Springing Forward

In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary. ~ Aaron Rose

Mini-microphones

Dried Daisies

Floating Feather

Beautiful Burn

A Spring in his Step

I love springing forward ~ more time to hike.

Catch Me if You Can

Scatter Joy. ~ Emerson

Have a Beauty ✻ Filled Day

Glistening

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. ~ Khalil Gibran

Have a Beauty ✻ Filled Weekend.

I Love Lisa


She is a friend of mind.  She gather me, man.  The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.  It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.  ~Toni Morrison, Beloved

I was on the phone with my friend Lisa for hours today, we get into conversations sometimes that go in all kinds of directions. First we chatted about some aches and pains we are both trying to remedy… which led to a talk about the aging process and baby boomers… then it took a turn into ideas about house projects… which got us making plans to visit each other… somehow I started to download how I stayed up all night ( because of the aches & pains )… I was journaling and had some aha moments as I wrote that may shift my whole way of walking in the world bla bla bla… I went on and on in that punch drunk way that happens from not getting much sleep. In the last half hour she helped me understand how to proceed on my new website design. That could have also been part of the reason I was up all night. My mind has been swirling with new ideas for my new website.

I’m so grateful to have girlfriends who can dance around all of these topics all at once. I can’t even imagine having a similar conversation with my husband, though I’ve tried!

I seem to hike in a similar fashion, wandering off trail when something new calls at me. After I found the bark carved with ‘ I LOVE LISA’ all kinds of bark started to jump out and call me over, it’s taken me a few weeks to gather these…

A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though (s)he knows that you are slightly cracked. ~ Bernard Meltzer

Frosty Mornings

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. ~ Marcus Aurelius

Have a Beauty ✻ Filled Day

A Feather for You

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship. ~ William Blake

Did you know that when you receive a feather it is a token of friendship and respect? One of my students in a creativity class I was teaching years ago gave me a beautiful note thanking me for the friendship I offered. She included a soft gray feather letting me know of this native american tradition. I still have it tucked into a jar filled with all the other feathers I find hiking. Every time I look at the jar full of feathers, I think about all of the friendships I cherish.

I wish I could give you this actual feather, hopefully the cyber version will suffice? I found this beautiful gray quill with a soft red tip a few months ago, each time I wander to the ponds out back, I look to see if it’s still stuck on the branch. I’m delighted each time I find it floating in the wind or tangled in the damp conditions. It’s so fun to have something to visit and check in on.

Once I walk past the feather I go check on my nest. The first time I found this tiny treasure, I was devastated to see the broken abandoned eggs, but that’s life, sometimes things just don’t work out. (Sometimes they do, I’ve found so many other wonderful empty nests). I’m so curious about what kind of bird used to live in this one, it’s pretty small, it could fit comfortably in the palm of my hand and the white eggs are about the size of jelly beans?

Do you have something or someone to visit on a regular basis?

Walk With Me

We’re all just walking each other home. ~ Ram Dass

Have a Beauty ✻ Filled Day.

Wistful

Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup. ~ Wendell Berry

I wish it was the middle of the summer and I was rising early to collect dew wet red berries, but it’s not. Lately it’s been cold and gray so I decided to brighten my day and organize a few of the red berry photos I’ve taken over the last few weeks. There are still so many bright red balls clinging to branches and hanging in clusters. I’m grateful for the little splash of color.

I’ve actually been hunting for blackberries this time of year, not the fruit but the branches. In July, I stumbled on some wild blackberries while hiking and was able to pick enough to have some on my breakfast cereal. It’s been years since I had wild berries and I was so amazed by the taste.

They taste like my childhood, I remember being so lucky to live next to neighbors who had berries in their giant garden. I would just sit on the ground and eat as I picked, no need to go home for lunch, I filled up on berries and played outside all afternoon. Nowadays the supermarket berries are super-sized and strange tasting compared to the wild ones. Don’t get me wrong, I love that I can buy a pack of organic berries for $3.00 to have on my breakfast in the middle of December, this morning I had some yummy raspberries with my shredded wheat, but there is nothing like the taste of a fresh picked wild berry on a hot summer day.

The reddish purply branches have a beautiful icy gray patina, the color is such a feast for the eyes this time of year, they stand out against all the gray. Now that I know what blackberry branches look like it’s so much easier to spot them. I’ve found so many stashes of berry patches on many of my regular hikes, next summer I’ll be able to pick enough for a whole pie!

What tastes take you right back to your childhood?

Too Heavy

In every crisis there is a message. Crises are nature’s way of forcing change breaking down old structures, shaking loose negative habits so that something new and better can take their place. ~ Susan Taylor

The snow was so heavy

we marched on

the tulip tree was full of snowy cup cakes

tiny branches sparkled in the sun

bigger branches leaned and arched to the ground.

Our first storm of the season brought about 8″ of heavy wet snow that sent many trees to the ground ( see why here ). It’s been a week and some are still bent and slowly trying to upright themselves… unfortunately many could not take the weight and broke.

The storm destruction reminds me of how topsy-turvy the world feels, lately so many things are out of whack and falling apart.

I think it’s fascinating that technology / transparency is bringing about more awareness, but there are times I’m not sure what to do with all the information. It seems that each time I turn on the computer or television, I’m confronted with a new story of tyranny being uprooted, greed and lies are being exposed. ‘Old’ ways seem to be collapsing, things once hidden are being revealed. It’s a mess and all this upheaval is shocking and hard to accept or fathom sometimes.

This topic feels too heavy to write intelligently about yet here I am attempting to say something? I’m so curious about all the energy that is swirling around, changing, crashing… perhaps creating a path for new ways?

Some how I feel lucky to be living at such an exciting time full of strange opportunities, new ways of thinking, new ways of connecting and collaborating. I feel like I’m having my own personal revolution as I let old ways breakdown and fall away.

Any thoughts?

P.S. People like Pranav Mistry are the ones who give me so much faith that wonderful new ways will prevail.

One Mystery Solved

All things must change to something new, to something strange. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I took this shot ↑ last spring on April 17 during a late snow storm, it’s normal to see the buds appearing on the trees.

I took these shots ↓  this week on December 1. It’s not normal to see buds on the trees at the beginning of winter!?

I rarely watch the news but turned it on during our first snow storm. I’m glad I did, it solved a mystery I’ve been wondering about… when I was hiking a few weeks ago I was so surprised that I was finding so many caterpillars crawling, moths flying, and flowers blooming in mid – November, most surprising was a shrub that was budding? It turns out that we had exceptionally warm periods this fall that caused some odd occurences,.. trees and shrubs began to bud out soon after their leaves fell off. It’s so strange to see these buds in December?