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Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

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Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

Halloween 2025 💛🎃

A linocut style carving of a barn owl on a pumpkin. 🎃

A pumpkin carved with the moon and a fallen star. 🌙

November 1, 2025 at 8:22 PM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

Shadowstorm✨

A scene of light and movement. Unfamiliar pale growths and an expanse of monochrome life is lit by a blue-green sight. Two beings have made careful landfall, a storm of debris rising up as they begin their work.

October 28, 2025 at 9:40 PM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

Please remember to practice non-violence when you participate in a protest. Be safe, be a community.

A round little frog is sitting in/on a cheap crown. They are holding a tiny tree branch flag that says: NO KINGS!

October 18, 2025 at 5:55 AM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

"Love is a blind man's game."

(2017)

Ink pen Illustration
------
A blindfolded person holds a damaged heart close to their chest. Misshapen hands reach towards them.

Their expression struggles to stay calm and serene, a tear escaping past the veil.
------

June 19, 2025 at 4:24 AM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

Late spring blooms with bright shoes and tiny wings in a healthy forest.

Yellow Lady's slipper Orchids, Ram's head Lady's slipper, and Gaywings.

#Orchids #NativePlants #Photography

Yellow Lady's slipper (C. parviflorum var. pubescens) growing underneath some wild sarsaparilla. They are a soft lemon yellow with bright carmine speckles.

Yellow Lady's slipper (Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens) growing in a small colony. They must make very good hiding places for spiders and other small beings.

Ram's head lady's slipper (Cypripedium arietinum)

A beauty of cream and burgundy, held delicately on a thread-like stalk.

It was difficult to photograph from our position.

This is a rarer orchid, and very sensitive to disturbance. We kept a respectful distance.

Gaywings (Polygala/Polygaloides paucifolia)

Little patches of soft pink blooms, almost reminiscent of periwinkle. They were spread out in little mats, though this one was solitary. I saw a few hoverflies grace them.

From this angle, they almost seem birdlike.

June 8, 2025 at 2:15 AM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

A small portrait of our garden in spring finery.

A portrait of many plants growing together. A little slice of our low maintenance shade garden, showing a few spring flowers.

Featured are trilliums, phlox, and starry false Solomon's seal.

The soft blue phlox attracts night moths and hummingbirds, as well as many types of bees, wasps, and butterflies. It has a soft perfume, especially in the evening. It wanders by itself, popping up all along the garden.

The trilliums bloom brightly in the spring, fading to a pink before drawing back by summer. They are a native flower, once rare due to being overharvested. They must not be disturbed, and should never be picked.

The starry false Solomon's seal is native to the area and grows with little care. From a single plant brought from the nearby woods, there is now a small thicket that bickers with the sensitive ferns nearby. The birds usually eat the colourful berries before they can be collected.

June 4, 2025 at 2:30 AM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

A little friend resting in the lilac bush✨

Possibly a Baskettail..

Definitely adorable! 💛

A dragonfly resting on a bare lilac branch. Around them are bunches of pinkish flowers, just starting to open up.

(They were cleaning their little head a moment before!)

June 1, 2025 at 1:00 AM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

A lively bundle of periwinkle 💠

My partner and I brought the original cuttings here when we arrived, wrapped carefully in damp towels.

They are living memories of a long lost garden.

A tangled mat of cheerful periwinkles in bloom. The flowers are a vibrant blue-violet with a pale star shape in the middle. The leaves are shiny and faintly rounded, almost like a succulent. They range from a deep evergreen to a tender lime green.

May 30, 2025 at 5:08 PM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

Intertwined

Two beings serenely rotating in the great expanse. The central being is reaching out to the other in a careful embrace. The outer being is willingly sharing energy.

May 24, 2025 at 2:10 PM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

Now that the snow is ✨nearly✨ all melted, we've been graced with Lucile's glory-of-the-snow!💠

A beautiful Lucile's glory-of-the-snow that has popped up far from the original garden bed.

