Change is Good

With change there are always new opportunities -- You don't have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see...

Loving Pink

A profusion of pink speaks to me of all gentleness and it is

enduring.    

Cougar Puma Mountain Lion

                       I love this bronze sculpture that stands along the river walk here in Estes Park. This beautiful piece was designed and sculpted by my neighbor Brian H Archibald. He and his wife built the Canyon Spirit Art Gallery in the early 1990's. His gallery was always a pleasure to peruse which I found myself in often, since Brian was a neighbor. There are many fine pieces of his work here in Estes for people to enjoy. Brian died in 1995 and the gallery was sold not to many years later. This beautiful piece provides a wonderful backdrop where tourist can take pictures and enjoy the legacy of a fine artists. 

Always Evolving

"Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the  evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the  experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having  at this moment."                                         ~Eckhart Tolle~                          A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Western Tanger

Wild Ones

Angel Parsley

CrazyWeed

Golden Banner 

 

Globe Flower  

Yellow Bell  when blue older plant 

Stamen of a Cactus

 

   

Wild Iris Blue Flag

    Wild Snapdragon

Still and Quiet

Finding Him

       in hidden

    obscure

            ordinary

       Finding Him

       in still

 quiet

     waiting

Finding Him

     in love

          no longer

     hidden

  Love

           come down

    Finding Him

                        because by Him

                              we weren't unfound

Growing Horns

The Great Horned Owl and Owlet

   It has been my fortune to see a Great Horned Owl family.They are for the most part nocturnal so out of sight. During daylight hours they blend into their environments with great camouflage and an ability to hide so they aren’t mobbed by ravens. When they have families they are easier to find, and they will hunt during daylight hours to feed their young. This particular family was sitting about sixty feet up the side of a mountain. Mom and owlet were perched on an ever so precarious ledge, while father owl swooped protecting his family from the huge ravens that would gather over the site.  The parents take turns looking for food, so that all times there is a parent to protect the young.

Owlets hatch and feed in the nest for 45 days or so, after which they begin to discover the world around them. However, their raw flying skills keep bringing them back to the nest each day. After about 3 months of age, the owlets master their flying skills. They continue to remain with their parents until they attain about 5 months of age and then venture out on their own. Once they are 2 years old, they will begin to mate. Great Horned Owls are seen to live to about 13-15 years in the wild, but in captivity they have lived to almost 25-30 years.

 

Visual Listening

     I am completely immersed  in Mark Nepo's book, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen at the moment.  Since, for me, contemplative photography begins with and is crucially dependent upon visual listening, using the ear of the heart to open us to the wisdom of our surroundings.
    Mark explains in the opening chapter of the book that if there are 7,000 living languages in the world today, then there must be 7,000 ways to listen.  If  I  added the mysterious and hidden languages of the natural world, the languages of earth and wind and sea and all the rest of it, well, it could easily be hundreds of thousands of ways to listen! Oh, I can hear the linguists out there saying the natural world doesn't have "languages" as such, but I would respectfully disagree.  Just because nature does not use words doesn't mean it isn't communicating with us all the time. Nature speaks to us in soft and subtle ways, but your mind must be silent - unengaged - to hear the profound lessons it has to teach. You must rely on your own impressions and listening from the heart.  

 

 

Transition

 "It gives one a sudden start in 

       going down a barren, stony street,

       to see upon a narrow strip of grass,

                           just within the iron fence, the radiant dandelion,

                                 shining in the grass, like a spark dropped from the sun."

                                                                ~Henry Ward Beecher~

*  *  *

The grass withers

the flower fades

      but the word of our 

  God lives forever.

Isaiah 40:8

Too Many to Count

 

              

Heart Space

 

 After long gray rainy months this spring, sunny skies have returned and the clematis that has been closed for so long have now opened to welcome in the light.

 Richard Rohr, in one of his appendices to Immortal Diamond, talks about the Sacred Heart and how dropping into his heart space "makes it almost impossible to comment, judge, create story lines, or remain antagonistic." I think I can say the same when I live from the heart, not the head.

It's a little bit like that leap of heart when I see, hear, or feel an unexpected blessed event.  So it's easier to understand that the  happy place within is somehow akin to love, and that it is love -- always -- that heals the wounded or troubled soul...