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.

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

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

April 19,2014

April 19,2014

   All photos are mine uhless otherwise noted.

   To view images full screen click on any photo.

   Acadia opened last Tuesday and Lee and I had our last walk on the Loop Road before the cars came. We parked near the entrance to Ocean drive and walked against the non-existent traffic flow to the top of the hill, which is also the top of the Precipice. The trails to this mountain are closed as the anual arrival of a pair of Peregine Falcons come to  build their nest, and for our eight years in Maine they have been successful in raising a brood each Spring and summer.

     In the first photo below the Precipice is shown from the Winter access road which leads to the short stretch of Ocean Drive open all year. I did go for opening day which was all rain which to these eyes makes Acadia even more beautiful. More on that in the nextpost.

The mountain that looks at its own reflection

is the reminder that the reflection we see looking within the heart,

is the beauty that we are, the beauty that God delights in. 

God's Gift to all so we may not forget.

On the road again - Lee at the Precipice.

The birch trees were a particularly brilliant white 

and surprisingly most made the Winter storms -

   Trees seem to leap with joy and reach really high hoping it seems, to catch the sun's rays that have promised a return to growth in the Spring. Most here in Maine can echo the tree's getting set to explode with the wonder of the Season. It has been a long Winter for everyone. 

Just as the true colors of a leaf are revealed only in Autumn,

the brilliance of Spring's new growth

is there in forest's depths,

waiting for the moment of release -

a debut worthy of the waiting.

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      John Wilson, a good friend and early retiree form his work is leaving in three weeks for Seattle where he will start a cross country bicycle trip ending back here in Maine in three months or so. He will be posting a blog along the way and I would like to invite you to follow him on this journey at the following address -

                    http://crosscountryridejohnwilson.blogspot.com/ 

    I will also put John's address on the top right of this blog along with the address of Kathy Macedo, a former Pastor of the Methodist Church on Union street who is leaving in a few days to walk the 500 miles of the Camino Pilgrimage in Spain. Here is her Blog address 

                       - http://pastorkathy48.blogspot.com/

   The address for the Camino de Santiago for American pilgrims is worth a look                  

                           http://www.americanpilgrims.com/

The road ahead is always a blur if we haven't gone that way before,

it is, however, the road we have in our hearts -

vaguely familar until we set our feet on it.

The Journey of life is that way -

present in heart memory since our beginnings.

           

           The Journey – by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you kept shouting

their bad advice-- though the whole house

began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles.

"Mend my life!" each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers at the very foundations,

though their melancholy was terrible.

It was already late enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen branches and stones.

But little by little, as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice which you slowly

recognized as your own, that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper into the world,

determined to do the only thing you could do--

determined to save the only life you could save.

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

Some Humor for the traveling to new lands:

   

   Until next week -

    Peace,  Bill Lagerstrom

April 15, 2014

April 15, 2014

   All photos are mine unless otherwise noted.

   To see photos full screen click on any image. All photos were taken at Colby except for the owl which was shot at the L.C. Bates museum. (See last week's post.)

    At another visit to the Colby College Meseum of Art in Waterville Maine last weekend we spent a few hours with the Tibetan Monk Losang Samten who was creating a sand mandala called "The Amitaba," after the famous Sutra of the same name, which is a  teaching of the Buddha in the Buddhist Canon. (Many translations are available online.) He was delightful, spoke excellent English, and told us that he can finish the Mandala in a day or two but talking with all comers it takes him a week. At its completion a ceremony is held and the Mandala is swept up and poured into a body of water, the ocean, lake, etc. 

    The Namgyal Monestary in Ithica New York is the home of many monks who travel the country and the world to create these temporary works of art. The symbolism in each Mandala requires too much space to even begin here. I invite you to research this art form and see if, like any great work of art, you are moved in those places where another's creativity meets ours.

   Here are some images of this meeting at Colby.

    

The Sand Painter's Palette

I suspected and asked if the pretzels were useful to the painting -

his reply, "Sure. I get hungry for a snack often."

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    Bridget, our daughter, is pregnant and I am sure she is more beautiful than ever, as are all women who are carrying a child. The statue above is for me an excellent metaphor for the serenity that emanates from pregnancy if one looks closely enough. 

   I include the following poem by Nancy Wood for Bridget and her remarkable husband Rudy.

- Earth Roots –

What are Earth Roots, my daughter asked

     when she was just a child,

examining each flower in its home.

Earth Roots are a special connection,

     a sacred thread that joins our spirits

     to every living thing, I said. Earth Roots

Join me to you, and you to birds and flowers.

In her hand my daughter held a sparrow

     with a broken wing. She said:

Can Earth Roots make the sparrow fly again?

The sparrow can become a rose, in time,

     just as the rose takes wing, I said.

Earth Roots make all things possible.

My daughter did not understand these things

     until she had a child of her own.

     Then she saw the way Earth Roots join

     The sparrow to the rose.

                                                                  Nancy Wood

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Three Sufi dancers of the Mevlavi Tradition.

Moving visual art at Colby

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   I am not one to wax emotional at everything that is labeled as 'art.' On a wall at Colby two lines, one red, one blue, and a green circle, along with four paragraphs explaining the value of this as a 'work of art',  greets and disarms as one ascends the stairs between floors.  My comment on this wall is contained in what can easily be called "nose clip art"  in the next image. 

"Two lines and a circle?"

"Oh be wise dear owl, not a wise ass!"

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Some humor:

            Peace until the next post

                                            Bill Lagerstrom