It's star shaped, with six petals. The edges are violet-blue fading softly into a snow-white. The very centre has a golden tuft.

A true sign of spring at last!

April 28, 2025 at 3:07 AM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

A new plant friend, Ornithogalum dubium

It is sometimes called 'sun star'☀️

#Photography #Sunstar

A photograph, taken by my partner, Ulfriel.

It is an Ornithogalum (dubium) or Sun star.

The stems are a waxy and vibrant green, the flowers are a warm orange.

They are a cheerful companion against the backdrop of a lingering winter.

April 9, 2025 at 12:05 AM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

Today is #TransDayOfVisibility.

I, and my partner, are both non-binary.

For me, at least, every day is a day of visibility as I am visibly non-binary.

If you would like to read a few of my thoughts on my personal journey as a non-binary person, please check the alt text.

Be safe.

#TDOV

The above image is mostly a placeholder. It depicts two beings, one yellow-gold, one black, entwined in the great expanse.

Beyond this is a short writing on my experience as a nonbinary individual.

I transitioned about ten years ago. At first, I pushed more to one direction than the other, possibly as a response to being dragged violently in the opposite direction my entire life.

When I began, I had no idea that one could even transition. I was never given that knowledge. I had to discover it myself. If anyone tells you that it is the media doing it, know that they are fools. I knew nothing, but I was still me. You cannot change your nature, only conceal it poorly.

After about ten years, and a lot of personal growth, I came out, again, as non-binary. All those years, I had taken HRT (hormone replacement therapy) and had had a few very needed corrections. I knew it was the right time, so I chose to fully be myself.

I am happy now with how I present. I am equal parts masculine and feminine. I have a carefully kept short beard, long hair, and my features live between two worlds. To me, I am beautiful. To my partner, I am beautiful. To many others, I am the object of anything between curiosity and hate.

Something you realise quickly is how few washrooms are safe. How many places are hard lines between M and F. Everywhere you go as a visibly non-binary person is a deadly tightrope walk. When someone gets too interested, you wonder what they might do. I have been attacked before. I have been followed, photographed, people have threatened unspeakable things. I learned many new slurs that I had previously had the pleasure of never knowing.

It's all part of the experience.

The uneducated say that being trans is a trend for attention. I would much rather never be noticed. I did not want to be visible, I do not want to be perceived.

But I am, and I must be.

Trans people exist, they are all around, they always have been, and they just want to live.

- G

April 1, 2025 at 12:02 AM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

My partner is in a lot of pain, and we're both really low on sleep, so neither of us are making art right now..

So... Here's a WIP ✨

(Inspired by a little park nearby that looks over the lake)

Won't be working on any more art till my beloved feels better, but here we are 🌌

#Sunstar #Sunset

It's the view of a sunset on still water.

I remember the event that inspired it. It looked like the clouds were on fire.

They were this warm palette of yellows, red-oranges, pinks, even purples. It was a cold evening, windless, in mid-Autumn. That's how Autumn evenings can be here. You get sunsets that burn themselves into your soul (in a nice way)

The water was glassy still, and pale spires of fog were rising from it like spirits.

No two sunsets are ever exactly alike. I'll never see it again, never even remember it as faithfully as it deserves..

and yet,

For as long as the earth has an atmosphere and a sun, this ritual will repeat. You can choose to look at it, let it burn a little of itself into you too. Beauty is inescapable.💛

March 27, 2025 at 1:32 AM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

The Syrup sprites have arrived, and the candy in the house has grown legs.

#Photography #Arthropod #Friends

A moth in the owlet family (possibly a Pinion)

They have wings like living bark, large expressive eyes, and quite the sweet tooth.

They and a rainbow of other 'sprites' flock to the sap pails when the weather warms.

Some of them slip into the sap pails in their excitement at a delicious meal. Each visit, they are gently rescued and moved to a safe place to dry off. If they are unresponsive, I bring them home to give them a chance to recover in a warm and quiet place. Most of the time, recovery efforts are a success, and they are returned to their forest home on the next trip up, safe and sound.

