Of Latitudes and Longitudes

Loneliness...       40° 14' 11.7168"    -75° 35' 37.8384"
Coordinates of an old mill...a tiny spec on a world map, fashioned from imaginzary lines. As you can see from the autumn image above taken from my bedroom, as a physical space, it is no more or less lonely than anywhere else on earth I suppose, but for a heart that lives daily choked in grief, separation and loneliness it is a place like none other. A quieted soul, static, amid steel wheels riding steel rails and rocks are reduced to pebbles, where unseen atoms are unleashed into great power. In the midst of this noise that breaks the air from man working this earth, sits the silence of a heart torn, one that remains beating for regrets and worries and sorrows...knowing there is no one who truly cares for or about it, except those that were born from it and Him who created it. In this isolation, there is no honest hug found when coming in the door to bring a smile and peace...no love waiting to take hold of in a warm hand, no care to grow in, enjoy and rest in...all things I want to wantonly give back in honest, sincere, deep relationship. The abscence of certain things... the sounds of children playing, the softness of the meadow in the sun, time spent in fun with friends, kind smiles and bright, cheerful hellos... speaks volumes to where I am and to whom I must have become...what people now believe of me. I am told from people who say they know God's will that it is what I deserve and where I must belong.

Within this world, it would seem a lovely place, one with a quietly stream meandering down into a powerful river, the deep beauty of the wood to behold, but with out the joy of heart only found in fellowship and love, it is still only a place to just be...not to truly live. A place to take in air, be sustained, but not truly breathe...for a heart to somehow still remain beating, but not to bring life. I think next to feeling rejection, loneliness is the worst emotion of life. 

I wish for a place, it doesn't matter where, where once again I would be seen for my heart, for it to be found and opened in love... for it now feels dismissed, discounted and pushed aside by those who had laid claim to such emotions for me. I wish for life again, I wish that smiles and music would fill my heart with peace and my soul would blossom with singing...expression to be given away. I wish my heart would rise out of these good things, to be found a blessing and inspiration, to be wanted and cherished, rather than silently fall...beating, alone. A world of vast importance to me has purposefully lost me here and as pretty as it can be to see the sun glide over the river, silent as the passing water, perhaps my soul has always left me expecting more from the sunrise, that this earth would be more alive as only when seen with another's eyes in mine. There seems to be so much wanting inside, so many good things stored away...silent, waiting and asking to be heard in another, allowing it to fill their being too. I yearn for it...long for such a day and wait for such a place that I know is possible, but seems not so, for I cannot find it now in the winds that surround me.

"I do not wish to be found empty and alone when I find one foot standing at the grave, but ask that I may make this leap with a heart full of love spent, given and then filled from another to carry me peacefully there." 

A Tree and Me

The Giving Tree... a favorite book of mine and one that I used to read to my children often, is a wonderful illustration of love. As you know if you have read this blog before, I like trees... I like their beautiful forms, I like the nature of the roots, I like the resources they offer both as they live and after they are gone. I love all the things they supply to my hands and to my soul. I like them

The image here is of a tree in my area that I have photographed on a few occasions in various seasons. Some of new growth peeking out as the field is sprouting, ones of the fall colors being revealed (that are always there in fact, but hidden by the green of summer) and now this shot, recently... in the trials of winter. 

 This particular tree to me, in a season of newness and youth, uniquely has been like a joyful beacon, giving to me hope and strength and encouragement as it welcomes in the spring. Like the one in the children's book, I have wanted to be like it, offering these things to people around me...people I love. In the autumn, it has offered beauty to me, it's peace... vision...as it's colorful tones have contrasted with a blue sky on a sunlit fall day. Attributes I also want to share with others. But now, it seems to speak to me most in it's starkness and isolation, lonely on this hill. In seeing it today, I think of the winter before me, I feel it's twisting and bending in the cold winds without protection around it...fellowship. It's bark worn and tired, it's branches stretched and breaking, reaching into nothing in the massive negative space that surrounds it. Nutrients...like love...that once carried it even in the dark, are absent from it, shrinking as water pulling it's life, sheds away from it's feet. It's roots having been cut for the growing field around it and the time to provide shade and rest is no more. All it has to give is unwelcome and put away now in this season of natural death.

I hope that this particular tree will reach spring and find itself a refuge once again for the birds that will seek it's branches, that it will sprout with strength and renewed hope, bringing with it peace and quiet joy to those that come to it to find shelter and rest...to lie beneath it's canopy. That it's roots once again will find water, like words of affection, to carry it. I too hope for these things, but winter can be long and cold and harsh and too quiet.
 

String Theory

A special post today with a specific purpose... No image as I no longer have ready, easy access to mine, but thoughts anyway.

