Nature's billboard

About late-September my hands start itching for the crafting and baking season ahead. With pharmacy school applications and work stress filling my plate, I staved off the urge to craft until just recently. The other night I couldn't take it any longer and found myself (and my sweet husband, bless his willing and brave heart) wandering the aisles of the local craft store.

I love seeing wreaths on the front doors of homes. There's something so very welcoming about the simple decoration. It goes beyond its shape...the circle, complete and never-ending, being inherently satisfying (from a religious and mathematical standpoint). Wreaths are like nature's billboards. People used to assemble wreaths from grape vine and straw in the fall, crisp evergreen boughs in the winter, and the glorious grasses and fragrant blooms of the earth in the spring. There was a time when you ate and worked by the limitations of the weather, climate, and soil. We were far more integrated into the cycles of the earth then. Now, we have fresh, summer produce year-round, and we complain when our grocery store's tomatoes are so puny (and pricey)...in December.

Perhaps that's why I find wreaths so comforting. They are a reminder of the changing seasons, the renewal of life, and our connection and (even though we like to deny it AND defy it) our dependence upon what the earth is willing to provide.

While I didn't gleam my wreath's accessories from the glorious bounty of fall, I did try and mimic that warmth with sunflowers, black-eyed susans, fall foliage, and grape vines. (I don't know how the hot glue fits into the autumn scheme, but it certainly was easier than hand-tying everything into the vines). So now our sweet home has a "billboard" of her own. Fall is here at the Domer House, and we're looking forward to the holidays ahead!