Dandelion Wine Recipe

2025 is shaping to be an excellent year for the dandelion crop. Below is a recipe for dandelion wine I copied from my mother's recipe box many many years ago, but I've no idea of the origin of this recipe: 

Dandelion Wine Recipe

1 quart dandelion blossoms- packed solidly

1 gallon water, boiled for 10 minutes

Add blossoms to water and cook for 10 more minutes. 

After cooking, strain off the blossoms

Add 3 1/2 lbs. sugar to juice and 2 packets of dried yeast

Add about 4 oranges whole and 5 lemons whole

Add 1/2 lb. raisins

Soak one week with raisins. 
Stir well at least once a day while soaking during the 2 weeks.

Daffodils, Forget-me-nots, and an Old Rock Wall

 

Daffodils and Forget-me-nots, along an old rock wall in Connecticut.

Daffodils, Forget-me-nots, and an Old Rock Wall

Daffodils and Forget-me-nots, 

planted many years ago along an old rock wall, 

remind us that others tread along this path. 

We forget them not, for their brilliance lingers.

Their journey has ended while ours continues,

endeavors never defeated by onslaughts 

of storms, heat, cold winds, and other calamities. 

We are strong, resilient, awakening each Spring:

Daffodils, Forget-me-nots, old rock walls...us.

© Jeanne I. Lakatos 

Cognitive Revolutions: Creative Revelations

A Beautiful Sunset in Danbury, CT

Yesterday, the Gospel Reading at church was the story of Jesus, meeting His disciples on the Road to Emmaus: Luke 24:13-35. It made me think...

We learn to recognize aspects of our lives that create impressions, unaware of the cognitive variations that our minds and bodies interpret and reinterpret. Yet, we continue to gracefully move through our personal universes. How often have we affected others? How often have others affected us?

Revolution of thought is inclusive of awareness within the mind and body with their inter/intra-connections. Very simply, as we perceive and cognitively organize our environment, we slowly create the opus that is only ours to share. To consider this concept in a positive way, that opus can move humanity to a higher level of consciousness.

Just think! If individuals elevated their thinking to those matters that pertain to the goodness and creative genius that dwells within, how generous we could be with each other! How marvelous this Earthly experience could be!

As we concentrate intently on our thoughts and their influences, we affect our reality, and thus, we open the possibilities of individual, creative, and Love connections... in God's time.

Easter: Renewal

Pysanky eggs that I hand-painted... Whew! a tedious, but rewarding process.

Easter Tridiuum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday)

A Joyous Easter to You!

I took this photograph of a flower growing in the sidewalk on NUI campus, Galway, Ireland.

 Awaken

Awakened

moments, conceived 
meiosis of human spirit,

evolve 

into a vision ~ 

Divine intercession.

A festering wound

bleeds 

to hasten the quickening 
toward conscientious

toward Love...

 Awakening.

         © Jeanne I. Lakatos

To hear me recite the above verse, please click HERE.

Boston

I wrote this verse shortly after the day that Boston endured an explosion at the Boston Marathon on Freedom Day. On that same day, just minutes before the explosion, the Kennedy Library archive section experienced a fire. Hmmm...coincidence? Perhaps. Perhaps not. 

Boston Public Garden (photo from Google Images)

Boston

A city

like many others

with Freedom under attack,

but citizens

fight back.

One by one,

they

draw from strength

draw from courage

draw from love

of one another

drawn from God.

Then they withdraw

the venom 

from those who draw too often

from the wellspring

of hospitality.

So, these patriots grow

in strength:

Boston Strong!

© Jeanne I. Lakatos

Listening...

A view of a cold, wet Spring day

Listening... 

I feel strength in the wind today.
It doesn't care what I have to say
because it has a job to do,
spreading seeds and pollen everywhere, 
so I stand very still and listen with care. 

Birds do not chirp as they did the day before, 
but they dart from branch to branch
seeking shelter and food with no worries
about their cold, wet feathers. 
In fact, they seem to enjoy this weather.

Windblown hair wraps around my face
and darting raindrops pelt my cheeks, 
yet here I stand listening
to the bare branches click with delight,
their strong leaf blossoms stand up to the fight. 

Puddles that form along the road 
reflect low, ethereal clouds, 
gliding through the gray sky, 
like pictures painted by a Master's hand.
 Then, I hear a message, simple but grand: 
"Let go; let God." 

© Jeanne Iris Lakatos

To hear me recite this verse, please click HERE.