May 18, 2016

“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”

― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

I saw this delightful birdhouse and birdfeeder in the yard of an old Victorian House while wandering the other day and stopped to laugh. I thought they belonged in Whoville, in Cindy Lou Who’s yard.

According to the book Horton Hears a Who!, the city of Whoville is located within a floating speck of dust which is then placed onto a clover flower by Horton the Elephant. I like that!!

The birdhouse was inhabited and the birdfeeder in use. As I laughed and photographed I thought I caught movement of a lace curtain in the house and imagined a wizened old face with wrinkles of mirth stealing a peek at this old lady who wandered stopped and laughed at her yard.

Robert Frost once wrote that if we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane, so laugh My Good Friends, laugh away!!

The Iris , a Giver of Delight

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happyness…I don’t feel like “dropping the y and adding an I” today. Besides I think it looks better this way. You really see the word HAPPY. In English we add the suffix ness to change an adjective to a noun. Let’s forget about that and just consider HAPPY as a word capable of being an adjective and a noun, and maybe even a verb. That would be cool.

It has been overcast and rainy for several weeks now and the lack of sun shine seems to be taking a toll on my ability to maintain a healthy mental attitude. In other words it is driving me bonkers! I was hoping for the sun to at least show itself for a few moments in some magical break in the clouds. It was even going to be okay if the sky didn’t erupt into Leonard Cohen singing “Halleluiah”. Alas it did not happen. I wandered the old streets with my camera in hand when I chanced upon a most magnificent iris. It sure didn’t need to be illuminated by rays of a sun to reflect some inner glory. It was perfect. I stood there just looking at it for a while before I took its picture.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and still do.

Love, Light and Laughter

Zahn

May our hopes today be bigger than our fears.
I think all of us have moments when we judge ourselves harshly and mercilessly, and this leads to fear and anguish and ultimately leaves us drained and exhausted. I try and remember that the road is not a straight line and often fraught with obstacles, many of our own making.
It is important that we be gentle to ourselves and love ourselves and accept that we are going to stumble and fall and even lose our way sometimes as the path isn’t always clear and the light sometimes dims and darkness falls.
Just remember that we are not alone and that there are others who too feel this same anxiety. Just keep hope alive and keep dancing onward even if some of the moves seem awkward and out of step.  

Love, Light and Laughter,

Zahn

Red Tulip….
The world of man often scares me and makes me lonely. I need the joy that photographing flowers gives me. and sharing that with others pleases me. This red tulip whispered to me, “Have Faith”.

“Silently a flower blooms,
In silence it falls away;
Yet here now, at this moment, at this place,
The world of the flower, the whole of
the world is blooming.
This is the talk of the flower, the truth
of the blossom:
The glory of eternal life is fully shining here.”

-Zenkei Shibayama

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” – Henry Miller

 The first thing I saw when I opened Google this morning was their heading announcing Spring. I loved the animated flowers growing and the bee buzzing. Then beneath the heading was an announcement that today is the International Day of Happiness. Then I looked at of the window and in the words of Gomer Pyle, surprise-surprise-surprise, I saw lots of large snowflakes landing gently on the ground and accumulating. Ain’t life a kick?

I have been spending some time photographing flowers inside my local nursery, and they have been magnificent. Just because they have been forced to bloom in a greenhouse before their time does not make them less deserving of notice and appreciation. In fact it may give them more as they hold a special place of recognition.  I took dozens of photographs, got besotted on scents and colors, and then on my way to my car I spied some discarded netting. You just never know where you will find beauty so always be alert. This ole world can always use more lerts. 

Now let’s see who recognizes the reference to Gomer Pyle.  

March 14, 2015…Masts Awaiting Sails



Spring Thaw…still had heavy frost sparkling on my windshield this morning

I am sure that Spring will come, and yes I am aware that capitalizing the seasons is not proper grammar, but I have never been one to stand on what is proper, certainly not where the English language is concerned. I personally deem the seasons as worthy to be capitalized. I am also quite fond of fragments so if that offends you please do not proceed. Oh, and I have also been known to make up words.

Now where was I?

Oh, yes, I remember.

I am sure that Spring will come. I see the tulips and the daffodils, and the crocus, and the hyacinths all beginning to push the dirt and what is left of the snow aside in readiness to make their appearances. I have no doubt that soon the air will be warm and delightfully scented. The hillsides are still bare and brown, but soon they will burst forth with vibrant colors. I can’t wait till the days are warm and I can flit from flower to flower in amazement and astonishment that some plan, way beyond my simple understanding, was set in motion eons ago to insure that this happens.

