Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of the one who sees. - RUMI
September 17, 2022 - Building Cairns on the Beach
cairn building (a fragment)
smooth stones,
clear water,
blue sky -
today i am free
to create something (else) fragile
and temporary
September 14, 2022 - A fallen insect on Pier Cove Ravine Trail
September 14, 2022 - I saw this little bit of gold on a green leaf while i was running. It is strange how this happens. I run past, and the thing i saw registers in my brain. So i turn around to see what it is. I thought it might be a small dragonfly, but i learned that dragonflies all have two sets of wings, and this only has one. I think it is a crane fly. Whatever it is; it is beautiful and broken. Those transparent wings - so delicate. Just amazing that something so small can have so much intricate detail.
It is obviously dead. I actually take a lot of pictures of dead things that i never share. There is so much fragility and honesty in death. Everything that lives also dies. We are all connected by this. We die, but we never really disappear completely. We are changed. It is a mystery.
September 16, 2022 - Evening Walk.
“The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast, and you miss all that you are traveling for.” - Louis L’Amour
This week I am taking it easy. Slow. Doing only what’s necessary, so I can fully appreciate the last few days of summer. Wandering along the lakeshore and into the woods behind my house. Breathing in warm air. I am so lucky to have this freedom. I am so grateful.
September 17, 2022 - I follow an account on Instagram @everysevendays2022 (they change the account name every year) that is an ephemeral art project. Every week a new theme is posted and as a participant, you walk outside and gather things that suit the theme - to you. It is always open to interpretation. This week, the theme was “Loss.,” which seems to flow with what’s already on my mind.
With that theme loosely in my head, i started gathering fallen feathers as i walked along the lake. I found so many. I used them to form the shape of a heart in the sand - i kind of enjoy the way it splays out and is a little abstract. I don’t know if birds notice when they lose a feather. It seems like it would hurt more than losing just a hair on your head; but maybe not. I love that this little project raises questions like that for me.
The picture below is September 18, 2022. We had a storm overnight, and i went down to see what happened to my feathery heart. It was nearly swept away. Sigh…
September 19, 2022 - Sleepy Hollow State Park. Taking a brief overnight camping trip at a State Park near Lansing, Michigan. Couldn’t get a monarch to stay still anywhere long enough for a picture, but this pretty butterfly practically posed for me before flying off. I love those striped antennas.
September 19, 2022. Queen Anne’s Lace Curled up into a nest.
September 19, 2022 - Sleepy Hollow Sunset. I was going to watch the sunset from the fishing pier; but some people were still there fishing; so i found a hidden path; not too well groomed, where i could watch it through the leaves. It was an uncomfortable trail - I had to walk through some spider webs and duck below some low-lying branches - but once i found the clearing; it was magical.
September 20, 2022 - Sleepy Hollow State Park. Got out early for a five mile hike in a different direction, passing by swampy ponds through the woods. Through a clearing i saw this great blue heron perched so perfectly on a fallen tree - it’s almost like they do it on purpose. I mean. They do it on purpose; they’re looking for food; but the pose and his position in the clearing and on that branch framed by the other branches…you’d almost think he was modeling for a photo. I’m so glad i went that route; and sorry i didn’t have my “big” camera to get a clearer shot. But then again; the sort of dreaminess of this is nice too.