The king sparrow
Today seems like such a liminal day. Halloween is over and suddenly the red cups have arrived at Sbux...you know what I mean? Nov 1st seems to the the start of the Christmas season, but to me it feels like it's being pushed ahead of its time. But we are standing on the threshold, aren't we?Does anybody feel like that?Boy it's dark outside! The time's changed and suddenly there's no daylight. But happily, Robert and I no longer have to try to adjust our schedules (daylight savings ended a week ago in England and it always throws our day off.)I took this photo in the middle of the afternoon.
It stopped tipping it down for about 15 minutes just after lunch and so I took a walk to the international magazine and newspaper store about a mile away. I stayed looking at some wonderful French house porn and British garden porn magazines, and by the time I walked out of the store, it was tipping it down again.
But you know what's so fantastic about the rain? The tannins in the fallen leaves leave beautiful natural eco prints of leaf shadows all along my walk.Back home there is no way to coax Morgan out on a day like today. She's such a girly cat and even hates a dew, let alone a November monsoon, but the nice thing is that she loves to cuddle.
And I've done something...which I might come to regret...I've signed up for that Nano-poblano thing, and I'm planning on writing a blog post/day all thru November. My reasoning is that I'll paint, I'll photograph and I'll write if there's pressure for me to do that. I love deadlines. Nothing like deadlines to get me going.So, in honour of this liminal space, I've spent the afternoon in the studio and painted a sparrow, the commonest of all sparrows, a house sparrow. Yes, he hasn't flown south for the winter, he'll soldier on among the late autumnal leaf litter and the early Christmas finery. I've put him on an old music page from a 1920's song book. It's called Whispering Hope. Hope that the brave sparrow will be alright over winter. It's a dual vocal song to celebrate this liminal space at the ending of one season and the beginning of another. And lastly, I've given him a golden crown. The king sparrow. So that he might guide his bird kingdom until the spring, until the warmth comes again.