Recently, a friend called and told me his Mother had passed away. It is always sad news to hear of a friend's loved one passing and this too was very sad news to receive...but in reflecting on it, the first thought I had of her at that moment was of was her smile as I remembered it from my youth. Growing up with them living across the street from me, she was the neighborhood 'Mom', complete with a large family, always welcoming more into her home where I was found to be a frequent visitor. She was always a fun parent and someone who really cared for us, but now I think of her mostly for her smile. Even though I have not seen her now for several years as she has lived a great distance from me, these memories of her bright spirit still brings a small measure of cheer to me, even within this news.

In thinking on this today, many years ago, I had a visual thought about the nature of our lives... our time here on earth... seen as a series of 'strings'. The vision was each of us as a piece of string, or thread, being thin or thick, always changing colors depending on where we are at the moment, but something of the sort that travels along in space with a specific length, defining us and the days we spend here on earth. Along the way on this journey, others strings (people) join in, wrapping around us and binding to us for a time. In times of great personal joy, love and community fellowship, this connection builds and builds together and might become like a great, brightly colored ship's rope, but during other times when find ourselves in isolation and loneliness, we become like the slightest of threads...grey...afraid the smallest tension will just break us apart. Of these others who either by choice or compulsion or in love are twisted with us, some of them are quite loose and very fleeting, dancing with us, others long lasting and very tightly wound around us, giving both of us support and strength. Still some few others, are even more, bound so tightly that our fibers intertwine to become one, fueling an energetic and fulfilling life together for a time. But no matter how tightly those significant few are, they too someday will unwind from us and slip away, out of relationship temporarily or permanently, even sometimes into death, having reached the end of themselves. Depending on how tightly there were integrated and how it was when they had pulled away, there will always be some damage of some sort left behind...torn fibers as it were. Sometimes we can heal from this, finding those other strings to support us and blend with our own, but other times finding peace with it all seems impossible and everlasting and we just have to endure. Life...and it seems... the very air we breath, is different...changed...forever. I am sure everyone who reads this has lost someone dear to them in some way and has felt unwound...understands and knows what I am saying here.

When I heard this news from my friend, I wished I could somehow give them my heart of comfort and share with them a hug and peace with it, as I always want to do when hearing this kind of news. It is so important to do, to know we are there for each other, but as they too are not physically close to me anymore, my words alone will have to suffice.

Having lost her own husband early in her life, my friend's Mom certainly must have understood this pain of unravelling, but still managed to give joy to me when I saw her. She was always glad to see me. It was a blessing to me...she was a blessing to me. I know her 'string' had a relatively short amount of time with mine in the scope of each of our lives, but I am grateful to have known her, enjoyed her wit, her warm smile, her honest laughter and that in that period, what she left behind in me was good and something to be remembered with joy. Thank you Mrs. S.

au revoir

As much as this has been an important part of me as an outlet, both for images old and new and thoughts that spill from me, as I contemplated recently, perhaps it is time to say goodbye for a while.

I don't know that I will be back....you never know...for the creativity and thoughts to share still push to come out and I write and write and write, but for now, it will be better to hold them tight to my chest for I really don't know that anyone is honestly interested in hearing any of them. Maybe I am not either as the silence is too loud and the words in my head are not that kind to me anymore.

I hope in anything though, that today you might enjoy looking back into some past time and in the previously posted images find perhaps some inspiration there...something to brighten your day in some way. I hope so. If you want something more, go to the Webpage link within my profile. Either way, it's just me. Yeah...that's all. 

Getting my Hands Dirty

 I had a burial in the woods today... a time of letting go of a set of small things that were such a part of me, so meaningful, that by doing so it was as if I was placing a piece of myself into the soil. This form of expression, now quietly at rest and starting on it's journey in the process of being captured in the ground is where it now belongs, for I know they were never something that was mine in the beginning, nor something now to keep or hold on to...but only meant as a vehicle of expression to be shared and loved beyond my own heart and hands. 

Creativity, , certainly mine, whether it be expressed in photography, or woodworking, or words, or with love, has worth really only when it gets its roots from the heart and is given away for another's benefit. Every fascinating image, every hand hewn project, every thoughtfully engaging encouragement or honest "I love you" has the same origin... and if it is sincere and true, is born from within deep in the soul. When it is done... mute, rejected, there is no longer any purpose for it and it needs to be disposed of. I guess not many people would take the steps that I would to do so... to get their hands dirty... but it is a fitting and symbolic way for me to place it aside. When we as humans each find the end of our biological line, in one form or another, we return to dust... scripture promises us that. Simple objects of wood, words on paper, many things... even our very hearts are no different and will meet the same end ultimately whether they are burned, or melted away, or as in this case, placed into the ground.

When a form of creativity is shut down, refused and returned, it is no less real of a loss as a piece of your heart itself, something to hold, something... that is gone and deserves only to be put 'back into the earth' from which it came. I did just that today. It was hard and sad and very painful to think that I had reached this place, come to such a task, but it was something that needed to be done and my soul could not do otherwise.  I kept a small part of one to keep with me, to fashion it into something else that I can occasionally wear, a reminder of that part of me... a part that has been purposefully set aside, a part which made me complete in so many ways. Perhaps someday, it will have the opportunity to live again, have a place in my world, but it is unlikely.

