Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

While its summer foliage gets all the green glory, the towering stalks of this fountain grass have one more trick up their sleeves as they revealed the fluffy seed-heads to top off a banner growing year. I thought they were done with this flaming post, but I’m happy to be reminded that I sometimes speak too soon. 

When the skies begin to drain of blue, and cloud cover and shades of gray become the norm, these textural aspects of the garden will come into play, made more prominent by the lack of more competitive visual stimulation. It is then that the garden takes on a subtler, quieter element – an aspect that demands closer and extended examination and rumination to fully appreciate. A lesson of late fall and winter.  

Easing into the day is an art most of us don’t make the time and effort to pursue. We sleep until the last possible minute, then rush and ramble through the preparatory things we need to do to simply function – a quick shower, a quick cup of coffee, a quick wardrobe selection – and after forty plus years it all becomes a habitual rush. When we arrive at the office or the classroom or even our desks at home, it is often as a frazzled mess of nerves and anxiety. For those of us with any level of social anxiety, the nerve-fraying is often much worse. 

To that end, I look back at how I’ve dealt with such morning mayhem, and it’s actually been rather simple. It’s also been something that came about naturally, in unforced and unplanned fashion, in one of those rare moments of your body and mentality forging a way that works for their needs. In this case, I made a habit of getting up much earlier than needed in order to afford a few moments of calm and relaxation before officially starting the day. 

This meant that at college I would rise well before anyone else, take a shower and head to the food hall for a very early, and very peaceful breakfast, which I would take alone and in silence, reading the newspaper like we did in the old days, and gently starting the mind. In later years, nervous about new jobs and new offices, I would employ the same tactic – rising much earlier than needed then sitting at my desk and slowly allowing the senses to wake, while building whatever confidence and emotional fortitude would be needed to get me through the day. That preparatory chunk of time – where I could sit in stillness and silence – was, now that I look back upon it, its own form of mindfulness and meditation, grounding me in ways that would prove helpful when dealing with whatever madness the world had in store. 

These days I do a much more formal and structured daily meditation, and I’m at the point where I don’t need as much preparation and calm to navigate the average day, but I still take a cup of matcha in the morning, pause to admire the morning be it sunny or sour, and gently ease into something as innocuous as a Tuesday morning. 

Sundays are family days – a tradition instigated by Mom when people started to gather again in a vaccinated world – and kept going as we make the most of our time with Dad. He doesn’t always make it into the dining room, as pictured here, so sometimes we will bring our plates into his room and share the meal there, as we did yesterday. It’s a shift, but after the past few years we are all more malleable, all willing to go with the flow. Now on with the weekly recap as we head into the holiday season…

It began with a head of gray hair, as everything does in the mirror these days.

A sweet treat makes any Tuesday more manageable.

An almost-full moon over Amsterdam.

Under a Maxfield Parrish sky.

Assuming the ax pose.

Fountains of gold.

The Madonna Timeline rises again.

At tea-time everybody agrees.

Music of madness.

The Pride Center Gala 2022 takes place this Friday.

Beneath the blood-red maple leaves of autumn.

The Full Beaver Moon.

You’re on your own, kid.

Likely the last daisies.

Dazzlers of the Day included Sexiest Man Alive Chris Evans, Maura Healey, Jason Momoa, and Chanel Lopez.

There is more than a little cheeky irony to the fact that I used to love beavers as a child. Yet it was absolutely true – I adored beavers. Did all my school projects on them, made dioramas of their lodges, read all I could read on how they raised their kits, and even had one of my birthday party celebrations at a place called Beaversprite, which was basically the house of a woman who had a beaver living in her basement. 

Yes, there are things most people don’t know about me still left to reluctantly admit, and my love of beavers is actually one of the less-embarrassing ones. 

This past Tuesday we had a full Beaver Moon, which sounds like an oxymoron, or at the very least some supremely confusing sexual symbolism. Something for the front and the back at the same time? I digress… 

The full moon has wreaked much havoc in our lives, but in the last few years I’ve learned to take a little extra care during the days immediately preceding and following a full moon – and definitely during the actually full moon period itself. That has made a remarkable difference, and if lunacy is just a matter of the mind, this is the easiest solution. 

Do there seem to be more instances of foibles and fumbles and just bad luck during the days the moon is full? It does seem to be that way, and some studies have proven it to be true – others illustrate that the moon has little to no effect on things. 

I choose to hedge my bets when it comes to the moon. Around the time it gets full, I take things a little slower, and a little more carefully. I remind myself not to get offended at the little slights, not to be argumentative on silly points because they always lead to bigger fights, and to go a little easier on myself. It allows the blunders to happen without blame, making the room for imperfection and mistakes, which should be there always anyway, and it has turned these full moon sessions into times of learning and, dare I admit, genuine enjoyment. If you can learn to laugh at yourself, and the occasional misstep we are all prone to make, life suddenly becomes much easier. And fun.

So here’s to the full Beaver Moon! Shine, shine, shine!

Scarlet leaves bleed their colorful carriage onto my neck and shoulders as I seek shelter and a place to hide beneath their brilliant canopy. Summer is better for disappearing, when so many dark green leaves work to camouflage the shy and timid. Fall strips the trees and bushes of their privacy screens, but this Japanese maple is still providing a bit of safety for those of us not quite ready to bare it all. 

This is the season where one begins seriously contemplating hibernation, and wondering if the bears know wisdom that isn’t accessible to foolish humans such as myself. Would it be so awful to sleep the winter away, emerging in the spring just as the earth is waking again too?

The red leaves of this Japanese maple surround me like a scarlet cloak. Fall finds a way of protecting those who require it, working in strange and unexpected ways to see us through the winter to come. Whether it’s a trick of the mind, an altered state of perception, or an actual shift in reality, fall provides a cozy blanket, a spiritual balm, for all that is about to come. 

Beneath the blood red leaves of a maple tree…