See Reality, Choose, and Do
Sun Appears to Set
After a sunny morning that turned overcast, rainy and full of thunder through the afternoon, it was a pleasant, not forecasted, delight that the sun appeared as an orange smudge, then fireball, and reflected a trace across the lake, just in time to set, leaving a quiet hush after a windy day.
Free Air, Free Sun, Free Tornado Warnings
5 am
After the winds blew tremendous and the lights were mostly off but then suddenly, momentarily full back on as if daylight again …
The froth kicked up by the wind borders the beaches
The fishing boat is still secure
The moon still wanes
And the birds are still soaring about.
Mostly life goes on, though a few trees met their end and some hopes were dashed,
But life mostly goes on
Limited as it is by families split, and wars started, villages burned out and camping spots still riddled with bullets and glass.
Who heard of leaving or putting a 22. Bullet in a campfire ring!
And the young women is on her way to the hospital.
Rehabilitating Hilda Lake Random Camping Area
This is the ‘bush party place’ left with broken glass, burned out campers and all sorts of results of obviously irresponsible behaviours and disrespect for the land. There just is no excuse for this.
A huge clean up and accounting project was undertaken, and it is a pleasant place now, still needing lots of ‘small piece’ cleanup.
This was someone’s idea of a good use of the resources here: hack at at live tall mature pine tree and leave it to suffer.
Our fire area had a second fire spot, no rock rim or metal container, right on top of live roots, or maybe formally live roots.
We started to pick up pieces to finish burning them in the proper fire ring and noticed lots and lots of nails.
So out came a garbage bag and the shovel.
Then, with all the nails we could find and the junk they were attached to in the bag, we brought over some sand from the roadway, and then spread some forest floor decaying matter on the spot.
And then we turned to clean up and remake the rock rimed fire ring. And there were more nails and broken rocks … and a second heavier garbage bag filled with the mess.
Done we had two heavy garbage bags of mess, and a lot neater fire ring.
The brown bag was the start and finish effort. We’ve kept picking up broken glass shards and debris and detritus from around this and the other campsites. Into the brown paper bag. And it along with the fire pit mess of nails, metal, glass and pieces of half burned wood goes out with us into an appropriate garbage receptacle.
It can be clean if everyone who enjoys a few days here does the same, cleaning up, collecting garbage and hauling out more garbage than they themselves make.
My challenge is that each of you, who can use Canadian Parks this year, document your stories with photos or video of you clean up contributions.
Tell the story, be the story, make us all proud.
Testing Testing
With so much to write, and so many little things not working still on this borrowed camper it’s time, all about time, to get a few things tested and tried, and proven. So an evening away from the pressure, the woods all around, no city yet, but the mosquitoes are out in full force like vampires miniature taking what the will.
The lush greenery encroaches on the parking spot, with a view to the lake at sunset between the trees
More views maybe later, after the first onslaught of itching subsides and the quiet supper is enjoyed.
Just the task of backing the trailer in to the site was immensely easier and safer. The back-up camera that would not work for so so so long no matter what is now working. Which means worrying about lining the camper up in to place is much simpler and the fret of possibly hitting something in reverse is all but taken out of the picture.
Leveling the camper still begs to be improved. Ideas abound, but it takes some planning and doing.
For now, the lights work, the back-up lights work, though this time of year they are rarely going to be needed, and the screen door is fully functional and sort of bug tight, which may entice us to tweak it a bit.
What gets your goat?
A simple question: and the answer to this one is a short hike up a lonely hill with camera to watch, and find and shoot the goat … with the camera, of course.
What gets your goat?
Climbing a short and steep, well-travelled, but still deserted, hike out into the mountains, this goat just showed up over the top of the horizon hiding the expansive river valley behind her.
She posed, and then circled around me, closer with each step, not challenging me, but as if to show off, assured I was no danger, coming within a few yards of me.
What gets my goat is – people who circle around your life, playing with you, posing for the famous shot to get everything out of you they can even if that means you are left with nothing or worse, unable to survive. For it is all about their image and reputation; that someone must pay for their mistakes so that they can appear to be without blemish.
The walks that day and the next gave us wonderful views, and great photos of crocuses, a favourite ever since they used to grow up the hillside on our land, always a challenge to photograph well.
What gets my goat is – people who take beauty, hard won and paid for with forgiveness and love, diligence and hope, based on trust and promises … and systematically destroy it so that it can never be found again, so that next spring, they just will not blossom for fear, real fear of what will happen next.
As I returned to the path, the goat already ahead of me across the path, she turned one last time to look, to inquire, to insure I was no danger, to pose, knowing if I was even half decent she’d have her photo immortalized.
For the short life of a goat leaves little in memorial.
What gets my goat is – people who take all that is the memory of a person, and through manipulation, deceit and outright lies, trash it, so that there appears to be nothing left of the person, and instead the lies create a monster of that person, a lie, but one that is who people think they meet and deal with when they see this person.
A wise person, fictional but still wise, said that the one thing to ensure as you choose a spouse is that the person is kind.
What gets my goat is – people who pretend to be kind, but try to kill you, and when that does not work ruin you, and blame you for what they are doing to you.
This person, no matter how you frame it, is wise and honest, loyal and hopeful, is above all things, kind and gracious. That makes for life that is beautiful.
It does not make life easy or simple or even guaranteed; but it does make for life that is beautiful.
