• clouds,  landscape,  snow

    Living Life

    April 19, 2025

    After two days of overcast skies, cold, rain and snow, the skies are clearing. And, the weather app predicts we are going to see warmer weather this coming week. A morning drive out to Reservoir Ridge Natural Area after coffee lifted my spirits. Loved seeing a touch of blue sky peeking out from behind clouds and listening to meadowlarks singing from the meadow. It was a moment to experience real life, cold and all, and grateful to be alive. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

    What is saving my life now is the conviction that there is no spiritual treasure to be found apart from the bodily experiences of human life on earth. My life depends on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them. My life depends on ignoring all touted distinctions between the secular and the sacred, the physical and the spiritual, the body and the soul. What is saving my life now is becoming more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.

     Barbara Brown Taylor
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  • clouds,  haiku,  landscape,  winter scenes

    Live in Open Space

    February 22, 2025

    a grove of barren trees 
    in a snow covered pasture
    thrive in open space

    mws

    After peaking Bingham Hill you drop into this lovely lowland meadow that always gives me some good vibes. Maybe it’s because it’s an open space. There is no invasion of a housing development, warehouse or mall to take the view away. So, yesterday morning I needed to stop and capture the open wintery scene. Enjoy your weekend!!

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  • frost,  landscape,  quotes,  trees,  winter scenes

    Damn it’s cold!

    February 21, 2025

    The contemplative discipline of meditation… doesn’t acquire anything. In that sense, and an important sense, it is not a technique but a surrendering of deeply imbedded resistances that allows the sacred within gradually to reveal itself as a simple, fundamental fact.

    Martin Laid

    This image was handheld when it was 7 degrees and with a slight breeze out of the northeast. Because of those two factors it is not sharp, probably true of more of my images than I want to admit, but I do like the feel of it. It shouts, “Damn it’s cold!” On the upside we are moving into a few days of warmer weather, reaching into the 60’s.

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  • landscape,  quotes,  snow,  winter scenes

    Blue Sky

    February 20, 2025

    Now is the season to know
    That everything you do
    Is sacred.

    Hafiz (translation by Daniel Ladinsky)

    This is a ridge along Horsetooth Reservoir after the night’s dusting of snow. And, it was bitter cold. And, I see that it is cold on the east coast and cold up north, also. Please stay warm!

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  • natural areas,  quotes,  winter scenes

    Winter Wonderland

    February 19, 2025

    But the silence in the mind
    is when we live best, within
    listening distance of the silence we call God…
    It is a presence, then,
    whose margins are our margins;
    that calls us out over our
    own fathoms.

    R. S. Thomas

    It seems we have had a winter wonderland to enjoy over the past couple of weeks. The gifts shared by this winter’s season has been in abundance. I have thoroughly enjoy the visual beauty, enough to bear the single digit temperatures and venture out with my camera. This morning, we are at -2 degrees and had a dusting of snow during the night. Stay warm!!

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  • horizons,  landscape,  quotes,  snow,  winter scenes

    I would suggest…

    February 17, 2025
    A Frozen Horsetooth Reservoir

    Rightly understood, the mystic is not a special kind of human being; rather, every human being is a special kind of mystic.

    David Steindl-Rast

    A blue sky and sunshine the day after a snowfall will make me smile as a photographer. I can be confident that images will be available if I will bear the cold. This was one of those days! The quote above makes me wonder what our world would look like if we all believed we were a special kind of mystic. Mirabai Starr states a mystic is a person who has a direct experience of the sacred, unmediated by conventional religious rituals or intermediaries. I’ve also seen it defined as someone who has a direct experience of the Divine. Mary Oliver also believed that anyone who knows how to pay attention, can be considered a mystic. And, there are many more we could list. But with those definitions, then if we have stood in awe and wonder at a sunrise, snow covered mountains, a butterfly flitting from branch to branch or mesmerized before a place of refuge, then I would suggest we are a mystic.

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  • landscape,  natural areas,  nature,  quotes,  snow

    It’s dang cold…

    February 13, 2025

    It was -8 degrees at 5 am. I told my barista this morning that anyone who’s out in this weather has got to be nuts, crazy, wack-o, insane, stupid, and definitely not to be trusted. They agreed but were glad to see at least one crazy irregular show up, even if it was me! It looks like everyone in the nation is just as cold! I’m enjoying my Old Town mocha. Stay warm.

    “When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love …”

    Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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