Gratitude for Creation

 

 

 

Contemplate the wonders of creation, the Divine dimension of their being, not as a dim configuration that is presented to you from a distance, but as the reality in which you live.
— Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook quoted in The Gift of Kabbalah by Tamar Frankiel

Getting to Work

 

 

 

"Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: 'Is this the condition that I feared?''' 

Seneca (1BC - 45AD 

Papave rhoeas

 



Everything in life is speaking,is audible, is communicating in spite of its apparent silence.

 

                                              Hazrat Inayat Khan

Leaves

    Autumn means colored leaves: a spectrum of shades between the green shades of summer and the dull browns of winter. Crimson, fiery red, maroon, ruddy orange, pure orange, yellow orange, soft yellows and bright yellows. Red maples, yellow birch, scarlet sycamores, aspen golds. Mottled leaves of several colors in transition. Each deciduous tree, each bush, strutting its own autumn wardrobe. Naked willows dancing in the wind. In their midst, the smug conifers stand. "Evergreen," they say to us, "ever green."

 Those bright autumn spells that bring out the most vivid of hues. Days so delightful you can almost taste the color. And those cold, crisp nights when the air has its own special vintage to entice us back outdoors one last time. A bouquet matched in no other season.

This is how I see Autumn. I hope such joy, beauty, stability, changeability, and surprises continue. I love a good season watching it turn, engendering days of joy and days of melancholy.  Adventure always lurks outside my door.

 

 

 

 

Nightscape in the Rockies

    

  

Whether we, as human beings are in a state of emotional balance or we are bewildered and frustrated, we are still an expression of the divine. 

      

The spiritual life requires that we think enough of others to believe we can see others without putting ourselves above them.     

We are all here for a single purpose to grow and to love better. We can do this through losing as well as winning. All that is needed is to show  up and be willing to be in class. 

 

Deep within each of us is the urge to know and be known. 

  All images taken after 7:30 pm without a flash. Just the gorgeous natural light.

Nature's Display

  

 

 

Bear Lake and Peak to Peak Hy way display remarkable color daily. With the cooler weather and shorter days the landscape is a playground for the photographer.

 

 

Fish don't see water... Birds don't see air... Humans don't see time... But photography does.

 

 

   

Growth not Perfection

Nature does not demand that we be perfect.

It requires that we grow.  

Falling for Color

                                    The coming season is about apples, rain and falling leaves, pumpkins,simmering apple butter filling the house with a wonderful fragrance. The warm days and cool nights brings a feeling of warmth and sadness knowing fall will soon come to a close.  These words form a lovely mantra for among the turning trees fall lingers in wait for the next turn which brings all the things I love about autumn. With these sweet and spicy things we season our autumn days.     
                                 

 

Colorado is mostly known for its golden aspen leaves. We really don't get color as places in New England and the Appalachins. However, here and there you might find an aspen displaying orange and red leaves.

 

 

    

Harmony

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zen  is the foundation for much of the meaning in bonsai. In fact, many myths associate the first bonsai trees with monks, who developed them in monasteries over centuries of careful growth and pruning. Because of this association, early bonsai was regarded as a spiritual practice, meaning peace, tranquility, and harmony. The image above is located in the Denver Botanical Center which houses a fabulous collection of Japanese gardening, a tea house, koi ponds and landscaping. The tree above is appromaxitely two-hundred and fifty years old. Only one of many in the collection that was given to the Botanical Center. 

Angels of the Earth

Sunflower symbol of happiness 

 

Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning. ~Lydia M. Child

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                Today I live in the joyous expectation of
                                                         good.

 

 

 

The next message you need is always

right where you are.  Ram Dass

 

 

 

 

 

May you enjoy these images of the "angels of the earth" as the beauty that we have so lovingly been given. Photos taken over this past summer.

Looking Up

 

  

    

    

 

 

On my next walk, I will think of thoughts and emotions as little puffy clouds in the sky. The vast open blueness of the sky is me, my essence, my true self. Endless. As a thought or feeling comes up, put its name on a cloud and watch the cloud float away. No judgments. The thoughts and feelings aren’t good or bad. They just are. They’re not permanent. They aren’t who I am.  There is no connection to them. It’s my choice to focus on them and make them grow into thunderclouds, or to let them drift by and dissipate as the little puffy clouds they are.