But what of today? 

I might be so focused on what is to come that my forsightedness may cause me to fail to see what is right in front of me. This moment is here and now and full of many beautiful things to see and to feel and to delight in. The river is free to flow along the surface again and the wind seems to take joy in creating ripples. Flocks of geese and diving ducks fly along the river, many considering returning to their breeding grounds north. Osprey and eagles have begun to return here to make nests and raise families. It is marvelous to dream of the future and hope, but I need to learn to balance on one foot, or maybe on my head, so that I don’t let the NOW slip past without appreciation.

I took a cell phone shot of the sun setting on the river the other evening. It wasn’t a particularly good shot and I shared it with a friend and lamented that the light had changed so quickly that I missed the shot I really wanted. My friend sent me back a simple reply. “Still a great shot.”

Those simple words have been resonating in my mind and made me think that it was true and that I had perhaps really missed the beauty of the moment, looking to a future one.

March 4 There are Times…

It has been a long winter. It began, for me, on a morning late in November when I got up and stepped onto the pier and looked out across the water and saw the barest notion of skim ice shimmer. Here it is March and yet it lingers.

There are times when the sky seems so low and dark and oppressive, when buzzards fly overhead making me aware that some creature has not survived, and though I know change to be the natural order of the Universe, the winter has made me weary and the tiredness has stolen a part of me that accepts this and that gives me strength to accept what I cannot understand. Crows try to find something to eat beneath the snow, and the night comes too fast and I can hardly breathe.

There are times when the temperature dips into single digits, both above and below zero, and the wind whips my face and stings and howls loud enough to drown out my cries. Sometimes nothing can burn like the cold. Isn’t that an irony? I somehow feel deserving of the pain. My weaknesses and my foibles seem exposed and no amount of punishment will bring redemption. I peer through the trees into the woods and imagine yellow eyes looking back at me, like hungry wolves waiting for me to look away and put down my guard. I know they are not real, but sometimes even thoughts can take on a reality, even a symbolic one and can hurt you. Their forcefulness is like a gale pushing and bending the door to your heart until you cannot hold them back. 

There are times when I hate driving on the freeway or into the city after a heavy snow. The plows have shoved the snow aside and pushed it into mounds and the passing cars and trucks and buses have thrown their dirt upon them and there is an ugliness that makes me divert my eyes. It seems symbolic of what people have done to this beautiful planet we have been gifted with. It makes me feel us unworthy. When I stop in Baltimore the emotionally lost and the homeless approach my car. I do not understand and though when the temperature reaches a critical low (wonder who determines that?) there is a “roundup” up these desolate people to force them into shelters. I cannot help but question this fear they have. Perhaps the fear is not only on the side of the homeless, but on society toward them too. I have nothing to offer sometimes except a non judgmental glance into their eyes and a prayer.

There are times when the short days with no sun seem to stretch ahead as far as I can see, and are only broken by the long nights where stars seldom shine. This brings an introspection that often pains me.

There are times, though, that are good, times to bring me joy and times to help me understand that darkness is a part of my life, that sadness has its place and is a teacher bringing necessary lessons.

There are times when I love watching big snowflakes fall on my window panes. They land so gently I can see their individual geometric shapes and when I step outside the flakes land like kisses on my face. My grandmother used to tell me that when I was a little girl in Kentucky she would scoop a bowl of fresh snow and pour sweetened milk over it for me.

There are times when I find beauty in the silence of the woods when the snow has fallen and the air is still. It is magic and I feel the promise of spring in the quietness. When the woods are hushed like this I feel more in touch with My Maker.

There are times when I arise and step onto the pier and gaze out and the frozen river shimmers like jewels and reflects a warm joy that belies the ice source. I feel privileged and I know that I have been given a spiritual gift.

There are times when joy comes on wings, so unexpected as to make me stop. Some boats here at the marina have “bubblers” installed to keep the water around them warm and in motion so it doesn’t freeze and the other day a flock of diving ducks flying down the river must have spied the small thawed pool of water and were frolicking in it like they were at a spa. They made me laugh out loud. I looked out beyond them and a Great Blue Heron was gliding across the frozen expanse, reminding me of all those evenings I would photograph them when the weather was warm, and he spoke to me of a promise soon to come.

There is a time for everything. May I keep my balance and not be too hard on myself when I falter and when I rage. I know my life isn’t supposed to always be a garden. Even when the clouds hang low and cold the sun still shines above them, and when the night storms howl the stars are still there out beyond the storm, and I have only to see them with my heart.