As time and the earth and environment takes it toll on these things, so too will it take it's toll on the parts of me I left there. It will be unavoidable... it already has. Perhaps someday, long into the future, someone will find them, be puzzled and maybe find inspiration in their own creative way, maybe not, but either way they will return to the earth...the soil...from which they came. Quietly mute.

Above, a stylized portrait and below a straight shot of my favorite shovel, if one is allowed to play favorites with such a simple instrument.

Peace... Man.

A phrase that was popular when I was a kid and used in a variety of ways, such as 'be cool' to ' let's end this war', etc... , but it was something I remember hearing allot.

Today I saw a fleeting smile...it was bright and beautiful and turned my way and it turned my heart into thoughts as it has done so many times. Thoughts of times of peace and contentment and joy. I sat just where I was and began to reflect on this past weekend, for after nearly two years without, our family was once again united in our 'shore' home for a time of fellowship... fun. Having been built in the 1940's, for me it has always naturally been a spot of refuge, respite and calm from the world. Upon arriving there and taking a traditional walk to the edge of the dock to survey the bay, that particular spot is always a home to memories for me.... of learning to swim just yards away, to powering a boat across the bay to watch and count how many 4th of July displays explode like carnations in the sky before me each year. Times of fun playing games late at night with family or friends while warm breezes float in the window, of building massive sandcastles on the beach complete with fluted towers, of harvesting delicious meals from the crabs caught off the dock, or of reading a good book in the early morning light on the deck of the boat... these are all very special and a deep parts of the things that make up 'me'.

In the fall of 2012, Hurricane Sandy made landfall on the ocean just miles from our home, bringing with it  wall of water that settled inside our walls and upturned the life that we had there. Friends helped move out the old and after two years of renovation, it is back to a place of welcome again, smiles and joy....peace. Boat rides, crabbing, fishing, swimming and just plain relaxing were all on the menu for the heart along with the good food prepared for the body. It was nice to be at my traditional summer 'home'... nice to be with extended family and the warm and loving bond I share with my brother's family, father, nieces and nephew along with my own and all of their new friends.

I like it there... allot....as you can see, and I only hope to have many, many more times there, times to rejuvenate the soul and help me reflect upon the past and future alike. Times to enjoy other's company and grow together in peace and in joy.

Today's images are just a few that I took on this mini holiday of our activities and some other 'small things' I observed. I hope that wherever you are, you might have the feeling I found, if but for a short time... found in a fleeting smile.

 

Power of Freedom

Freedom is something that has as many definitions as people who might proclaim it. For the prisoner, like friends I have know who have been a prisoner of one sort or another, freedom might be the ability to just walk unencumbered from shackles or confined space, to someone else like me, it might be represented within the feelings found on open water and the wind in my sails or in the seat of my motorcycle, to a small child, it might simply mean permission to enjoy an ice cream cone. It seems the amount of freedom we need, is related to the amount we already have.

The world, statistically, by any measure is in our current age, more free, more peaceful and 'safer' than in any other time in history. With a 24/7 media culture streaming into our consciousness, sometimes our 'gut' seems to indicated otherwise, but per capita, we are living in a unique place in the history of mankind in which freedom, security as nations and as individuals is as great as it has ever been as is our ability to travel to most parts of the world and safely enjoy fellowship with  people of cultures vastly different from our own. Even in my younger globe trotting years, this freedom was already in place for me and it is greater now still for so many more.

Even so, for some people, freedom is still elusive and there are many who still yearn for it. Amazingly, yet others, squander it away without any thought. It is that while one would use their freedom to only gain control and restrict others, others would give it up in submission to be held in love. But if freedom is granted in power, it is also in weakness. I heard a quote the other day that struck me... "The strong man who already knows power, upon gaining more, learns to abuse it, but the weak man who newly gains power has the perspective of compassion to use it wisely." Never having been the physical 'strong man' among my peers, I would hope I would use the freedom I find in it for peace.

In looking at freedom today as I celebrate this particular Memorial day here in the U.S., to me it represents more than just my personal freedom. Although this week has been a small but significant shift for me in losing my restrictive neck collar, graduating towards normalcy again...freedom is still more. It is not even solely about cherishing the ability to live where and how I chose, but is more about our freedom and sense of peace that we enjoy as a nation. This  did not come 'free' in any sense, but was drawn from the courage and sacrifice and risk our founding citizens took on to forge us as one and was paid for in the many wars, external and inside our borders that allows us that peace today. It was sealed again and again with the real blood of those who found their death in another land, in a way I am sure they did not envision, perhaps alone, or among new friends enjoined into the defense of our peace, but the cost was very high. This freedom costs the few everything... given for the many. There surely is no greater sacrifice to give than one's life for another's freedom.

