June 24, 2014

June 24, 2014

   All images are mine unless otherwise noted.

   To view full screen click on any image.

                 This week I start with a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke which struck me again this morning to stop trying to adjust the "Law of Gravity" to fit my conceptions of how things ought to be. 

       - Gravity –

How surely gravity's law,

strong as an ocean's current,

takes hold of even the smallest thing

and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing –

each stone, blossom, child –

is held in place.

Only we, in our arrogance,

push out beyond what we each belong to

for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered

to earth's intelligence

we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves

in knots of our own making

and struggle, lonely and confused.

So, like children, we begin again

to learn from the things,

because they are in God's heart;

they have never left God.

This is what the things can teach us,

to fall,

patiently to trust our heaviness.

Even the birds have to do this

before they can fly.

                                                                  Rainer Maria Rilke

-------------------------

   A few weeks ago four of us who meet every Wednesday night to discuss our spiritual growth went on a day trip to Bob's Country Store in Lincoln Maine. We perused the ten thousand items in the store that make rural life easier, a sort of early Sears Roebucks catalog design in that there was not much missing from its many shelves to make life easier for a mall free area of the State. We then had lunch at a local farm house-restaurant that served pizza and for myself one of the best Ruben sandwiches I have had in years. My view here at the table was of chickens in the field just outside the window. 

    Since it was the 200th anniversary of Sangerville Maine, which Lincoln appears to be a part of, we followed a set of directions given to see what was left of the original mill a few miles away down a dirt road. The first three images are of Bob's Store, and the fourth is of the mill.

How to buy a cow?

How to make a living picking up after cows.

The remnants of a two hundred year old mill.

--------------------------------

    

    One day last weekI got a call from a friend asking me to come over and take a photo of the largest iris that he had ever seen. Dick's wife, Christine, did not plant it and it seems to be God telling them that the power to suprise is a constant attribute of the Creator of beauty. The 2nd. image is of a Lupine in the same garden, a flower I don't believe I saw before moving to Maine. They are everywhere and sometimes huge fields are filled with this flower which has many varieties of color.

-----------------------------------

    On a walk around Jordon Pond in Acadia last week during a beautiful Spring day I took the following images. It is a favorite walk of some three miles that we have done often, always with grattitude for such beauty to be available to us. 

A working beaver lodge at the far end of Jordon Pond, 

which is in my opinion a lake.

New Spring growth on a pine tree.

   It is hard for me to believe that I found a site for the Cloud Appreciation Society which is filled with poetry about clouds. Here is their site:

                  http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/category/cloud-poetry/

--------------------------------

Some humor:

Before Michaelangelo the Pope tried having the Sistine Ceiling

painted by the finest cat artist in the land.

Peace until next week,

                 Bill Lagerstrom

June 18, 2014

June 18, 2014

   All photos are mine unless otherwise noted.

   To enlarge to full screen click on any image.

        I have been taking a look at the process of creativity in the human condition in an attempt to see why in myself it seems to come from an internal source which rises to the surface as a presentation of what to do with some of the photos I take. This is not a condition where I am not present to the actions, I am certainly more alert and alive in the present moment when head, eyes, hands and heart come into an alignment through the energy that comes up from somewhere in my depths. I am an active participant in the process, not a bystander.

   I do know that it is a set of events that start with standing and seeing what is in front of me before the shutter is released. The final image can at times show itself even before I take the picture which I owe to experience and allowing myself to be willing to see what I will work with. I know this is vague so below are a few quotes that may make more sense. Thank you with your patience with my meandering on this task I set for myself to define on an ongoing basis.

   The first six images are good examples of what I am trying to convey. All of my photos below were taken at the Parker River Preserve in Northeastern Mass. 

------------------------------- 

   "The heart of creativity is an experience of mystical union (with God) - the heart of this union is an experience of creativity."

   "Leap and the net will appear."

                                   Two quotes from Julia Cameron's The Artists Way.

