• Avian,  natural areas,  quotes

    The Literature of the Spirit

    December 5, 2024
    Pelican in early morning fog at Arapaho Bend Natural Area – May 2023

    One of our problems today is that we are not well acquainted with the literature of the spirit. We’re interested in the news of the day and the problems of the hour.

    Joseph Campbell

    My wife and I separated in 1991 and sold the house that fall. I drove away with everything I owned in the back of a small Ford Ranger pickup and with a feeling I was not familiar with. Her and I were closing one chapter of our lives and moving forward into another. It was a time of letting go. One thing that I have fully embraced from that day to the present was the letting go of television. I have not owned one since then. I came to a place where I’m not interested in the news of the day, the problems of the hour or what society considers entertainment. I focus my attention on the reality of life, one-on-one time with family and friends, the gift of time in nature, reaching out to the needs of those who are suffering, time in solitude, silence, prayer and meditation, journaling, photography and listening to the spirit that pervades everything. I guess you can say that’s being acquainted with the literature of the spirit.

    Six years ago today I had open heart surgery. That valve lasted about four years when it failed and they needed to replace it in a TAVR procedure, March 2023. So today I am grateful and living life as full as I can. Thank you to all who have been reading these ramblings over the years!!

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  • Black and White,  Candid Portraits,  coffee life,  quotes,  writing/reading

    I promise you…

    December 4, 2024

    Teachers and other adults too will tell you a lot of things you may argue with eventually – you may well have your own different ideas, and perhaps better ones. But about the importance of learning to write and read, easily and fluently, you will never argue. Such wonderful people will speak to you – to YOU – from the pages. Such adventures you will have through their telling, that you would never otherwise have! And all because the words on the page are not a puzzle but a door to many worlds. To write is delight, to read is to plant the seed of endless excitement. I promise you.

    Mary Oliver
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  • Avian,  nature,  quotes

    I hope so!!

    December 3, 2024
    Western Kingbird – June 2023

    The American people may solve their problems themselves, and so save the world a catastrophe, but not by insisting that the government do their work for them. No man will ever be whole and dignified and free except in the knowledge that the men around him are whole and dignified and free, and that the world itself is free of contempt and misuse.

    Wendell Berry, Hidden Wound

    Spending time in nature has taught me how birds embrace freedom. The life of this Western Kingbird is not without peril, requiring a constant alertness or its life can end quickly in the talons of some raptor. But, I’m not sure they worry about the price of gas or a quart of milk, or increases in property taxes and insurance, or the prison of their corporate lives. And there seems to be no indication they feel more dignified or less dignified than their neighbor. They perch on the same barbed wire fence and pursue the same insects as all their neighbors. I seriously doubt it’s concerned if its song of repeated bursts of “chits” and chattering is more enjoyable, or less, than the meadowlarks or the magpies. It seems they sing from a heart that is free of its role in the contempt and misuse of the world. I desire to think it’s a song of joy, wonder, pleasure, trust or hope! At least I hope so!!

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