The flag photos shown here were shot today at our family home on the New Jersey Coastline, a place I found freedom as a youth and after a two year storm damaged absence, did again today. It was a gift from my own Grandfathers service in WWII. As a verteran myself, I will say am proud to fly our nations flag, still choke up when singing the National Anthem and am humbly grateful to those who have gone before to allow me to do just that.

The Breath of God

Sailing...something I have done and enjoyed my entire life having access to a sailboat of one kind or another since I was small, is, or was an activity that I used to find much joy. Since hurricane Sandy took a huge bite out of my family's home on the N.J. coast a couple of years ago taking our boat with it, I have not been on a boat at all. The longest stretch in my life as not one summer has gone by since I was two weeks old since I had not done so. It has been a deep void that I have missed dearly along with the peace it used to bring to my heart. When the sails are raised, filling them and the motor is turned off, leaving nothing but the wind to draw you, it is a very special feeling indeed...one of peace and quite...a contentment of sorts with the waves as you fine tune the sails...those that have sailed know what I mean.

For a time now, like our boat, life has been very difficult for me and those found around me. In part because of who I am and have become... me... which tremendously grieves me, but also because in the midst of it all, I have sadly sought to find refuge in the solitude, remembering past pains and how it helped mpve past them at he time. Now culminating with my recent surgery and the limited mobility and opportunities to get out and participate in the larger world, in this state I have become extremely lonely. As I rested alone at home, I yearned for steps at my door, a phone call or text, a hello with a smile, but it was... quiet. Activities I enjoyed and cherished were gone, people I love to be around...my dearest friends... became strangers and more and more I realized how little value somehow I was to them anymore. Those who said they care for or even love me, left me in need. Containing such deep sorrow and regret for words expressed... and not, and the pain caused to others and myself, became too much to bear and my heart was sinking. My world was slowly shutting down and with no ears around me to listen, was leaving this person full of expression to share, quietly empty like a pen gone dry, or our crippled boat... laid on land after being battered by that terrible storm.

Last night I took a bold step, a step against some promises I made to myself and tentatively stepped out into life once again... a life in  place that I once held so dear and that was everything to me, one of joy found in little smiles, warm words and the peace of honest conversation. It was so hard to do. I found friends so familiar... now distant, faces once friendly in smile... strangers again, children who would have rushed to hug me with all of their being... keeping distance, only looking. There was some light fellowship, but still in this awful brace, mostly, I wasn't sure if I found fear or compassion, pity or no concern at all... and I felt immensely alone still, like an unwelcome intruder into a person I once was and world in which I used to really feel so alive. It is a terrible indictment on my soul and who I am to pensively confront. Reflecting now on this experience, I am forced to think about as to what is real for me now and what the future holds, whether I will ever find myself truly loved, or silently alone once again and the meanings of it...for I cannot live in the later... not really. 

As summer approaches and repairs are completed, hopefully in the next few weeks we will have our boat once again, a Pearson 36.5 back in the the wet and under sail. I hope with it that perhaps I will find myself behind her wheel being guided through the water seemingly by the very Breath of God, but I really don't know yet, what this summer will bring for me and that fine vessel.

Likewise, I don't know what life will be moving forward either with any certainly...whether it will be a life that I have hope for...long for really... one of deep beauty and joy in community, spontaneous fun, creativity, smiles, emotional connection, the fulfillment of true relationships and honest love... or unendurable sequestered solitude again within myself. I honestly wonder what is even possible anymore, or even knowing what could be and I am hoping that the same winds that might once again guide our boat across the bay... this same breath of God...might somehow find me where I am and also drive my life into, the very peace of His arms.

This image I shot on a fun, sunny day many years ago while out on a historic Chesapeake Bay Skipjack for a magazine article about this relic of a craft in the Oyster industry. It was shot using a 35mm Polaroid slide film that was new and trendy at the time. For this post, I cleaned up any scan imperfections only, leaving the distinctive look of a on site processed image, complete with light spots and all.

Short Steps

Today was a day I forced myself to get out the door and shoot'. As it is the forth anniversary of my Mother's death, today I wanted a reason to purposefully see life around me, to find the small beauty hidden in plain view and to open my heart to peace and joy. As I likely will be remembering her alone, I wanted to make today personally special. 

But with such a goal...inspiration is a tricky thing. In thinking back, sometimes it has been put upon me as a professional to create something interesting...inspired...to meet a deadline or publication when it might not have naturally come to me and other times it has been as I have literally sat up and saw the world in a new way (the image from Autumn Branches-Sept. 5, 2009 was one of these, for I was reading a book in bed at that moment and saw the tree out my window a fresh way after looking past it for 20 years). Still other times, it is the circumstances or opportunity that has opened my vision in a certain way (such as The Least of These - Nov 17, 2009 or Tribal Experience - Sept. 21, 2009), yet it is always a hard task when I 'try' and make it happen.

