December Trails

If not for reverence, if not for wonder, if not for love, why have we come here?

Raffi

Through the looking glass

A symmetry of turtles

(Tyler State Park, Texas)

a long dock leads

to an imaginary lake

Giants in ballroom dresses

Loom over the park

Lake Bistineau, Louisiana

Blue hour on the bayou

a great beauty in the distance

a small one close at hand

stillness reigns

(Davis Bayou Region, Gulf Islands National Seashore)

Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.

Matsuo Basho

I hope you all had wonderful holidays! I’ll keep this short so you (and I) can get back to your year end celebrations.

Thank you so much for being here. See you again soon!

seagulls and pelicans reclaim a hurricane battered pier

Summer's Ghost

We know that in September, we will wander through the warm winds of summer’s wreckage. We will welcome summer’s ghost.

Henry Rollins

It comes

Floating,

Flying,

Fading,

Furling:

flowering.

It comes.

September: it was the most beautiful of words, he’d always felt, evoking orange-flowers, swallows, and regret.

Alexander Theroux

This September so sweet and summery, is nature’s sleight of hand - but fall is still showing signs.

I got a little off-schedule with this, preparing for my first book binding workshop, which was yesterday (Saturday, September 28).

I will be back twice in October. That may become my normal schedule- 2 Fridays a month.

Thank you so much for being here!

Harvest Super Moon

Weathering A Storm

Every storm runs out of rain, just like every dark night turns into day.

Gary Allan

Feathers blown and wet

A mockingbird stopped to rest

Safe - from one more storm.

There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.

Charles Darwin

The mockingbird is the state bird of Florida (where I am now). I hear them singing whenever I go for a walk. Their songs are beautiful- some borrowed from other birds or animals (and even occasionally, car horns and alarms), some their own. They’re known for singing pretty much all day long and even sometimes into the night if they’re looking for a mate.

Usually, they are very neat and orderly in appearance, but we had a violent wind and rainstorm one afternoon this week, and when it was over, I saw this one little rain-drenched bird on the wooden pole next to my apartment building. He looked cold, and was breathing heavily. I thought of the times I’ve been caught in a rainstorm unexpectedly and gotten soaked through my clothes to the skin. The bone deep shivering. The goosebumps. At least I have a place to come in out of the wind and rain -and dry things to change into. He just had to wait for his feathers to dry - out there on that pole in the wind. Brr. But I’m really glad he made it through the storm.

Thank you so much for being here. See you next week!

Two days before the storm, I took a picture of a dry mockingbird standing on a post near the beach. This is how they’re supposed to look.