January 10, 2014

January 10, 2014

Photos can be viewed full frame by clicking on any image.

All photos are mine unless otherwise noted.

    On Sunday Lee and I along with friends went showshoeing on the trails set up by the University of Maine at Orono on their property which is available to everyone. Umaine manages 13,000 thousand acres of forest in Maine and we were on a tract of some 1600 acres. The day was one of those rare ones where sun, snow and trees came together and Nature performed a wonderful symphony with a beautiful coordination of every view on every foot of trail we were on.
   Days like this are the domain of postcards and it is only after our years here in Maine that I come to expect them to happen even though I am always surprised when they do. It was a day for memory to  permanently implant God's brushwork for vivid recall at any time in the future. 

     
    The following song is about Christmas, and since each new day is an echo of birth in us I offer it as a reminder of today, and every tommorrow that brings new life to us. I thought it fitted Sunday's experience well. The words are below the third photo.

Click here to listen:   https://app.box.com/s/y1k3scnxpmt5x3613xu6

Lee and Lynn 

                      - The Spirit Of Christmas Past –

When tears are in your eyes

   it's time to look inside

   your heart can find another way.

Believe in What I say

   don't throw this time away

   tomorrow will be Christmas Day …

   tomorrow will be Christmas Day …

So let the shadows go

   and drift away like snow

   tomorrow will be Christmas Day …

   tomorrow will be Christmas Day …

So, dream until the night

   becomes the morning light

   tomorrow will be Christmas Day …

   tomorrow will be Christmas Day …

                      Sung by Enya

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   Two weeks ago Lee and I went to Jonesport, a small town up the coast about two hours from where we live, and spent several delightful hours with Helen Beal who continues to take care of and run the model railroad she, her husband, nephew, and friends spent the last 25-30 years putting together. It is a legacy story as Helen's husband died in 2112 after a long marriage. Harold's presence was felt in the work he left for our enjoyment and in the wonderful way Helen talked of their remarkable relationship over their years together. Helen is a remarkable Maine woman in every way, and it was a pleasure to meet and talk with her about what was created in a building just a few feet from her house. 

    Helen's nephew came by to run a few of the many HO scale trains on the layout he helped build and run as a working railroad when he, Harold and friends spent many a Sunday evening enjoying what they put together. Helen did not say she was there on those Sundays, but I suspect nothing would have kept her away. Helen built all the buildings, trees, mountains - all the scenery for the layout with a truly talented pair of hands in the project she and Harlold spent countless hours putting together while growing closer in what Helen called, "A marriage that never had an argument." 

   

    Thank you Helen for our time together. We will be back soon.

   Here is the website for the railroad:   

                   http://www.mainecentralmodelrailroad.com/

   The site has a slideshow showing much more than I could capture. Please take a look.

             

                    Nephew, Helen and Lee talking in  part of the layout

No detail was left out anywhere on the HO scale layout

One of many bridges beautifully handcrafted

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Train Tracks are pathways taking us to places 

known and unknown, always an adventure

as we in essence follow those who have gone before,

who have made a way for all of us who come after, 

traveling the vast stretches life before us.

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An Angel dictating the Gospel to the Apostle Matthew, by Guido Reni.

We got a copy of this circa 1600 painting at the Vatican some years back.

It has hung where I sit and write my poetry for a dozen years now.

I offer no comment other than a question -

How does God speak to you?

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Some humor:

    In Brewer across from Bangor, in the most heavily treed State in the country, this sculpture was erected, perhaps for those who are tired of real trees. (Shot from my car window stopped at a light)

Peace until next week,

   Bill Lagerstrom

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December 30, 2013

December 30, 2013

    Some people retire and move to Florida where they idle away the days and to a degree stop learning and growing even though there is so much available  to stay active and fully alive. Cathy Bruno, a friend to this blog who lives in the Bangor area has just retired and has started a Blog to document a new career as a musician, how she is going about adding to her knowledge by returning to college and by being active in the Church as a singer and an organist. She is, from several conversations we have had, a remarkable Maine Woman who is not going to stop growing. God has Graced Cathy and her Bolg is well worth visiting. If you add your email in the box on the upper right of Cathy's Blog you will be notified of new posts and be able to follow how her life is unfolding.

Here is the address:    http://CathyJBruno.blogspot.com/

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   All photos are mine unless otherwise noted and can be viewed full screen by clicking on any image.