With my current physical limitations to not being able to travel beyond my own two feet, I set out with some short steps to find as many wild grown flowers that have sprouted up around me as possible within a short walking distance....my own neighborhood. In it, I thought to photograph them and then bring home a tiny bouquet for our dinner table. I was pleasantly surprised to see as many as I did, but my heart was just not behind the lens, even after I found this really cool mushroom, enjoying life hanging on a tree. The images are what they are and you can be the judge. A couple I like, particularly the top one of my dogwood...some not... but for me, it was a forced experience, which is never a good thing. When I arrived home, these images are all I had, as I inadvertently forgotten the flowers at our post box while collecting the mail, where they  became faded and were tossed.

Even though this is probably my largest post to date, image wise, (it was a head count of flowers, remember?) these images, which certainly are not my finest, are the result of trying to make something special and meaningful out of 'thin air'. Often times in life, when we find ourselves empty, we try to somehow 'recapture' past experiences...bring them to life, or try and force new ones as something to grab hold of... as if we are chasing shadows, but unless it comes deep from within the heart in a natural flow, it is useless. In trying to remember my Mom and the inspiration she had on me and this day trying myself to 'recreate' the many times, others have inspired me similarly, I am so very sad to say, I didn't.

Inspiration, how ever it arrives, passed me by today, as it has with increasing frequency more and more these days, so I guess my biggest lesson today, is to just try and find some sort of rest on the memories of times when it was here, if that is possible. Within that, today I just want to remember her... reflect and cherish thoughts of the kindness, warmth and love that she wore like a beautiful scarf around her neck...as a quiet refuge in her smile.

Below, a favorite poem... a gift from another... that I now like to remember her by.

 

 

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on the snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die.

Mary Frye 1932

The quiet mind.

"They say I'm a Dreamer, but I'm not the only one" John Lennon.

You can count me in for sure.
Recently, with more time to rest and sometimes a spot to find that elusive sleep, I have been having a lot of dreams. Very intense, startling and long dreams. I guess like anyone, I have some times like this and other times where the morning finds me and I remember nothing but the previous night's pillow, but in this period, I am dreaming.

Thinking back, there are a few dreams I had as a child that have made a home in my consciousness still and once in a great while visit with me inside my head, both good ones... like where I, with great effort to mentally 'un-weight' myself can I somehow amazingly float above the ground, and others... that are less inviting, but now my dreams seem to be of current events, people I know, or unfulfilled wishes... just dreams.

Last night I dreamed of a picnic. Perhaps because it is the beginning of May...spring...my favorite season that my thinking is outdoor minded, that this has invaded my nighttime mind. This was not just an ordinary picnic, but one that was grand and intimate all at once, a quiet tent set into high grass, dogwood flowers adorning a low table, warm sunshine and sparkling cider, grilled lobster and hazelnut crepes. Fun, music....an escape from this world for a small bit. A time of laughs and rest and smiles and warmth. It was an unusually vivid dream in it's details and I, upon waking this morning, so wished to still be there... in that dream for in it there was no pain today, or brace that frames me for this season, but only rest and happiness.

In thinking about it now, we all need 'escape' times like these in our lives and this dream reminded me to look out for them to share and enjoy... to find those times of  peace, joy and happiness with others. Some dreams are to be forgotten, like those scary ones of my youth and yet others... like my time of floating above the earth... yearn to be fulfilled, but I think the mind that comes alive within our rest will always be ready to provide us with both.

The image above is of a favorite spot out in my field's 'high grasses'. I was driven to make it today because of this dream, along with the purposefully 'dreamlike' image detail of my dogwood. The grass, shot with the camera on the ground, far below my current constrained field of vision, resulted when I just guessed the focus and subject framing and took a chance. I'm glad I did. The branches.. my eye through the lens, was me trying to see my old friend in a new way... a fresh vision of this pretty tree along my drive, just before it will fully bloom.

I hope seeing these might inspire your vision today as well, whether it be through a lens, or in a memory, or with your eyes closed...asleep, but either way, I hope shared with me, because you never know what life will bring. Below, a self portrait of my personal, private painful prison that currently envelops me:

Legacy Left in Soil

 

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” Greek- unknown

Planting trees.... As I originally did not purchase a property full of them, but instead a field, I have probably planted well over 100 trees since I have lived here. A blank slate in which to create a space with my own shape. But inexperienced and confronted with rocks and poor soil and weather and other factors, allot of them... most of them... have not survived and thrived as I might have expected them to. In this beginning, I had grand landscape ideals with purposeful views and looking at classic designs and reading about such, set out to plant the largest roots of my garden first with just that in mind. For interest and children's play, I have a bamboo grove and small birch 'forest', a six tree orchard with grapes and a few field specimens. Many did not grow as expected, but some have grown quickly and still others have since grown over the past twenty years into nice images of graceful form in my small landscape.