And there is always LOVE…

And The Beat Goes On….

“ Each of us is born into this life with a light inside of us…What’s most important is to never let that light go out, because when you do it means you’ve lost yourself to the darkness. It means you lost your hope and hope is what makes this world a beautiful place.”
Excerpt from a book I recently read, Help for the Haunted, by John Searles
I used to think it didn’t matter what motivated a person to “do the right thing”, but I am no longer sure about that. I mean if you did the right thing because you didn’t want to go to hell when you died I pretty much said ok, regardless of my personal religious feelings. If you did the right thing because you wanted to win a prize I didn’t really care. JUST DO THE RIGHT THING MAN!
But then I got to thinking about how that perpetuates fear and fear either shrinks us or makes us monsters and so we become bullies or frightened shadows and the light within us is so hidden that sometimes it simply goes out for lack of tending.
Doing the right thing should be as natural as dancing barefoot on a sandy beach or sitting on a porch with rain falling on a tin roof and watching the evening shadows gather and the stars become visible and the fireflies flicker through the woods. Doing the right thing should be motivated by love for the Universe we have been gifted to live in. I don’t want to leave a legacy of fear, but one of hope. I pray that I might have the strength to do the natural and easy thing and not complicate my thoughts with arduous convoluted negative energy that can only lead to the end justifying the means. My road is a country lane, not a super highway, sometimes it isn’t really a road, but a waterway.
Back in the day….Some of us wandered around the country in our huaraches and shunned commercial chemicals on and in our bodies. We donned cotton tee shirts and peasant blouses and wore skirts and drawstring pants of bright rainbow colors. We grew alfalfa sprouts and mung beans. We advocated making love, not war. We revered the Earth as Gaia, a living organism. We still had the instinct we were born with, to know and do the right thing. Somehow it felt like we were in tune. Then, as the bumper sticker says, Shit Happened”, or “Events Occurred”, and before we knew it a new millennium dawned and then it was 2014. Do not despair because it hasn’t been a straight line. It never is, and the most interesting journeys are fraught with twists and turns and sometimes we have to hide from the bogeyman, or give a nod to pragmatism.
So, where did the “Flower Children” go?
Silly, we’re still here. Just look around you and you will see our footprints. We are in the organic food departments, the recycled bins, the movements for sexual, gender, and racial equality, and even alternative holistic medicines. I filled out a form yesterday at a doctor’s office and was asked if I had ever used illegal drugs, OTHER THAN MARIJUANA!! We are in the wind that turns the turbines in our fields. We are in the warmth that heats the solar generated panels atop our homes and boats. We are in a grand childs face as he dips his hand into the cold running creek and looks with hope and wonder toward the future.
All these things have happened and continue to happen because we are still trying to make the world a better place…because…well… because it was and is about acting from the heart and loving each other and the Planet Earth and the Universe…and because…we passed the urge to do the right thing for the right reasons on to new generations. Some of us shouted it and some whispered it, but we never forgot… THE BEAT GOES ON….
So, tend the light My Friends.

June 29, 2014
“Rest easy and go with the faith you lived with”
― Walter Mosley

I care about the world I live in, but I readily admit my confusion and so I have narrowed down my vision. If I open a door and find an ugliness of despair that pulls me down with the heaviness of fear, I am most likely to slam it shut quickly and put a chair beneath the handle. Sometimes I tell myself I will return another day when I am stronger and better rested.
Perhaps I fear being pulled so far into that world that the door will close and I will forever be lost, I don’t tell myself I cannot change what I see, just that it doesn’t feel right now.
It is not in my nature to just accept what I cannot change, for acceptance seems to imply approval and there is much of this world I do not approve of. I refuse to surrender or acquiesce to people or situations simply because I cannot find the strength or courage to confront them, so I close the door and walk on.
I walk on with the faith of Love, for I truly believe that there is no definition of words for the meaning of Love. I don’t think it is suppose to be boxed in by words or trapped like a butterfly in a net, for I believe it is omnificent and has the unlimited power of creation. I feel it on a breeze. I smell it all around me, in the woods, the flowers, the salty sea air, the freshly turned soil, the newly cut grass, and I wrap myself with Love and often the tears fall unabated with no remorse or apology.
My faith in Love has endured since the beginning of time and I have seen it, and felt it, and smelled it and never tried to define it, only to live it. Even in the frailness of my humanity when I have thought it lost, Love has gently nudged me and niggled at me till I turned my face toward the light and smiled in recognition.