May 17, 2014

May 17, 2014

   I was just given something remarkable, a site that has a live camera on an osprey nest in Bremen Maine. There are three eggs in the nest and during daylight you can watch the activities of the male and female. Do take a look.

The live camera: http://www.ustream.tv/exploreOsprey

A recording from yeaterday: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/47715573  
   The first five minutes are a must watch. Toggle full screen on the bottom right of the video.

The National Geographic info on this great raptor: 

   http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/osprey/

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   All Photos are mine unless otherwise noted.

   To view images in full screen click on any photo.

   The miracles of Spring have arrived with an explosion of green that always comes unexpectedly. It seems to me that the energy to live anew leaps with an energy that was pent up in each bud, each blade of grass, lying in waiting all through the Winter. Over night it seems trees put out the leaves of the new Season as if in some secret ritual that cannot take place in daylight, a sacred ritual that only trees know and practice. 

   A lot of people I trust are saying that this has been the worst Winter in their memory here in Maine. For myself it was just plain long, almost endless in its refusal to cede natures stage to all that needs to reveal itself and grow into the marvel of fullness that only comes when every leaf and blade of grass arrive into their own unique selves. 

   So, photos  of two springs beginnings. The first are three leaves from an American Beech tree in our backyard - followed by a few more pictures taken on my Retreat in Gloucester Mass. a week ago. I have been blessed this year to follow Spring as it traveled north with me in the last 8-10 days. 

   Beech leaves with their empty buds that held them in perfect minerature all Winter long.

In a midnight ritual as moonlight carressed each bud,

the life held within burst all its seams

bringing forth in a seeming silent thunder,

the newness of birth, heard only by the leaves themselves.

Morning brings our awareness 

that God has been creating miracle after miracle

as we, sleeping in warm beds  unaware of these creative forces,

could only upon mornings rising understand

something of the enormity of the events that took place in the dark,

illuminated only by the reflection of the Sun 

coming from the moon's surface.

                            

What door is this?

Perhaps it is the door to the heart,

one that needs no key

and opens as soon as we aproach the unlocked portal.

Here is a single chair we are invited to sit in,

and ponder the miracle of the moment -

the place where we are,

in this, the Present Moment

The warmth of Spring brings mornings of fog ,

and the grass is going bananas saying,

"Let's go! Time to sprout Get a move on it!"

The Eastern Point Retreat House in the fog.

   A photo of the rocks a few hundred feet out in the ocean in wonder working view from almost every window in the house facing East. I am particularly fond of this image and I am hard pressed to say why. The heart doesn't always speak with the clarity I would like. 

Spring

More Spring

A composition I like.

Some humor:

How to wish Winter "Bon Voyage!"

Peace until next week,

      Bill Lagerstrom

May 11, 2014

May 11, 2014

   All Photos are mine unless otherwise noted. All images in this post were taken at the Eastern Point Retreat House. All poetry is also mine.

   To see photos full screen click on any image.

    Back from an eight day retreat at the Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester Mass. a house run by the Jesuits who do this work really well. The retreat was in silence which has the effect of focusing one's attention away from the busyness of the world and the constant bombardment of information others deem necessary for our well being, or for the ad revenue well being of their bottom line. I did not look at a newspaper or listen to the news at all and to my satisfaction since I returned I really did not miss very much. The media for the most part focuses on the "Oh my God!" factor which has gotten more than annoying for me these days. 

   This retreat house sits on the Atlantic Ocean and when Lee and a friend from where we live also went with us got there a storm was in progress which made for a most auspicious start to the week. Retreats of this sort have a cycle for me which has me in a state of vague confusion to begin with for a day or so as the silence takes a while to permeate the senses. 

   Sensing God's Voice, so to speak, I wrote in my journal what I was receiving,

     "I will not grant you rest,
          until I have rested in you.
       I will not will not give you My Peace,
          until you have found peace in yourself." 

   So after a day or two a sense of equnimity did settle in as it always does and the retreat became just that, a retreat from busyness and constant doing.

   Here is the website for the house:    https://www.easternpoint.org/

The view from the rocky shore in the rear of the house.

This is the rear of the house. 

Built in 1921 as a private residence and given to the Jesuits later on.