    Well we have had what some call a two or three times a century ice storm leaving the State in a frozen pickle even almost a week after the event. A lot of power was lost everywhere and will not be fully restored for some until the weekend, almost ten days without electricity. We had three outages, two for a short duration of a few hours, and all of Christmas Eve until morning arrived. We are luckier than many and Lee and I were grateful to be without power as we had a chance to not turn on anything electronic and play a few games - Scrabble and a word card game - along with connecting by talking without distractions from any screen. We still had heat and water even though we were prepared to go a distance without because of much practice through vacations in a non-electric tent cabin on Campobelo Island off the coast of New Brunswick. 

   When there was sun Acadia National Park was where we spent two wonderful days in a story book Winter Wonderland that was truly unparalled in my memory for Nature's beauty. All the ice is still on the trees and every twig that manages to stick its head above ground as it has not gone above freezing since the storm. The latest weather says more sub-freezing temperatures for a while yet. 

   Life in Maine in the Winter means that getting outdoors is where the beauty is, so we go unless the roads are a problem. This rarely happens as we had ten inches of snow last night and the roads were almost completly clear at 7:30 this morning when Lee went to work. 

   Here are a few photos taken after the ice storm:

Every tree, branch, twig, exposed grass, house, overhead wire, 

tomb stone, cat or dog left out overnight, car, and on and on,

was covered with the same amount of ice you see on the twig above. 

My year end postcard from Maine

Every blade of grass ----

Eagle Lake, Acadia

every tree covered in ice

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The last rays of the Winter setting sun

have the ability to take one's breath away 

the Gift of God's Beauty -

No charge for anyone.

(Schoodic Point, above and below.)

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For some this is all the beauty of Winter

seen  by indifferent eyes while grumbling about the weather. 

For some, Winter and snow is simply trouble and bother.

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Something light by way of a suggestion - go out at night and read to the animals.

   They do enjoy a good story!

Peace until next week,

     Bill Lagerstrom

December 23, 2013

December 23, 2013

Photos can be viewed full frame by clicking on any image.

All photos are mine unless otherwise noted.

    Happy Holidays as we are in the Season of all sorts of celebrations. By way of holiday cheer here are two videos that are well worth a viewing as they are simply delightful clips, well made and exceptionally clever. Please enjoy these Christmas gifts from the creative people who put them together.

   Be sure to turn your speakers up and watch in full screen by using the controls at the bottom of the video windows.

    The Magic Piano:

Click here:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9BOTXFCpQA

     Four musicians who play one piano:

Click here:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n543eKIdbUI

(The card above means to say, "From Maine, the very best of the Season...." )

  -  A Christmas Teaching -

Inside everyone

   is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.

Even with summer so far off

    we can already feel it grow in us,

    ready to arrive to life in the world.

All those years listening to those

   who had nothing to say.

All those years forgetting how everything

   has its own voice to make itself heard;

All those years forgetting how easily

   we can belong to everything,

   simply by listening.

Ours is the slow difficulty of remembering

   how everything is born

  from an opposite and miraculous otherness.

Silence and this Winter of listening

   will be enough for the new life

   we can all call our own.

Jesus, our Teacher in these matters,

   was born they say in this, 

   our cold Season of December -

   a teaching in itself on how to go forward from here.

                                          Bill Lagerstrom, 12/2013

  

A Winter scene in Brewer, Maine.

Taken during  the Winter Soltace,

the day of the year with the least hours of daylight.

Today, Sunday morning, after an ice storm left this Bluejay 

to puff up on an ice laden branch trying to stay warm.

Someplace in Hampden, Maine a few days ago.

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      This is the view from the window I sit in front of regularly. On the table is a pile of photos, each waiting to be matched up with a poem which will then be bound into a book - looking at the stack of images I think several books. The book on the bottom left is a guide for a new camera.

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   What follows are three photos taken at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of my recent trip to NYC. I am still processing many of the pictures I took that week into images that appeal to my sense of viewpoint. The effect I was seeking in the first two photos tends more to what was produced for over one hundred years by so many photographers who had only film and a darkroom to work with. I am reminded of many photographs that  influenced me when I first picked up a camera in my childhood and at the same time rummaged through books on photography at the Jersey City, Zabriskie Street library where I spent many a day expanding my outlook. Some of those photographers are still my mentors to this day. 

   The last image is from a Japanese vase created in the sixth century which has a Zen like quality to these eyes. 

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A little Christmas Humor:

      Happy Hollidays to all, and to all a good night.

                  Peace,  Bill Lagerstrom