Poppy time!

Poppies are starting to bloom--the most beautiful time of the year in California!

Hooray for the wild flowers, especially the ones that reseed each year.  

Nature, left alone, covers Earth with beauty.

Celebrating Trees

Jewish culture has a wonderful holiday celebrating trees.

It occurs on the 15th of the month of Shevat, and it's called Tu b'Shevat. (TU or Tet Vav is the number 15 when one uses the Hebrew alphabet to count: A = 1, B = 2, etc.)

http://www.reformjudaism.org/jewish-holidays/tu-bishvat

In my Hebrew class at American Jewish University, members brought fruit, nuts, and wine (the fruit of the vine) to celebrate.

Thank you to Jonathan Gregory for the lovely gift of clementines from the tree he planted a few years ago.  

Like Hanukkah, Tu BiSh'vat is a post-biblical festival, instituted by the Rabbis. However, the holiday has biblical roots. The tithing system upon which it is based dates back to the Torah and its deep concern with trees, harvests, and the natural world, all of which are at the heart of Tu BiSh'vat. Beginning with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden all the way through to Deuteronomy’s injunction against destroying fruit trees in times of war, our biblical text is replete with trees, both literal and metaphorical. Indeed, the Torah itself often is referred to as an eitz chayim (tree of life), based on a passage in the Book of Proverbs. - See more at: http://www.reformjudaism.org/tu-bishvat-history#sthash.uSVms9AX.dpuf