Winter Joys

Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars-and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful.

Rajneesh

A tree standing alone on the edge of a dormant field of tall grass

A red bellied woodpecker hanging on the feeder

Give food to the birds, you will then be surrounded by the wings of love, you will be encompassed by the joys of little silent hearts!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

a tufted titmouse holds a seed

Robins wintering in an old apple orchard

I caught a glimpse of happiness, and saw it was a bird on a branch, fixing to take wing.

Richard Peck

Crows chatting and cawing in the treetops

The perfection of an empty nest

I spent my last week in Michigan (for a few months) feeling sad that I had to leave. I had some major technical problems this week, but I still wanted to share some of the pictures I took at home and in my neighborhood before I left for Miami.

Hope you had a wonderful week. Thank you for being here.

Monochrome Vision

The rare moment is not the moment when there is something worth looking at, but the moment when we are capable of seeing.

Joseph Wood Krutch

monochrome

color eludes my eyes

the dormant grass, the bare trees,

the tangle of fallen branches and leaves.

it is all - all one giant mess,

confusing my sight-

and yet there you stand,

nearly hidden

in brown and white;

just like another branch=

before me.

standing tall and (nearly) straight, the bare trees

a rain drop lingers on the surface of a puddle…reflecting

The messy reflection of barren things in the fen waters (Johnsons Shut-Ins State Park, MO)

a nest that fell on the stone path (Johnsons Shut-Ins State Park, MO)

a mass of volcanic rock, slowly etched and worn by a river finding its way through (Johnsons Shut-Ins State Park, MO)

There is a sense of patient waiting in the gray skies, bare trees, and dormant fields.

The days are short,

The sun a spark

Hung thin between

The dark and dark.

John Updike

I have been thinking about beauty in late fall - mainly whether or not there is any. In the U.S., in the Midwest, it can be very gray, cold and wet this time of year. Everything seems to be the same dull brown or gray. I struggle to find something colorful to photograph - a rare blue sky, a bright berry, a bird, a sunset…but then I thought, why struggle? Why not try to see beauty in this season as it is? It is a darker kind of beauty, a melancholy beauty; but still worth the effort of seeing.

Thank you so much for being here. I will see you next week!