Mt. Baker sunrise
One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak.
— G. K. Chesterton
It is all a matter of perspective and what we see from where we stand:
it takes great strength and determination to climb out of the valley.
Yet much of what gives life meaning and instills hope
is how we live when we find ourselves at a low point.
from top of Mt Baker at sunrise by Josh Scholten
sunrise blessing on January 27, 2014 from the farm — a photo progression
At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.
~Norman McLean from “A River Runs Through It”
lone fir taken last New Year’s Eve 2012
These photos (unless identified otherwise) were all taken this year with my Canon Powershot pocket camera.
Here’s to capturing more moments and preserving memories in 2014…
Sam stopping to smell the spring tulips
bearded iris
marshmallow fields forever
iris (and bugs) in Ireland
water lilies in Mount Stewart Gardens, Northern Ireland
Mount Stewart pond, Northern Ireland
Scottish kitty snoozing in a Galloway B&B sunroom
summer sunset on the farm
summer sunset (and bug)
Point No Point, Vancouver Island
Sunset, Strait of Juan de Fuca
almost the world’s largest hornet’s nest (on the farm)
summer evening rainbow
Haying crew
summer morning haze
a joyful evening on the hill
a front porch visitor in a box of Asian pears
spider web in morning fog
thistle full of ants
full moon sunset
After an August rain
evening on the farm
dandelion at dusk
sunset sky
summer morning rain
web architecture
thistledown
hydrangea
spent hydrangea
virginia creeper
too wet to hang clothes
looking north to the Canadian Coastal Range
October fog
fallen leaves on the plexiglass cover of a WWU bicycle rack
Mountain shadow of Mt Baker at dawn
first frost
Twin Sisters
squirrel hollowed walnut shell
Autumn landscape
lichen
rainy rose
morning rainbow at dawn
last evening of autumn, first snow
snow on last day of autumn
Swan in downtown Tokyo in December
And the changing plum trees…
fall foggy morning
late October
New Year’s Eve
The rain and the wind, the wind and the rain —Yesterday a calm and steady rain
made more sodden a sullen gray dawn
when unbidden, a sudden gust
ripped loose remaining leaves
and sent them spinning,
swirling earthbound
in yellow clouds.
The battering of rain and wind
left no doubt
summer is done for good —
the past is past.
I hunker through the turbulenceto await a clear night when once again
heaven empties itself into
a fragile crystalline dawn.
Be comforted; the world is very old,
And generations pass, as they have passed,
A troop of shadows moving with the sun;
Thousands of times has the old tale been told;
The world belongs to those who come the last,
They will find hope and strength as we have done.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “A Shadow”
The shadow’s the thing.
If I no longer see shadows as “dark marks,”
as do the newly sighted,
then I see them as making some sort of sense of the light.
They give the light distance;
they put it in its place.
They inform my eyes of my location here, here O Israel
,here in the world’s flawed sculpture,
here in the flickering shade of the nothingness
between me and the light.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground.
~Victor Hugo from Les Miserables
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
~John Keats, lines from “To Autumn”
Heaven and earth are only three feet apart,
but in the thin places that distance is even smaller.
A thin place is where the veil that separates heaven and earth is lifted
and one is able to receive a glimpse of the glory of God.
~Celtic saying
“…the sky flames, more intense.
I didn’t see it coming.”
~Patricia Hooper, from “Equinox”
…the autumn is deep.
Its pitch is only beginning, and will brighten
before the end. Brighten
into darkness,
or into spring.
~Pamela Steed Hill from “September Pitch”
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
– Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”
Sometimes it is enough to kneel in the grass to capture the right light at the precise moment it is sent from above. It is prayer to be blessed so, prayer to pay attention, prayer to be grateful for that moment. I find myself on my knees often these days because it all will be gone too soon, much too soon.
Barnstorming 