May 29, 2015

May 29, 2015

All images are mine unless otherwise noted.

To see photos full screen click on any image.

    All the images below originate in the camera and enhancements are accomplished in software which these days can offer painting and watercolor effects really well.

   Last week we spent two days in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and went from wonderful shorelines to the tulip displays at the botanical gardens there. Flowers are first followed by sunset and a few pictures of interest to me. Creativity always seems to be at the frontline of my ventures into photography these days, and I would like to offer a few quotes that had meaning for me this past week that match my efforts to express what is coming from interior spaces, and not just from technical expertise, which can be a trap to be only as perfect as possible while abandoning what our creative nature is demanding of us. 

      "We get a lot further creatively by staying put and doing something small and do-able daily in the life we already have."

                                                                                               Julia Cameron

    - Creativity, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in a 
un-habitual way.
                                                                                                Unknown

     "A painting is never finished - it simply stops in interesting places."

                                                                                                Paul Gardener

     "One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."

                                                                                                Andre Gide

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

Observing life with a clear eyes helps to make us 'flower fresh.

                                                              Thich Nhat Hahn

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The setting sun has its own charm,

looking with the eyes of remembered childhood

this late illumination has magical qualities

that do not appear at any other time.

A lone gull searches for a spot to roost and sleep -

I wonder if sleep is the goal, or if the rising moon

brings a new attention to the next part of the day.

The birds know what I do not.

Days end brings peace and a deep sense of belonging to nature .....

a time to let go of explanations for what we see,

a time for simply being quiet and allowing

God to do the talking.

Beauty has its own language,

a silent moment here, and here..... and here.

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.... as we sail into the mystic,

safe harbor is never far from any direction we travel.

The wind always tells us where it blows from,

to or from home .....

does it really matter?

Storms never last forever.

Good sailing is ever waiting to carry us

across the never ending expanse

of the Ocean that is God.

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Some humor:

Peace until next post,

                   Bill Lagerstrom

Mat 19,2015

May 19, 2015

All photos are mine unless otherwise noted.

To see an image full screen click on any photo.


   Spring has arrived in full force after almost six months of bare trees and brown grass. Spring is not just an event that happens in the world, it is also all that waits in us to leap towards the Light and reveal our beauty to everyone. It's an event that is held during any Season in waiting hearts who long for the Grace of new life to occur and recur for all of our lives. 

   "How should Spring bring forth a garden on hard stone? Become earth, that you may grow flowers of many colors. For you have been given heart-breaking rock. Once, at least, for the sake of experience, be earth!"

                                                                                                                        Rumi

   Images of Spring in Acadia National Park here in Maine where we were last Friday.

     After an absence of several years beavers returned to this stream and most skilfully built a new dam. The floodplain growing from this dam may approach 80-100 acres in the marsh to the left of this image. 

Spring has many colors, not only green.

Each tree and bush explodes with its own plan in Spring.

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   Below are two images from the same click of the camera's shutter. Perhaps, as a thought or a metaphor for Spring they can be looked at in this light; we see most things mostly with what we already know. I can look at a tree and expound on its aspects with information I already have in memory. This is habit, and everyone for a great deal of the time looks at the things of the world in just that way.

   Suppose for an experiment we ask a question of the object of our attention. Perhaps saying, "What do you want to show me of yourself?" The felt-sense of the energy of any object is different than what our eyes send to a knowledge filled brain. God's Creative energy is in everything and can be felt if we abandon the assumptions that we bring to the table. 

   The second image is simply an example of what might be seen by a less busy mind. What I saw  is more than a single part of one tree, it was a forest, a garden where flowers were planted, it was the tree saying, "I am a forest. I am all the trees that ever grew." 

   The eyes of the heart can hear and see these things if only we give our busyness a chance to become idle now and then.

 "I am a forest. I am all the trees that ever grew." 

Inside this new Spring be reborn.
Your way begins on the other side. 
Become the sky, 
Take an axe to the prison wall. 
Escape. 
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color. 

                                                                           Rumi

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Some humor, it's still Winter somewhere -

   

Peace until next post,

               Bill Lagerstrom

May 14, 2015

May 14, 2015

All photos are mine unless otherwise noted.

To see images full screen click on any photo.

   This will be brief as I am recovering from shoulder reconstruction for about six days now and my typing is hampered by the surgery. Two weekends ago Lee and myself went to the Parker River preserve in Northeastern Massachusetts .
We were in luck as the Spring migration was only a few weeks old and these travelers presented us with great views of 40 plus species, three of which are new to our life list. The to date estimate is that we have seen around 275 0r more different birds in the last decade or more. We stopped counting as seeing birds is more important than collecting them on a list.   Our list is the Peterson Guide to Birds where we enter a sighting date and place. It is great fun to say that a bird is new only to look in the book and see it first appeared to us 9-10 years ago. Keeps the whole thing in proper perspective.

Here are a few images from the weekend: 

Spotting a Parula Warbler. Lots of birders came out on Saturday.

I am told there is dragon on this new Spring leaf cluster.

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Some humor:

Peace until next post,

              Bill Lagerstrom