The image of one who's branches are shown above, is from one of three Weeping Willows I planted near our pond a few years ago. I remember at the time my son immediately wanted to know when he could "'swing on its branches" and "drop into the pond" like a Tarzan of some sort. I told him it would be many years, likely long after I was gone, before that could be done. At that moment, I wished it as different, I wished I could somehow speed up the whole process and see his enjoyment of my efforts today with my own eyes, but I couldn't. Time and rain and sunshine and all the things that were needed for this tree to grow to that kind of size all lay many years ahead, I told him, that by planting this now, I was giving a gift to someone else...perhaps him and his children if he resided here but if not, someone else... but the joy for us today could truly be found in the gift.

I had harvested these trees from cuttings taken from a neighbor's dying tree a year or two before and lovingly rooted and planted them to continue this life. One of them since perished, but I once again have rooted more to replace it and hopefully will get them into the ground soon as I am able. This image today, I shot yesterday and as I am not yet able to see properly through the lens, sought to try something different and capture the sense of motion that was before me. I intentionally over exposed it to blur the lines and forms. 

I love these Willows and their home in my yard. Over time, perhaps they will provide me with a measure of shade and I already enjoy it's swaying leaves blowing in the winds that travel from the North out my front window. They anchor the edge of the pond and give back some privacy, but the real joy in them now is the thought that someday... some young boy or girl... will do exactly as Hayden suggested and the legacy started that day with  a shovel will all be complete. I can only hope. In planting, or sharing ones to others to plant, it is a wonderful hope as Lucy Larcom has said:. 
"He who plants a tree... Plants a hope."

The following images I took around the yard today. The first is a Paper Birch detail, which I really like for the graphic nature of it. The second a White Clump Birch which reminds me of rough skin wound for some reason. The third again Paper Birch, in which I like the creaminess of the textures here and the forth of course, a White Birch whom seems to be set up  to fence, something I have always wanted to try. 

"If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen." ~ Henry David Thoreau

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy, is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way." ~ William Blake

Little Blue Smiles

 

"Look what I just picked for you!' exclaimed my daughter as she walked in the front door yesterday after a short bike ride down to the river that flows below us. In her hand was a bunch of my very favorite flowers...Virginia Bluebells.

This small ephemeral plant native to my area, was unknown to me until I moved to the property where I now live. Each spring it surprisingly pops up along the banks of the creeks near us for a short couple of weeks, brightening my neighborhood with its soft, temporary beauty. For me, part of its appeal is the gorgeous soft bluish-indigo color with delicate yellow filaments, part, is its short lived display and part, is its fragility. When these blooms are chosen, they need immediate water and frequent trimming to keep looking pleasant in an arrangement and thrives in a home only with continued tender and loving care. Kind of like us humans when in a loving relationship, I suppose.

Although I have tried several times to bring them into my world here and to transplant this into my yard, I have never had any success, which I attribute to not having a creek flowing through it, Even though I have a pond, I must not have a proper soil/moister/shade ratio as I discovered it grows at the same level in the woods across my street where there is always running water.

I have tried many times also to make a good photograph of these little flowers in the wild, but they elude me in doing so and I have never quite 'captured' them with my lens with the feeling they present in the woods to me. The closest I came was an image I made specifically to text last spring with a cell phone of all things, when picking some for a dinner table display, but with a real camera, they escape me. This week, I first noticed them while en route in the morning to the hospital for surgery and knew then, I would not have a chance this year. The image above is one I (painfully) made of Morgen's bouquet on my mantle piece and the photo below she took of her whole arrangement she placed along side of my French Horn.

Every year is a reason to celebrate their arrival as one of the many 'small things' in life that opens our eyes to see the beauty around us, but this year, what makes them special for me is that each and every bloom from her is like a tiny smile and hug to cheer up my long days at home alone recuperating. Friends inquiries so far to my health outcome have been very few and mostly from folks I have not seen in years. It seems those that I know the best and have invested my daily life these past years with have decided I need solitude, which make these little spots of blue even more welcome and precious... as hand picked flowers presented in love always should be.

I hope you enjoy them too.

Negative Space

A term that has many meanings for me.

The obvious from a photographic or design standpoint being the contrasting area of space around the subject that completes the image. I can think of a couple of perfect examples of this... one an image of some sunflowers I saw, but cannot display here, so it is blank until I can find a suitable image.

Other meanings have to do with various voids... in life, in our personalities, or friendships, holes from lost loved ones, to lost friends and the loss of connections there as well as more technical ones within projects and such. The deepest of meanings has to do with sincere love and loosening one's self in gaining the connection only found with another. There can be nothing more powerful. When left void, these kinds of negative 'spaces' are the hardest to fill and are the most painful when they aren't. In the loss of affection and bond, one turns inward for preservation and safety. Some can be marginally filled with other 'things'...busyness... distractions, occupying our minds, which I highlight in my other blog...others can not and remain empty. We let them be, reserved away from our daily experience, trying to forget, but the lost interpersonal relationships are the most difficult to endure. Distance and silence...being alone... is simply too hard.

