• quotes,  street photography

    Lost in the mist…

    May 7, 2024

    “Mystery surrounds every deep experience of the human heart: the deeper we go into the heart’s darkness or its light, the closer we get to the ultimate mystery of God.”

    Parker J Palmer

    I see scenes like this quite often on my walk across the CSU Oval. The back lit light of the sprinklers always grabs my attention. So, I stopped for a couple of images. I find mystery in this image because it includes the cyclist, lost in the mist, riding on the sidewalk down the center of the oval as if they were within the spray. The wind continues to blow this morning, so my hair is a mess, but we have clear skies and sunshine. I am happy to see more and more green. The semester is over, finals are done and most students have headed home. Hope you have a wonderful day.

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  • clouds,  landscape,  natural areas,  Pineridge Natural Area,  quotes,  sunrises

    What Can’t Be Defined

    April 30, 2024
    Sunrise at about 6:01:13 am

    Despite what dictionaries would have us believe, this world is still mostly undefined.

    John Koenig

    The wind blows from the west, it’s cold penetrating my windbreaker. A small flotilla of pelicans drifts along the reservoir’s shore. I watch the sun quietly rise above the horizon announcing the new day’s arrival. There’s a serenity over the meadow, wrapping itself around me. I hear the song of one lone meadowlark and a couple of chattering magpies who are not lost for words. Yet, I am lost for words in this experience. Expressing how nature affects us seems impossible. Truth be it’s more about the gift of experiencing it, rather than words. Yet, the poet puts words to paper in their attempt to define what they experience and see. The artist also puts brush to canvas in their attempt using visual words. Makes me wonder if the meadowlarks and magpies are just as lost for words but simply doing the best they can. Maybe it’s all about the attempts by poets, artists, magpies and dictionaries to define what can’t be defined. 

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  • clouds,  horizons,  landscape,  quotes

    The silence and the darkness…

    April 29, 2024

    Until we understand what the land is, we are at odds with everything we touch. And to come to that understanding it is necessary, even now, to leave the regions of our conquest – the cleared fields, the towns and cities, the highways – and re-enter the woods. For only there can a man encounter the silence and the darkness of his own absence. Only in this silence and darkness can he recover the sense of the world’s longevity, of its ability to thrive without him, of his inferiority to it and his dependence on it. Perhaps then, having heard that silence and seen that darkness, he will grow humble before the place and begin to take it in – to learn from it what it is.

    Wendell Berry

    Twenty years ago in May of 2004 I made a motorcycle trip to the Badlands for a few days of tent camping and photography. It was my first trip there and I loved it. The vistas, the rugged landscape (they call it Badlands for a good reason), the silence, the sheer beauty, all left a permanent imprint on me. I distinctly remember the experience of silence! Every once in a while I feel the pull to return and experience its presence one more time. But I also want to return because I need time away from the chaos of what Berry calls the “the regions of our conquest.” I can also say this about other places of nature I’ve experienced, including the local natural areas. I wonder if that pull is because of our one-on-one encounter with nature, the silence and the darkness? And who knows, maybe the whisper I hear is nature calling me. What will I learn when I return?

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  • cattails,  Plants,  quotes

    Learning to let go

    February 7, 2024

    We let go of what we have been told to believe about ourselves. We listen to a different voice, one that comes to us from deep within our own soul. That is the voice of love. It is the spirit telling us we are worthy and that we can overcome our problems, even if those problems seem as overwhelming as darkness.

    Steven Charleston

    I believe Charleston is correct because over time I am learning to let go of what I was told about myself, what I told myself about myself and listen to a different voice. Some of those voices, including my own, were telling me things through a lack of understanding and knowledge while some were lies to control and manipulate. I have found it easier to tell someone “I believe in you” rather than say that to myself and believe it. However, I’m learning to listen and trust this voice of love that resides deep within me. I believe in this voice of wisdom. And, because I’m listening and trusting this voice, I’m beginning to experience life and all of creation in new and enriching ways. I see with a new set of eyes and see more each day. Life is much more beautiful when I began to understand how connected we all are in the many threads and fabrics of life we are. I wonder if love could be the thread that binds us? I kinda like this voice of love!!!

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  • clouds,  landscape,  quotes

    Life Stories

    January 2, 2024

    “The longer we listen to one another – with real attention – the more commonality we will find in all our lives. That is, if we are careful to exchange with one another life stories and not simply opinions.”

    Barbara Deming

    I love when people share stories. Opinions? Well, not so much. Opinions seem to always build walls. Ever wonder what our world would look like if we were learning to listen to each other’s stories with real attention? Congress, churches and our neighbors would look radically different to one another. Strangers would become neighbors. Gratefully, I am blessed in my life to have people who share their life stories with me, those life changing experiences that have altered the course of their lives. And by sharing their stories, they risk letting me know more about them. I consider that a gift. While they share those stories with me they may teach me something about myself. If they have the courage to risk sharing then I need to take the risk to really listen. They were all strangers before becoming wonderful friends. I have found they are also the ones who will listen to what I have to share about my experiences in life, allowing me to be at risk. We find our commonality. 

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  • coffee life,  gratitude,  I am learning...,  latte art,  quotes

    Showing off!

    December 29, 2023

    Understanding of the self only arises in relationship, in watching yourself in relationship to people, ideas, and things; to trees, the earth, and the world around you and within you. Relationship is the mirror in which the self is revealed. Without self-knowledge there is no basis for right thought and action.

    Jiddu Krishnamurti

    Well, Hannah out did herself, showing off again, this morning with her latte art. I wonder sometimes if the reason I order mocha lattes is because of the artwork or because I enjoy their flavor. Think I’ll just go with both!

    We have clear blue skies and temperatures in the high teens but expecting it to warm up into the high 40’s. I love the mornings when the sun shines in my front room window, spreading its light across the floor and furniture. It is something I look forward to it each day. Depending on the time of year also determines the length of time I get to enjoy it.

    Relationships have become a vital learning experience in my life over the past 20 plus years. I am learning how to improve them, how to nurture them and how to build relationships with others who are different from me. I am learning to embrace relationships I would not expect to have, such as all my baristas. I am learning to repair damaged and broken relationships. And with the advent of the internet I’m also learning to embrace virtual relationships. I must also include the relationship I have with God, this unknown HIgher Power, that something I cannot define or comprehend, as well as a renewed relationship with all of creation. And, I am learning to be someone healthy in a relationship. As this year comes to a close I find I have a grateful heart for the gift of relationships in the year. 

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  • coffee life,  journal,  journaling,  quotes

    The Gift-Experience

    November 28, 2023
    The gifts of journaling and a mocha

    The experience of spirituality involves recognizing new and different realities, especially the qualities of the gift-experience, appreciating not only the gift itself but also the sheer freedom and generosity contained in a genuine gift. We need to give ourselves gifts.

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