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/