• clouds,  landscape,  quotes,  sunsets

    Heroes

    Sunset from my sisters patio

    Heroes are transmutation agents — people who alchemize suffering and restlessness and rage into love, who compost disappointment into fertilizer for growth, who break down cynicism to its building blocks of helplessness and hubris, then metabolize the toxin out of the system we call society.

    Marian Popova

    We awoke to a dusting of snow this morning. I meet my friend Mark this morning for breakfast then do a couple of things around the house. I am thankful this morning for the heroes that I have in my life, both men and women. My life is richer because of the heroes who have loved me, those beautiful transmutation agents. Stay warm and have a wonderful day!

  • desert,  landscape,  quotes

    Eventually…

    Predawn on Perata Trail, Arizona – 2013

    “Life sometimes is hard. There are challenges. There are difficulties. There is pain. As a younger man I sought to avoid them and only ever caused myself more of the same. These days I choose to face life head on—and I have become a comet. I arc across the sky of my life and the harder times are the friction that lets the worn and tired bits drop away. It’s a good way to travel; eventually I will wear away all resistance until all there is left of me is light. I can live towards that end.”

    Richard Wagamese, Embers
  • clouds,  desert,  landscape,  sunrises,  writing/reading

    What are the gifts of new days for?

    Predawn light along Peralta Trail, Arizona – 2016

    The gift of a new day (I touched on that in Thursday’s post) always offers the opportunity for something new to experience that will only happen or begin on this day. I’m so much more aware of that than in my youth. So here is a list of some opportunities that pop into my mind as I write this post, which could be totally different next week. It’s short because I’m expecting each of us to add our own.

    So, new days are for writing our first poem, begin or finish our autobiography, face the blank canvas of our first painting, bake our first pie and be brave enough to eat it, write our first song or maybe just the chorus, take dance lessons or dance in the rain, find the courage to ask her out for dinner, give our granddaughter her first driving lesson, develop our fist black and white print, watching our first sunrise in the desert in a state of awe, running our first marathon or accepting the fact it ain’t gonna happen at this age, begin a new adventure as we are never too old, plant a vegetable garden, learn to ride a horse or a unicycle or snowboard, and the list goes on and on….

  • Cityscapes/Urban,  grass,  lifestyles

    What Happened to the Grass?

    Not looking too healthy
    Not looking too healthy after scalping and thatching

    Since arriving in the Phoenix area, I’ve made 3 trips to visit my parents in Gold Canyon. A couple weeks ago I was shocked to see the condition of the golf course in their community. The grass that was green the week before now looked like it was dying, and it was. So, what happened?

  • Cityscapes/Urban,  Fujifilm X-T10,  sunsets

    Last Nights Sunset

    Last Nights Sunset
    Last Nights Sunset

    I walked over to the golf course to see about finding some images of the moonrise but clouds prevented didn’t allow those images. But, as many “good photographers” know we must also look behind us and in this case the lingering sunset is what was being given me. This is a jpg file exposure and tone adjustments then cropped to 16:9. The exposure settings were 30s at f22 with an ISO 200. Hand held.

    Just kidding. 🙂