Here in my St. Petersburg garden there is plenty of opportunity to observe the sky. A large space in the middle of the garden that previous owners wanted to excavate for a swimming pool was left blessedly untouched. The shells crunch underfoot and monarch caterpillars munch on native milkweeds. They munch and munch down to the bare stem.
Above, sun and clouds and blue sky and sometimes rain. You can almost see the wind on certain days, when the clouds slide across the sky horizon. Sliding. It occurs to me. Weather is the great sliding and mixing of masses of gas in the atmosphere. Their interactions. Their sliding over or under one another or colliding or spinning. Wind carries weather to us like a great big floating show.
Here on the ground. Or more accurately here in the trees or twigs or shrubs or branches, epiphytic orchids hang on and enroll themselves in the day. Their roots dangle or ensnarl or wander. Sometimes they seem in pursuit of resources along a surface and sometimes they appear like webs just to catch moisture and nutrients in the air. The plant bodies, their leaves and stems drape themselves along their woody substrate and seem, like the clouds, to float along the surface.
Being exposed to the elements root, shoot, leaf and flower the orchids seem to be a part of this floating mass of weather and nature. They reflect what’s going on above more profoundly because they must cope with it more assiduously than plants that are packed into pots or posted in the ground by their roots. The orchids are like green yellow clouds, a puff of living material, a changeable form, an effervescence that erupts or goes quiet.
The sky above sets the big stage for life in the garden below. The orchids produce an agency of their own as they claim space on a branch and slowly change it. They influence the air in minute ways by the living sculpted form they build, catching wind and moisture from above and making it their own.
Above, sun and clouds and blue sky and sometimes rain. You can almost see the wind on certain days, when the clouds slide across the sky horizon. Sliding. It occurs to me. Weather is the great sliding and mixing of masses of gas in the atmosphere. Their interactions. Their sliding over or under one another or colliding or spinning. Wind carries weather to us like a great big floating show.
Here on the ground. Or more accurately here in the trees or twigs or shrubs or branches, epiphytic orchids hang on and enroll themselves in the day. Their roots dangle or ensnarl or wander. Sometimes they seem in pursuit of resources along a surface and sometimes they appear like webs just to catch moisture and nutrients in the air. The plant bodies, their leaves and stems drape themselves along their woody substrate and seem, like the clouds, to float along the surface.
Being exposed to the elements root, shoot, leaf and flower the orchids seem to be a part of this floating mass of weather and nature. They reflect what’s going on above more profoundly because they must cope with it more assiduously than plants that are packed into pots or posted in the ground by their roots. The orchids are like green yellow clouds, a puff of living material, a changeable form, an effervescence that erupts or goes quiet.
The sky above sets the big stage for life in the garden below. The orchids produce an agency of their own as they claim space on a branch and slowly change it. They influence the air in minute ways by the living sculpted form they build, catching wind and moisture from above and making it their own.
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