Some people consider them a pest, as they drink the sap. I denounce that way of thinking.

They were here long before any of us, and there is more than enough to share.

A spectacular beauty that graced the household today with their presence.

She is likely a candy-stripe spider (Enoplognatha ovata) although there are a few close lookalikes.

She is one of those beings whose name makes perfect sense. Her abdomen is cheerily painted like a miniature easter egg, or an old fashioned sweet; creamy white, with a vibrant red squiggle.

Her legs are glasslike, catching the warm light around her, each one lined with fine hairs.

She has kept to the same spot all day, adorning the bathroom wall, but I expect that she will vanish again at sundown.

It is too cold outside to let her free, or I would, for her own good, and for the emotional wellbeing of my partner, but she seems in perfect health, so I expect that she has her own tricks.

March 22, 2025 at 12:06 AM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

It is a good day for bugs. Today, I saw the first winter firefly wandering about. Our pill bug's pups have grown through the winter and are happy and healthy.

#Firefly #Pillbug #Photography

A winter firefly (Ellychnia corrusca) is wandering across the bark of a mature maple. She (?) likely overwintered in the giant oaks nearby, alongside others. They come to the sap buckets each spring, a beautiful herald of the good that will follow. There is always more than enough to share.

Winter fireflies do not glow as adults, only as nymphs. Their elytra are a rich black, tipped with delicate golden hairs that leave them with a glow in the sunlight. Their heads are shielded with a shiny dome, usually painted with a pink-red that leads into yellow. Under their wings, they have bright pink markings.

When they rest during the day, they settle into cracks in the bark, looking for all the world like misplaced sunflower seeds.

Pill bugs (Armadillidium vulgare) resting on their favourite log. Their pups were born into this tiny paradise and have never known fear or hunger.

The young have a warm earthy-clay tone, they like to zip from place to place, sometimes trying to skirt under the adults as if they are not yet used to their size.

The adults are a dove-slate grey, yellow rune-like markings running down some of their sides. They are slow and purposeful, only moving swiftly if the enclosure is accidentally jostled, or an errant drop of water disturbs them.

Their favourite snack is a washed slice of cucumber. They are also fairly partial to columbine seed pods, fallen maple leaves, and willow wood chips that the woodpeckers leave behind.

March 19, 2025 at 11:16 PM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

An unfurling Narcissus✨

Only one is triple headed.⚜️

Last evening, only one flower head had partially opened. You can see the other two nestled gently underneath.

To the right, you can see another opening one (the rest are single headed, and equally beautiful)

Don't worry, once their beauty has been admired, my partner and I will plant them in the garden for next year.✨

Fully opened, you can see their true finery. Their petals are a pale yellow, the crowns a richer yellow-orange. Their perfume is subtle, a soft lustre to every part of them.

March 16, 2025 at 8:51 PM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

He is Spring.

The first touch of hope that thaws a frozen heart, and the light and warmth that compels it to bloom.

#Art #Portrait

A somewhat stylised depiction of my partner, Ulfriel. He is holding twin daffodils against his chest. They are a vibrant yellow, growing nearly orange at their edges. His smile is warm and gentle, like a spring wind.

March 7, 2025 at 11:36 PM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

Unrelenting Peace 🌌

#Sunstar #Otherworlds

A being has arrived from a short journey in the vastness. Their light is bright and joyful as they pass through a way. A much larger being greets them, reaching for contact.

The short separation was painful, but it fades quickly into an inescapable bliss and an unrelenting peace.

March 6, 2025 at 7:54 PM

Ulfriel☾𖤓☽Grey

@ulfriel.bsky.social

I like the mood that this corner of my (WIP) drawing has.

It's really unfortunate that it ends up so blurry when you upload a full sized piece, so I'm taking a moment to appreciate the little details.✨

#WIP #Sunstar