Today, I am gaining some new personal 'negative space' as the area a spinal disk now occupies in my neck will be empty...removed with a surgeon's hand and partially filled with another[s bone and a metal framework to hold it upright, but the original part, that piece that I was born with will now be gone, taking with it the pain it has caused me these many months in its misshapen and damaged state. I hope that with this new negative space, I will find physical relief and renewed strength in the half of my upper body that has been suffering now for so long. I greatly yearn for it and am once again looking forward to being whole... if not complete.

More so though, I hope one day to once again fill the other, much more important spaces again. To be able to fill them and feel the joy and peace and comfort and completeness in them.

This is a longing I cannot simply endure.

A cool quote a friend just sent me:

"Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.
Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel, the more certain we can be that that is important to us and to our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance."- Steven Pressfield

Out of Bondage

Chains are curious things. This image, like many who sit until they speak to me, was taken at the end of an old rail passenger car on an abandoned track in the woods outside of New Hope Pa. The old commuter carriage, was in deplorable condition, graffiti ‘tags’ covered most of it, along with the burned out fires of youths who once  found a secret spot to hide from the world. On one end was an open door and this curious chain. In looking at it, I couldn't determine its use in any way, but it must have held something I am sure. They always do and single link by single link they, constrain movement…hold fast.

Having had considerable time in conversation with a good friend who spent a couple of years of his life as a prisoner of war as well as others who have had similar times of incarceration, chains are certainly made to confine. They know this all to well. Those chains…. the ones that held my friend a prisoner are literal and hard and cold, fashioned from steel and iron and are a testimony to mans brutality to one another..

 But there are others, no less painful,  that we construct with our words, behavior, thoughts and actions. Often times in our fears, of others... of ourselves... we chain others in, to do our will, control them or keep them, for the feeling of being alone, unloved…is too painful to us as an immense emotion to confront and behold and there seems to be just no other way to survive... I know that well and the depth of sorrow it delivers. Sometimes it is us that is chained for those same reasons. Other times, we fasten the locks, romantically and beautifully illustrated at the Pont de Arts bridge in Paris, wrapping it up in a language of love and commitment and sacrifice to understand it all, for at heart, we all wish for deep connection, love, and the peace it brings to us in only another. Sometime our confinement is to physical pain, other times emotional… often both, and in such we connect to an ideology larger than ourselves and the precepts of safety and comfort it brings us. We limit ourselves to it... the known, for to hold this same peace. Saddest of all though is when we use the chains to keep others out.. walling ourselves in, restricting access and protecting ourselves from those we don’t want in our lives. I too know this pain as a terrible place to live. Hard chains to break…

My friend, after his own experience, once said to me he "never held anyone into his life again and those that love you will stay", for he knows the feeling of lost freedom. With his love for them, he knew that only in their freedom could he truly be loved and allowing them to go meant giving them the choice to not love him in return. As immediate and real his chains of metal were, ultimately they were cut and his healing begun, but the subtle ones of our hearts, those hidden, are the very ones that are hardest to break.

They without a doubt,  leave the deepest marks when they do.

Perhaps in the end, the hardest is the one we bind ourselves to this earth with, holding fast to the familiar… afraid to let go… fearing the unknown and what might await. We foolishly think our importance is too great to be missed, but if we were really honest with ourselves, would see we are merely the momentary mist God describes us as, held only temporarily in anyone's life like a hair wrapped around a finger, only to be lost again.

I know I have pondered with allot on metaphorical rhetoric today and what this particular chain was made for shown here, swinging and dislodging the paint around it, I will never know…its purpose long passed, but for now, I am tired and so many chains still remain.

On the Wing

If ever there was a bird that did not blend in within its enviroment, it would be the Cardinal.

As long as I can remember, the Cardinal has been my very favorite bird and my heart always lifts a little bit when I spot one. As they are a species that is native to my area, I am quite blessed to see them from time to time and their bright, red plumage disctinctly stands out against the greens and browns of the landscape even in the most dismal of weather. While it is the brightly colored male that seems to command the most obvious attention, the female's subtle display of color found on their wing's edge, tail feathers and beak offer a nice contrast and I imagine the subtleties found there are to camoflage one on the nest. As it is with much of nature, the male seems to mostly rely upon the visual 'look at me' displays in capturing the females attention, strutting around in macho confidence. Sorry guys, but you know it is true. If i were a bird, I would hope to have more than that going for me.

I have always thought it would be facinating to capture one or collect an egg to incubate and be able to raise it...perhaps train it, as a domesticated caged bird in an indoor aviary so to speak attached to the house. I have had friends that had various 'wild' animals as pets such as a Racoon or Fox, but at heart think to do so is to take away everything that really makes this bird appealing to me...its wildness at heart, its beauty found in its natural surroundings, and that is a terrible thing to lose.

This detail of a small portion of a wing was taken after I sadly found one on the roadside a while back and stopped to fetch it with the intent of inspecting it closely and hopefully make an image like this. The details found in this wing are amazing to me and I have always enjoyed photographing birds. Not being particularly proficient with it, as such, I have always wanted to try various techniques that I know of to bring them closer in towards my lens...to give them the 'safety ' to do so. Maybe someday I will be able to, but for now, for better or worse, this was my best opportunity that day.

