We went to the arboretum this morning. The coolness in the air was as much psychic as physical relief after the unrelenting summer, just yesterday it was 102 again. But today, magically wonderfully cool and cloudy and breezy, like being in another country but for the familiar sights. The water table is low after the heat and drought of the last couple of months, and the ponds were low. Colors are changing back to the warm and muted greens and browns of early fall.

Mary Isabelle  prepares for a winter’s rest.

The prairie flowers have finished their summer concert.

Cardinal flower shines next to false boneset.

Grasses as pretty as flowers when you look at them.

We saw lots of hummingbirds back in this part of the woods, back past that fallen tree, eating the nectar in the jewel weed flowers there.

Jewel weed (aka Touch me not)

Glade

The draw, all the brown plants are leather leaf.

A lovely little snake who was making his/her way up the steps- A Gnostic take on snakes: “To them the serpent represented the spiritual principle symbolizing redemption from bondage to the demiurge that created the Garden of Eden and would keep man in ignorance. The serpent was considered good and Yahweh bad. Psychologically the serpent is the principle of gnosis, knowledge or emerging consciousness. The serpent’s temtaption represents the urge to self-realization in man and symbolizes the principle of individuation. Some Gnostic sects even identified the serpent in the Garden of Eden with Christ.” (from Edinger’s Ego and Archetype which I bought 10 years ago and am only now reading)