combination of theory and practice, founded on the premise that spiritual growth is a matter of deepening awareness, […]