I hope you enjoy it as well. 

Full Throttle Smile

This photo... taken last summer while out on a local road, kind of sums up the feeling of riding a bike like mine. It's not a leaning forward, aggressive racing bike experience, or upright touring bike ride, but is more of a kicked back, cruising feel when behind the bars.

When on a bike, unlike another type of vehicle, there is a connection to how the terrain meets you along the way that offers a very visceral and immediate feedback from the ribbon of asphalt underneath that is felt right where you are. It is a very 'alive' kind of experience to have...as it is one that both requires your utmost awareness of things around you, but also one that breathes a sense of peace and relief into you at the same time. Sometimes you might find it when you get lost in the push and pull of the sway in a challenging curve, sometimes it catches you in the exhilaration as you twist back the throttle and but sometimes is offered in a different way, as a deep exhale when gliding down a straightaway. It always finds you somehow and when it does, it surprises me and brings me straight back to my youth where in the summers I found myself at the wheel of a speedboat and the feeling of the pure freedom of driving across the bay without any direction but water, sun and joy. This same sense is what I find here too for riding a bike is not merely transportation for me, simply a way to get from here to there, but along the way offers so much more. Subtle experiences greet me on the road...an unexpected scent of pine when passing though a cool forest or the morning dew that gathers on my knees, the warmth rising from the road or the joy in a smile or wave of another passing rider...all things you miss within the cocoon of a car.

When on a bike, your path is a different one, for the sought out roads are the very ones that offer up these little things along the way. Destinations are planned by the route offered to get there alone and your thoughts are focussed on the journey itself. You know by simply just twisting the throttle... feeling the punch of the air in your chest as it pushes back against you, the rumble of the exhaust as your arms stretch from my body... a small smile can't help but escape from your lips. This feeling, this freeing moment, is one that is hard to beat, except for only one other, which is the feeling of looking back towards my passenger and seeing them wearing the same...and the deep joy that is thus found in knowing they feel it too, that they share this with you alone... That is what it is all about.

As I am coming up upon some major neck surgery in the next couple of weeks, it likely will be a while before I will be able to climb aboard two wheels again, if ever, but I have hope that if and when I can, I once again will be able to find the joy of this kind of freedom waiting for me.

Der Mond

The Moon.

As a small child, I remember sitting in the evening looking at the moon with my Mom, her showing me the 'face' that seemed to look back at us and recall now the excitement of that time with the space race and our journey as a nation to it. The memory of sitting in a friend's California mountaintop home and seeing the very first footsteps made there, not only had an impact of that bodies surface, but also on me like millions of others I am sure. This giant rock, literally being pulled around us in orbit is always a welcome sight to me. Although we barely consider it most days, it's influence on our lives is immeasurable...from the tidal pull as it circles and affects our globe, to the beauty of its nighttime reflected light to our eye, to the various moods I believe it can set in us from romance to despair, it is a sight to behold.

The last time I really saw a truly beautiful moon, was October 18th this past fall, when a late 'harvest' moon rose enormously in the Eastern sky right at twilight... showing off... huge and golden against a deep blue sky while I was hanging out in our Cul de Sac on my bicycle. It was amazing to behold and engaging in other plans that evening, I did not get to make an image of it that night, but there are a few images shown here that I have made over the years. Click on them to appreciate them in full. 

To me, the Moon is my defacto time keeper. This world, now broken down into nanoseconds in some circles, is measured by most people in their daily lives on a scale of hours and minutes, but for me, I somehow hold onto a recognition of the cycle of time found in a full moon. At its fullest, it shines right onto me through my bedroom window, keeping me awake in my thoughts and as most nights I lay awake thinking  of things and people in my life, it too intrudes on my rest. As a light sleeper with such a head full of thoughts, it's bright light never fails to remind me of the time that has passed since this or that has happened in my life. It is both a welcome and cursed companion of the night.

I have always enjoyed stargazing and pondering the night sky, as doing so helps me gain a perspective on how small I really am in this creation and seeing this grand scale before me always  leaves in me more questions than answers. I don't know much about astronomy and other than the two 'Dippers' and Orion’s belt, I would be hard pressed to identify any specific constellations, but I do remember seeing the Southern Cross while in that hemisphere many years ago and just this past year, I have been able to learn to identify Cassiopeia, which was a real treat for me. My Dad, who has taught celestial navigation would not be impressed.

In any event, I hope the next time you look up at a clear night sky and see that mass of stars spread out  before you, or perhaps see and remember a special moonrise too, you would be inspired with the wonderment of all creation before you as I often am. The image above I took early last fall when it caught my eye while out in my field. In waxing phase, I believe the planet to it's right is Venus, but am not sure. The first image below is one I took many years ago while on a trip in Maine and the second, was made during the last lunar eclipse that was seen is our area.

If you are interested, here is a link to a volume of information regarding the moon: http://www.moonconnection.com/