October 11, 2013

October 11, 2013

   All photos can be viewed full screen by clicking on the picture.

    Apologies for not posting for a few weeks as I have been occupied with the photo images and a few trips with Lee. We went to Campobello and stayed in a really nice motel which is one of two on the island called the "Whale Watch." We could have stayed at the tent cabin of this blogs fame, but nights went down to the low 40's and these aging bones (as well as Lee's) said "No." The island was wonderful as always and most tourists did not appear on this particular Fall weekend. Tourists are not ever a problem 0f over crowding even in the peak of the season. Another afternoon on a converted fishing boat spent in the Fundy Bay with Captain Mackie on a perfect day was wonderful. A few whales along with eagles, kittiwakes, ringbilled gulls, dolphins galore, and magnificent scenery made the day one to talk about for quite awhile. 

   Last Sunday we went to Acadia National Park and crossed several barriers set out because of the government shutdown. I was surprised as we walked up the access road to Jordan Pond from Seal Harbor to see more people walking than I have ever come across in the many trips of the last eight years to Acadia. Almost everyone said essentially the same thing, "This is our park and they are not going to take it away from us." We said hello to everyone on the hour and a half of our walk and our small protest against the stupidity of the shutdown. 

   Here are a few photos of Acadia this last Sunday:

Lee, who drags me to the most beautiful places

Still picniking after all these years. Friends still.

When the last leaf falls we will be left with Winter's beginning's.

A rainy dusk last week here in Hampden.

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Some humor:

This is a real sign at the public boat landing in Elsworth Maine.

 Peace,  Bill Lagerstrom

September 13, 2013

September 13, 2013

    There are giants in the world who because of the fast paced technilogical world we live in are generally ignored, as are those women and men of the past whose contributions of their experience and knowledge are reduced to sound bytes for easy consumption. One of the 20th century's giants in my opinion was Abraham Joshua Heshel, Jewish Theologian, civil rights activist, writer and an authentic "Mystic" meaning someone who has had direct experience of ultimate reality. In Heschel's case this was direct experience of God. 

   I could go on and on talking about this remarkable man, instead I offer a show from PBS by Christa Tippet which is a wonderful biography and overview of a modern day "Giant." Click on the following link to hear this broadcast.

https://app.box.com/s/a9gm49gvl4rapxqkzj1c

    "Surely God will always receive a handful of fools - who do not fail. There will always remain a spiritual underground where a few brave souls continue to fight. 
   Yet our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but rather how to remain human in the skyscrapers." 

                From: The Insecurity Of Freedom, Abraham Joshua Heschel 1959

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   Lee and I spent last week on Campobello Island in Canada where it rained for around five of our nine days there. Only once did I grumble about the weather, at five in the morning when the forecast was sun all day. Stepping out on the deck of the tent cabin we rent cleared the air of resentment as the shear beauty of Herring Cove in heavy fog was the view. 

   Here are a few photos from the week with only a few brief explanatory labels to identify the scenes. 

    

    Lubec Maine from the Mulholand Point Lighthouse across the channel.

Herring Cove. We stay to the right of the trees in the center of the image.

This is a color photo of a cormorant in flight. Nothing was added.

View in fog from Liberty Point.

Somewhere on Campobello

A Great Blue Heron at dusk who caught and swallowed a snack of a fish that was 9-10 inches in size. It went down that long neck in only a second or two. 

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Some Humor:

  

Peace and Equinimity until next week,  

                                          Bill Lagerstrom

August 28, 2013

  August 28, 2013

     First, my experience with a jar of peanuts a few days ago and how that relates to the theme of this weeks post, which is "Weeds." I ate a few of the "peanuts" and was immediately disappointed with the taste which seemed to aproach something akin to chalky cardboard. Turning the jar over I read the ingredients which explain everything about what is offered as food to us by the huge companies that supply around ninty percent of all the packaged goods on the supermarket shelves these days. I offer the list of this jar's contents below the photo which I took a few minutes ago. 

    Weeds you ask .... well the weeds of industry for instance in their many forms, not only food, but everything that grows in our sight several thousand times a day through the barrage of a continuous stream of "Buy Me!"  (Not all garbage as there are many useful things that I do buy having first seen an ad somewhere, this computer for instance.) 

   Then there are the weeds I photographed Monday morning within fifty feet of our door that have a quality of wonderful beauty which is usually passed over as not worthy of a second look by most, including myself.  I ask you to look at them with a sense that God does not create junk, and that all life has an inherent quality that is well worth the effort of stopping, taking a few breaths, and looking more closely. 

    Weeds may be only weeds in the garden of our life, but let's be careful not to throw out those that have real value, exceptional qualities that bear a second look. 

Ingredients: Peanuts, Sea Salt, Cornstarch, Sugar,

   Malt Todextrin, Monosodium Glutamate, Yeast,

   Corn Syrup Solids, Paprika and other spices,

   Extractives of Paprika, Hydrolyzed Soy Protien,

   Natural Flavor, Garlic and Onion Powder.

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   I start with a quote from Cliff Browder's Blog about New York City. Please visit his site as it is  is exceptionally well written and never dull or uninteresting. A real treasure.

 " But why frightening, you may ask?  Because any intensity becomes, in the end, threatening.  Among the various images of nature that appear on my computer screen are huge flowers in full bloom, filling the entire desktop screen: rich, exuberant vaginal blossoms that threaten to devour the viewer: again, intensity of life.  I’ll let the Freudians analyze this as a personal obsession of mine, but I insist that it applies to us all, that any intensity of life implies destruction and intensity of death, following which life will rise again.  Okay, a cliché, a stereotype.  Can’t help it, that’s what potted plants with huge leaves, and goldenrod sprouting out of rotten wood, and sunbathers basking in the life-giving but lethal sun say to me.  (“Lethal”? you may ask.  Just check with your dermatologist, and maybe a meteorologist as well.)  So once again I celebrate the richness of summer, the frightening intensity of life.  And I hope we all do, each in our own way. "

                                                                                      Cliff  Browder

From his Blog: No Place For Normal     -  http://cbrowder.blogspot.com/

   

Goldenrod

Please click to enlarge and see the small, now dried flowers encased

This and the next photo are leaves from the same stalk.

The holes are made by insects and beetles that obviously enjoyed their taste.

Above - "There's a crack in everything, that's how the Light gets in."

                                                                                         Leonard Cohen

Below - Even in death, the shell of life still reaches for the Sun. 

Growing between blades of grass this tiny flower reaches for the Light.

Goldenrod

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Some Humor: 

   No post next week as we will on Campobello Island.

   Peace,  Bill Lagerstrom