Balance
Posted: March 13, 2013 Filed under: 365 Meditation Challenge, Air, beginnings, Daily Walk, Digital Art, Earth, Fire, home, Letting Go, Mindfulness, nature, Photography, Quotes, snow, Spirit, Spring, Today's Joys, Walking, wandering, water, weather, winter | Tags: balance, Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert, flowers, Health, Hiking, MaidinSun Photography, nature, Outdoors, Photography, quotes, Rumi, snow, spring, Sufi poetry, trees, water, weather, winter 19 Comments
Balanced between winter and spring. Frosty oak leaves.
Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.
~ Rumi, Essential Rumi
Sunday signage, wind, and flurries
Posted: January 20, 2013 Filed under: 365 Meditation Challenge, Air, Daily Walk, Earth, exercise, Fire, goals, health, home, Mindfulness, nature, Photography, pond, Quotes, snow, Spirit, Sunday signage, Walking, wandering, water, winter | Tags: Amy Dixon, Cathe Friedrich, clouds, exercise, Fitness, George R. R. Martin, Health, J. R. R. Tolkien, MaidinSun Photography, nature, Outdoors, Photography, pond, quotes, snow, sunset, trees, Vitamix, water, weather, Wind, winter 31 Comments
As seen on a hike at Quail Hollow
Maybe it’s just me, but… doesn’t this make you wonder what kind of youth they were hunting?
Happy Solstice
Posted: December 21, 2012 Filed under: 365 Meditation Challenge, Air, beginnings, celebrations, Daily Walk, Earth, holidays, home, Mindfulness, nature, Photography, pond, Quotes, snow, Spirit, Walking, wandering, water, weather, winter | Tags: clouds, Health, Henry David Thoreau, MaidinSun Photography, nature, Outdoors, Photography, pond, quotes, snow, trees, water, weather, winter, Winter solstice 34 Comments
Winter Solstice
It snowed and snowed, the whole world over,
Snow swept the world from end to end.
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned.~ Boris Pasternak
Sometimes all you can do is give up
Posted: December 18, 2012 Filed under: 365 Meditation Challenge, Autumn, Earth, fall, health, home, Letting Go, nature, Photography, pond, Spirit, water | Tags: autumn, flowers, Health, MaidinSun Photography, nature, Outdoors, pond, quotes, water, wildflowers 13 Comments
But what avail the largest gifts of Heaven,
When drooping health and spirits go amiss?
How tasteless then whatever can be given!
Health is the vital principle of bliss.~ James Thompson
Mr. Thompson’s sentiments seem a little extreme, but I can relate to the general idea. The flu has infiltrated my defenses. “Drooping” describes how I feel very well. Rather than fight it, I’m giving up and going to bed, at least for today. I’ll be back soon.
Comfort and joy
Over the top
Posted: November 14, 2012 Filed under: 365 Meditation Challenge, Autumn, Earth, fall, Fire, goals, health, home, Letting Go, Metta/Lovingkindness, Mindfulness, nature, Photography, pond, Quotes, rants, Spirit, Walking, wandering, water, weather | Tags: autumn, Dali Lama, fall foliage, Health, Health insurance, MaidinSun Photography, nature, Outdoors, Photography, pond, quotes, reflections, trees, water, weather, woods 26 Comments
Breakneck Creek in October
As I sat down to write up my post today, I discovered a draft of a post called “Notes from the woods.” There were no words. Just images. The photos were taken back in October when there was still quite a bit of color in the woods. I thought about trashing the post, but the photos insisted on having their day, and the woods were just too pretty to say no to them.
The Great Heart
Posted: September 24, 2012 Filed under: 365 Meditation Challenge, Abstracts, Air, Autumn, beginnings, Digital Art, Earth, fall, Fire, home, Meditation, Mindfulness, nature, Photography, pond, Spirit, Walking, water, weather | Tags: autumn, dance, fog, Health, MaidinSun Photography, meditation, nature, Outdoors, Photography, pond, reflections, sunlight, trees, water, Yoga Journal 32 Comments
Light dancer
If we demand enlightenment, it hides. . . All that we can do is make ourselves enlightenment-prone. We learn to treasure the possibility of awakening in all moments and circumstances. We learn to simplify and cultivate the receptivity of heart that can be touched by profound understanding. We learn to listen deeply and discover stillness amid the movement in our world.
~ Christina Feldman
A monarch in the meadow
Posted: September 14, 2012 Filed under: 365 Yoga Challenge, Adventures in Life, Air, Critters, Earth, endings, Fire, goals, health, home, Letting Go, Meditation, Metta/Lovingkindness, Mindfulness, nature, Photography, Spirit, Summer, Walking, wandering, weather, yoga | Tags: butterfly, clouds, flowers, Health, Lovingkindness Meditation, Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, MaidinSun Photography, Meadow, meditation, Mettā, Monarch (butterfly), nature, Outdoors, Photography, Sharon Salzberg, Summer, weather, wildflowers 29 Comments
Landing
The bud
stands for all things
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on the brow
of the flower,
and retell it in words and in touch,
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.~ Galway Kinnell
I’ve posted this poem sometime in the past (it seems like long ago), and it came to mind this morning as I was pondering “what next?”
Life in the Bogs 