• landscape,  quotes,  silence,  sunsets,  trees

    Silence is the stuff of life…

    March 11, 2025

    I am constantly surrounded by noise: TV, texts, the internet, music, meaningless small talk, my thinking. All of it blocks my consciousness, my ability to hear the ME that exists beneath the cacophony. I am my consciousness, my awareness of my circumstance, my presence in every moment. So I cultivate silence every morning. I sit in it, bask in it, wrap it around myself, and hear and feel me. Then, wherever the day takes me, the people I meet are the beneficiaries of my having taken that time – they get the real me, not someone shaped and altered by the noise around me. Silence is the stuff of life.

    Richard Wagamese, Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations
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  • coffee life,  quotes,  trees

    … join the dance

    March 5, 2025

    The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

    Alan Watts

    I arrived four minutes before the coffee shop opened and stood outside. I watched and listened as the wind blew begging the trees to dance with her. Even in these unsettled times of our society and with the wind of change blowing, I stood there having a feeling of being settled and calm inside. I took a couple long steady breaths of prayer, raised my camera and took four images of the gently swaying trees. Shortly, my barista, Winter, opened the door and I entered to enjoy her mocha latte and the gift of my coffee life. And, I knew I was joining in the dance.

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  • frost,  landscape,  quotes,  trees,  winter scenes

    Damn it’s cold!

    February 21, 2025

    The contemplative discipline of meditation… doesn’t acquire anything. In that sense, and an important sense, it is not a technique but a surrendering of deeply imbedded resistances that allows the sacred within gradually to reveal itself as a simple, fundamental fact.

    Martin Laid

    This image was handheld when it was 7 degrees and with a slight breeze out of the northeast. Because of those two factors it is not sharp, probably true of more of my images than I want to admit, but I do like the feel of it. It shouts, “Damn it’s cold!” On the upside we are moving into a few days of warmer weather, reaching into the 60’s.

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  • Arapaho Bend Natural Area,  landscape,  natural areas,  quotes,  silence,  trees

    Glorious Silence

    January 18, 2025
    Morning fog at Arapaho Bend Natural Area

    in the barren cottonwood tree
    dozens of birds, all of them still,
    as if, like me, they are enthralled
    doubtful they could ever improve
    on all this glorious silence

    Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

    The glorious silence from the nights snow filled my bedroom. I could feel the cold as I lay under the covers. After a prayer of thanks I enter into this new day. I dress and make my bed then spend 20 minutes on my meditation cushion. More silence. Journaling. More silence. I make a bowl of cereal with a banana and a chai latte. My day is starting off good. It looks like 3 inches of snow fell during the night and it is 14 degrees. No bicycling or picnic today. Eric and I will talk on the phone rather than get out in this weather. Stay warm and enjoy the silence!

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  • bicycling,  quotes,  trees

    Cluelessness

    October 26, 2024

    When it comes to learning something new, cluelessness turns out to be the perfect and only place to start.

    Margaret D. McGee

    One of the gifts with bicycling along the hard surface trails in Fort Collins has been the connection to nature. The trails separate me from the city noise but within the city. Unless I told you there were homes a short distance from this scene you wouldn’t know it, you’d be clueless! A brisk 31 degrees this morning but clear blue skies and sunshine now. Hope you have a wonderful weekend!!

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