    "It is the creative potential itself in human beings that is the image of God."

                                                                                                    Mary Daly

   "The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order ..... the continous thread of revelation."
                                                                                                  Eudora Welty

-------------------------------------

                           (The six photos below are without comment.)
                                                                                    

---------------------------------------------

Lee at a blind in Parker River looking for birds in its salt marsh.

Mom,  "Are you making fun of me?"

Taking a chance with an eight foot wave - all for a fish.

   I know teenage have the equivilent of the herd instinct in them, always have in my history and memory, but what is new is electronics. Is the girl on the right having a friend listen to the waves? This group stayed this close together for the 30-40 minutes we spent on this beach at Parker River. 

                                ----------------------------------------------------

   Here are photos from the web of  two of the fifty something birds we identified two weekends ago at Parker river.

A Red-Eyed Vireo

A Northern Mockingbird

The one we saw on top of the information kiosk had

eleven songs that it sung over and over again.

A great imitator.

-----------------------------------

Some humor:

   Peace until next week,

                             Bill Lagerstrom       

June 6, 2014

June 6, 2014

   All photos are mine unless otherwise noted.

   To view full screen click on any image.

    Over the last weekend Lee and I spent four days birding at the Parker River Refuge in Northeastern Massachusettes. The refuge is run by the National fish and Wildlife people and runs for about 6-7 miles along the coast. We listed fifty-two different species of birds during the weekend along with talking with 15-20 birders about our feathered friends, where are you from, what did you see, and so on. 

   I used to say that to talk to people in Riverside Park on Manhattan's Upper West Side you needed to have a dog otherwise you were ignored.  These days all I need is a pair of binoculars and the Peterson Guide to Birds. The common interests we have do make us attractive to people with similar passions. Birding is a great equalizer where enthusiasts talk across their binoculars to each other with an ease that is without walls or barriers. 

   Here is a map of the Refuge:

http://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/Region_5/NWRS/North_Zone/Parker_River_Complex/Parker_River/ParkerRiverMap.pdf

   Only two access points to the beach on the ocean side were open due to the nesting of the endangered Piping Plovers who are a protected species. We did see one of these rare birds on the Southern point of the Refuge as it picked at the sand for whatever it found to eat, all the while completely oblivious to us. It is a beautiful bird so please look for it on the Net. 

   The first six photos are of the birds and the refuge, the last photos are of a few of the people who used the Northern beach as their day's habitat. 

   

   Part of the salt marsh on the West side of the refuge road. Here we saw egrets, willets, geese, gadwalls, shovelers, along with many ducks, redwing blackbirds, and more. If you don't know these birds check out the folowing site -

                       http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/search

      These are are Least Terns, a small bird weighing around 1 1/2 ounces and capable of flight in strong winds. We saw several hundred of them with the males in full courtship gear trying to entice a female by offering a small fish. It seemed to work with a few of the females but most seemed totally disinterested in the pushy males - above is an example of her lack of enthusiam towards this poor guy who is exhausting himself trying to impress. 

      A Red-tailed Hawk no more than ten feet from where I stood as it was searching out lunch in the marsh in front of this tree. I did not get the capture of what I saw as a small rodent of some sort, but the post meal photo is below. 

"Burpp ....."

Found this turkey in the shade at a hot time of day, around noon.

Purple Martin nests in the refuge.

--------------------------

- The Ocean side of the refuge -

Those who fish are an island unto themsleves, 

quite content to stay in the present moment.

For children the beach is an invitation to be free,

joy and the thrill of all things new are a few of the discoveries.

   What impressed me about this photo is that everyone is in their own present moment .... in the beauty of the here and now. Discovery, the order of the day.

There are two ways to read a book at the beach,

- The way you learned growing up, and,

- The way you are growing up.

------------------------------------

More on Parker River next week.

-------------------------------

Some humor:

Until next week,  Peace,

          Bill Lagerstrom