Haiku My Heart

I had no idea, when I took the photograph (at the bottom of this post) in West Virginia's Hatfield & McCoy country, that I was capturing a butterfly dance of life.  

We arrived, late in the day, at one of the Hatfield cemeteries, this particular one was at the top of a steep slope.  I was tired and left this one to Don.  We had already seen at least four others though this particular one was especially historic as it held the remains of the most brutal and famous of the Hatfields, Devil Anse Hatfield.  He was also the leader of the clan.

There is a rough beauty in the mountains of West Virginia.  Coal, tradition, and poverty run deep in the veins and blood of that  world.  Life courses on with a persistence to rival the rivers that cut and flow through the wilderness.  And in that world, tiny beauties appear, unexpected, unselfconscious, and driven by the timeless urge to re-create the next generation.

Butterflies dancing

Wings entwined still flutter

Delicate balance

All's Quiet in Paradise

It has been a quiet week; in fact, it's been a quiet two weeks.  I attribute it to health issues and making adjustments to changes and looking forward to some outpatient surgery (for him) and radical food changes for me (thank you whacked out sugar levels).  Fortunately, neither are anything that can't be corrected with discipline and paying attention to life's little details.  

I think the slump of coming off of mission and so much time away is now setting in as well.  I sort of feel like this.

Hanging Moon in Night Rain

There are people I need to call who need attention.  There is a small project to finish.  A drive to the next town up the road is needed.  There are blogs to catch up with and letters to write.  But . . . have you ever felt like your feet were stuck in goo and you butt fused to the sofa?  Yeah, that's pretty much how I'm feeling.

Oddly, it's not a tired feeling.  Not a depressed feeling, either. 

 It's more like I'm waiting.  

For something.

Perhaps this malaise is simply a search direction.  Mortality came knocking at my door twice in the last ten days.  Sometimes, a person just has to sit back and wait.

The War Between the States in One Week

After we left the mission behind us (but not forgotten and still deeply felt) our purpose was to visit shrines, Civil War site, and friends.  Our two day planned stay in Maryland with friends David and Isabelle, turned into a week and during that week, not only did we experience four shrines, but we also visited five Civil War sites.

The one thing that is uniformly the same, of all the sites we visited, is the stillness that lays on the land.  Children seemed to understand the hush and need for reverence at these places where so many died. The massive number of people that go through Gettysburg on the tour buses understood and felt it too.  There is a quietness that almost hurts.

Manassas National Battlefield Park, located north of Manassas, in Prince William County, Virginia, preserves the site of two majorAmerican Civil War battles: the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861, and the Second Battle of Bull Run which was fought between August 28 and August 30, 1862 (also known as the First Battle of Manassas and the Second Battle of Manassas, respectively). The peaceful Virginia countryside bore witness to clashes between the armies of the North (Union) and the South (Confederacy), and it was there that Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson acquired his nickname "Stonewall."

Harper's Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States. It was formerly Harper's Ferry with an apostrophe and that form continues to appear in some references.^[6] It is situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers where the U.S. states of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia meet. It is the easternmost town in West Virginia. The town is located on a low-lying flood plain created by the two rivers and surrounded by higher ground. Historically, Harper's Ferry is best known for John Brown's raid on the Armory in 1859 and its role in the American Civil War.^[7] The population was 286 at the 2010 census.

The lower part of Harper's Ferry is located within Harper's Ferry National Historical Park. Most of the remainder, which includes the more highly populated area, is included in the separate Harper's Ferry Historic District. Two other National Register of Historic Places properties adjoin the town: the B & O Railroad Potomac River Crossing and St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church.

Antietam National Battlefield is a National Park Service protected area along Antietam Creek in Sharpsburg, Washington County, northwestern Maryland. It commemorates the American Civil War Battle of Antietam that occurred on September 17, 1862.

The area, situated on fields among the Appalachian foothills near the Potomac River, features the battlefield site and visitor center, a national military cemetery, stone arch Burnside's Bridge, and a field hospital museum. Today, over 330,000 people visit the park each year.

The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought on the morning of April 9, 1865, was the final engagement ofConfederate States Army General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia before it surrendered to the Union Army under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and one of the last battles of the American Civil War. Lee, having abandoned the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, after the ten-month Siege of Petersburg, retreated west, hoping to join his army with the Confederate forces in North Carolina. Union forces pursued and cut off the Confederate retreat at Appomattox Court House. Lee launched an attack to break through the Union force to his front, assuming the Union force consisted entirely of cavalry. When he realized that the cavalry was backed up by two corps of Union infantry, he had no choice but to surrender.

The signing of the surrender documents occurred in the parlor of the house owned by Wilmer McLean on the afternoon of April 9. On April 12, a formal ceremony marked the disbandment of the Army of Northern Virginia and the parole of its officers and men, effectively ending the war in Virginia. This event triggered a series of surrenders across the south, signaling the end of the war.

Actually table Grant was sitting at.  See painting below.

Actually table Lee sat at.  See painting above.

We also visited Gettysburg but I will leave that for a separate post.

And be sure to visit here this week for more happy times.