"I am the Light to show you the path to Me in you,

I, who illuminates those darkened hearts who turn back to Me.

When night is over, and morning comes,

You, My beloved, are the flame to light the candle of  My New Day."

Seeing into one's own nature,

the Nature of the heart,

The seasons of the interior life

are not to be explained by the intellect,

only to be known by the direct experience 

of the affairs of God within.

Nature seen wherever we travel,

is the same as our inner experience of God's creations.

   The famous fir tree of Eastern Point, photographed, painted, and even sung about by some. Standing by the ocean it has been since a seed, it was this healthy since I first saw it around eight years ago. Many sit under her branches in the reclined chairs that are ever present here. Here is my take on this icon.

Spring arrived with a few flowers as herald for the Season

At the pond on one side of the retreat house,

a mallard duck, belly full from the mornings feasting

was seen taking a nap in a well balanced moment.

Taken at 4:45 in the morning, the view from the window in my room.

      One last "Postcard" with the red roof of a meditation room next to a labyrinth a short distance away from the house. 

Some humor:

   Until next week,

           Peace, Bill Lagerstrom

April 26, 2014

April 26, 2014

   All photos are mine unless otherwise noted.

   To see images full screen click on any photograph.

     The first eight  images below were taken in Acadia last weekend and are beginning to represent a giving up of sorts for me. Since this is the most heavily treed State in the Nation I may begin to look with a different perspective on my photography to bring that into clearer focus. Time will tell. In the meantime I am going to try to spend one day a week in the Park by myself, a sort of weekly retreat to see more of the wonderful Gifts God has given to all who enjoy Nature. 

   Here is a fine teaching I heard to this week by Tara Brach of the Insight Meditation Center in Washington D.C.  Well worth a listen or a download to an MP3 device to be heard later.

"The God Whom I Love Is Inside"

                              https://app.box.com/s/q67qtng7crryd2nxn26n

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   - The gull who quit the sea for the land -

There is a story here,

     one of unhappiness for an assigned vocation.

  "I am tired of the smell of fish,

     the constant squabbling of my workmates,

     the incessant noise of the waves, waves and more waves."

        he said as looked upwards for the first time

           in the direction of the land.

       A mountain with trees, waterfalls, and hope came into sight.

  

  "I will go and live in the skies atop the mountain,

     alone, happy and free of life's struggles."

    And our gull did just what he said.

He has been there three days now, and neither you or I,

     dear reader, know what the future will hold for our friend.

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The forest is deep and lovely.

To be careful where one stands

is the way to bring hidden beauty into view

A favorite place, Bubble Pond.

   "If you look at the Acadia Map you will see that Bubble Pond runs north to south. As a matter of fact, you will see that all of the bodies of water on Mount Desert Island do the same. During the past ice ages, massive sheets of ice as much as 2 miles high, moved ever so slowly across this land in a southerly direction, scooping out the low areas that became ponds and lakes, and shearing off the mountain tops leaving them rounded rather than pointed."

                  From Acadia Magic - http://www.acadiamagic.com/

Nothing ever lives unless something else dies.

   This small pine is growing out of the stump of a long gone tree that died probably ten years ago. Life will appear where the nourishment of what has died is found. So it also is with us, that which dies in us, old fears, certitudes, and the like, find birth as new good actions because of this cycle.

Jordon Stream during the snowmelt last week. 

The first butterfly of the Season.

Your life is short dear butterfly -

yet the memory of your beauty will last 

until we meet again,

this year or next.

(The butterfly is a Mourning Cloak.

Many thanks to Cliff Browder for this information.}

A gathering of trees at Jordon Stream.

What secrets are you sharing dear trees?

Are you planning what lovely finery you will wear

when leaves adorn your frames soon?

What do you talk to each other about while waiting on Spring?

Just want to give some perspective on the scope of the trees in Acadia.

(Bubble Pond carriage road.)

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   Here are two photos that I continue to work on. They were taken in the last year and continue to offer a chance to look again at what can be seen with a slightly changed perspective that arrives with the passage of time.  

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Some Humor: (Two offerings this week.)

"Cows just want to have fun."

   Peace,  Bill Lagerstrom