207: Abstractions and reflections

(Dark cloud reflections.)

I’ve been playing, exploring, and have fun in Photoshop and Picnik again.  There is no real point to it other than the play, the exploration, and the fun.  Give it a try sometime.  You might enjoy it.  🙂

Painted clouds

We live in all we seek.  The hidden shows up in too-plain sight.  It lives captive on the face of the obvious — the people, events, and things of the day — to which we as sophisticated children have long since become oblivious.  What a hideout:  Holiness lies spread and borne over the surface of time and stuff like colors.

~Annie Dillard

Willow roots and cloud reflections

The key to the hidden lands beyond those veils lies in the letting go of all hope, fear and expectation.  The portal opens when one realizes that one no longer needs to seek it and must simply open to that which is already fully present.  In that vastness in which nothing is hidden and nothing needs to be revealed, all is transparent, clear, and the doors in response, open everywhere.

~ Ian Baker, The Heart of the World

The roots in the pond

Snap! (Tree snapped off near the bottom by a strong wind.)

In the beginning, simplicity

Today’s Walk

It is a chilly, gray, rainy day here in the Bogs.  But after hearing about the snow that has been falling west and north of us, I don’t feel like I should complain about the rain.

Instead, I will tell you that after I was outside for a little while I began to appreciate the scent, the sound, and the feel of the rain.  I delighted in the way the individual drops would cling to the budding branches of the trees.  I told myself to be thankful for the rain that is watering the garden, the grass, the trees, the shrubs, the flowers, and other plants.  There are places in the world where rain is very much needed, and we are lucky this is not one of those places.

The birds appear to be enjoying the wet weather. The Great Blue Heron seems to prefer rainy days for fishing at out pond.  The robins are feasting on worms.  The other birds are bathing in puddles or sitting on branches, spreading their wings, and letting the rain wash over them.  The ducks, of course, are in their element.

Let the rain kiss you.  Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.  Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

~ Langston Hughes

The rain is soothing.  The rain makes a music all its own.  And the rain can be cleansing and healing.

A rainy day really isn’t such a bad thing after all.

---