• Avian,  quotes

    The Experience of This Moment

    May 1, 2023
    Red-winged blackbird and Yellow-headed blackbird

    I want the experience of being alive in this moment, and I want to know I am having it. The breeze on my skin. Air moving in and out of my lungs. Light in the trees. The songs of birds. A human touch, skin to skin. I want these things because I know now, after more than a half century of living, that in these simple, ordinary moment-to-moments, the Sacred comes out to play. It is in the air, the light, and the song that heaven makes a home. To have the experience of this moment, and to know I’m having it, is to be alive with the One who made the moment.

    Margaret D. McGee

    At this time in my life I find I enjoy the multitude of moments life offers, and even look for them. Where in my youth I overlooked them, never knowing that I was missing out on some of the best parts of this life. I sat at Reservoir Ridge Natural Area yesterday afternoon/evening where I was able to experience the breeze on my skin and applaud the song birds. And, as she states, I want to be alive, knowing I’m also in the presence of the One who made the moment. Don’t wanna miss them!

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  • grass,  landscape,  Mary Oliver,  Plants,  poems,  poetry,  writing/reading

    A Poem and A Photograph

    November 8, 2021

    Every day
          I see or hear
                something
                      that more or less

    kills me
          with delight,
                that leaves me
                      like a needle

    in the haystack
          of light.
                It was what I was born for —
                      to look, to listen,

    to lose myself
          inside this soft world —
                to instruct myself
                      over and over

    in joy,
          and acclamation.
                Nor am I talking
                      about the exceptional,

    the fearful, the dreadful,
          the very extravagant —
                but of the ordinary,
                      the common, the very drab,

    the daily presentations.
          Oh, good scholar,
                I say to myself,
                      how can you help

    but grow wise
          with such teachings
                as these —
                      the untrimmable light

    of the world,
          the ocean’s shine,
                the prayers that are made
                      out of grass?

    Mindful by Mary Oliver
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  • Art/Design,  Documentary/Street,  lifestyles,  quotes

    The studio is the world…

    October 28, 2019

    All in a row

    There are two kinds of photographers: those who compose pictures and those who take them. The former work in studios. For the latter, the studio is the world…. For them, the ordinary doesn’t exist: every thing in life is a source of nourishment. – Ernst Haas

    This was taken at a local nursery back in 2011. My sister was buying plants and I was looking for visual nourishment. Amazing what we can see when a camera is hanging around our necks. I don’t fit in the first class of photographers that Haas talks about, nor do I want to, but I do walk every day in the world as if it’s a studio.

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  • Documentary/Street

    Seeing The Ordinary

    April 26, 2010
    Rusty Nails

    Amazing what we can discover when we take a few steps and go for a walk. After a day of flying I find it renewing to walk while on my overnights. It’s both healthy for me physically and mentally. I never know what I will see and experience on these walks. I’ve had opportunities to meet really interesting people, or find that neat little shop, park, museum. I may discover a bit of the history of the community, something of its past. Whatever I encounter, I’m learning to experience it, feel it, live it. If we do not take forward steps we will not go anywhere nor see and experience new things in life, or even the ordinary and overlooked things in life. Have a super day!

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