Crepuscular gardener

A westward sinking full moon recently peeped over the fence to celebrate the lushness which is currently Cafe Paradiso. Around full moon there’s hardly need for the soft solar lighting which I invested in for the outback this summer. Without the solar lighting, the high privacy fence outback made for very dark pockets where the tall municipal street light which lights the front yard, was shadowed.

With daytime highs sitting in triple digits (over 40 degrees C) now, the best time to be in the garden is the few hours around dawn, with mosquito and gnat repellant liberally applied of course.

After enjoying my morning chai to a soundtrack supplied by the dawn chorus of birds, I have been working this week, both by light of the silvery moon and solar bulbs, laying down paving for the Lizard Lounge.

This is another problem garden area of perpetual north facing chill shadow in winter, then come summer, high heat both direct and reflected, from west facing adobe wall, where some regular readers might remember that I massacred a rose on Workers Day this year. Read that blog post here. As can be seen white briar rose is effecting a robust recovery.

Yes, I left the volunteer sunflower intact. I will fill in that gap in paving at the end of the season.

I lucked out and found a pile of half price cement pavers so paving paradise continues. I am also hoping to pre-empt the possibility of a slip or fall on those rare occasions when the alchemy of rain transforms dust into lethal mud in a few frequently trafficked parts of the outback.

This might not be the final placement for the Mexican metal folkart work which snuck across the border before (if) the taco tariffs kick in, but right now I am loving the dance of multiple shadow monsters cast by another string of solar lights here.

It seems that magnificent mo’o, those shapeshifting spirits of Hawaiian mythology, come out to play in the solar lights.

Lizards/mo’o are one of my favorite totems.

I have made several lizard block print designs which I use regularly.

The pin on my hat or my earrings on market days are highly likely to be a mo’o of some kind or another.

Over the years, I have hoarded quite few pieces of lizard jewellery, not just for prettiness but for their voices too. One of these, a tiny twinkling marcasite piece, came to me via a curious path when my mother reached out from beyond her death to put this little totem in my mailbox. The vintage Navajo silver pin was found at a roadside swap meet early in my wanderings in Indian Country. At the time I was fresh from the Hawaiian immersion. The mo’o qualities spoke loudly, coming on the heels of the marcasite lizard experience a few years earlier.

May the mo’o and the ‘aumakua (Hawaiian personal ancestral spirits) be always present for you.