What gets my goat is – people who are very intelligent and persevere at making sure they win at everything no matter the cost to others, even children, people who guarantee only other people’s destruction.
This is simple beauty.
Simple on the far side of complexity, the complexity of emerging early, even as frost still haunts the nights, and snow easily falls; at an altitude that is though easily attained still not quickly, and then one must bend low in humility and peer as one normally and simply cannot between the grass blades that become obstacles or makers of a photo … and then to focus as focus cannot even be easily seen.
To know where the focus is, not outside but deep within.
What gets my goat is – people who only see the world through a fully reductionist approach, discounting all the information of truth and reality until they can justify declaring lies to be truths, deception to be light, and the person abused and killed to be responsible for all the fallout. Experts who have the degrees and with the adeptness of a sociopath set out to declare imaginary things to be reality, who twist and turn love-and-trust-and-forgiveness-and-hope into accusations of delusion, to make whole and laudable people and efforts seem to be ugly; simply because they cannot see beyond the grass and twigs to focus on reality which is very beautiful.
The view up close …
What gets my goat is – people who do not see to the horizon and beyond, so they never know the reality that is skewed to create deceptions deadly.
The view less up close …
What gets my goat is – people who cannot change their perspective to see reality.
The view starting to look through the trees up close …
What gets my goat is – people who cannot see the trees for what they are, nor have the courage to look through to see the horizon. And worse, they think because they do not have the courage to even try to see past the trees, that others who do are either stupid, wrong, or insane.
The view looking through and past the trees up close …
What gets my goat is – people who do not know the beauty of the people up close and the crowds that make up the community and the world of grandeur. It may be unreachable and unfathomable but it can be seen and seen to be beautiful, even promising.
The view of the mountains framed by the trees up close …
What gets my goat is – when I cannot see the frame, nor the distant beauty.
The view of the distant mountains without losing touch with the trees up close …
What gets my goat is – people who cannot see what is up close, nor what is the context of what is close, who make what is up close into something it is not, and who ignore that is the environment. And they destroy everything trying to make sure they are determined to be right … even when they are so wrong.
There are lots of paths to follow, through the beauty of the trees, some paths deeply trodden and marked by wheels, others barely visible at all.
What gets my goat is – people who think that deceiving others into believing the well-trodden paths are the only paths to take, because true kindness, grace, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, love and promise are often barely chosen, or stuck to very long, for the brambles are high and thick on these seldom traversed paths.
The view, amidst the grass, of beauty emerging promising even more … and many promises not so obviously, more blossoms so tiny, yet emerging.
What gets my goat is … people who cannot see promise as hope, hope as the only guarantee to be trusted, and love as the only thing that has lasting value. Instead they crucify others trying to force hope, trust, and love from money, things or winning.
God save us … all.
Enjoy the view, relaxing in what is provided.
There is beauty even if people get my goat so commonly. People are beautiful, even though they are ugly mean at the same time.
The Falls, again so lonely.
Where is it falling,
Just a little lonely compared to the last time
With so many feet running every which direction
And just a little shinier in the early evening light
And a whole lot colder with the falls’ water freezing making it all slide a bit more,
and what …
What a view
to the light
and the person of hope.
With trees leaning into the future.
Simple Spring Snow
As the heavens poured out the white, winter, down-duvet-split-open-softness on to our heads and campsite and woods the colours and light danced so quietly
as my boots crunched, the water gurgled and Karin’s beer spray protected us all from invisible rye and malt humour.
So is the bed of peace and hope.
There are a few children missing, but nothing more than what is being done can be done. So pray with us, for us, for them.
There are views of life that are so subtly similar, yet a step to the right, left or ahead provide a completely different perspective, seeing in through the cracks that are in everything the light that is Grace and Hope.
The Trees, alive with light on the walk out of the warmth into the wilderness.
Water the source of life, the wonder of life, the beauty of life. Green. Why?
Not because it’s cold, but because it is not cold enough to keep the glaciers from melting.
Glowing, white streams in the green of gorgeous. Can you see it here, too?
The River looking onto it from various points, perspective that changes light and subject, all the same yet completely different.
Turtles, of the snacking kind were at the table the night before, and here they appear again, a bit molded and quiet, looking not to be eaten anymore.
The soft look of fallen snow and fog on the mountains beyond the river.
Rocks … below and …
Rocks below … and …
Rocks beyond …
The River Upstream
Turning 180°
More turtles and …
Rocks and …
Rocks and …
Rocks and …
Rocks … until …
There are no more rocks in view as one looks downstream to Pyramid Mountain.
The path back to coffee and breakfast.
As the snow hangs tight but loosened by melting, waffles wait with syrup from trees and butter enough.
The light and the drips of water frozen in place the evening before.
The Pine trees up-close, frozen mid-drip.
The victory.
Moon Light Delight
Leonard Cohen wrote and sang that it was cracks through which the light got it.
The bright moon between the pines demonstrate also that in the darkness even a dim light can be bright. Moral: surround yourself by bright people, who inspire you to be even brighter yet; same for wise, kind, compassionate, empathetic and caring people. It helps also to surround yourself, not exclusively by people recovering, also from addictions, for in that struggle to stay alive they identify the essentials of life: air, water, food, clothing, shelter, meaningful labour, and love (given and received, unconditionally!)
In this darkness I experienced the joy and struggles of getting the technology to do what I intended: I was pushing the capabilities of the camera and getting also mixed results between the ones that are reasonably okay.
Enjoy the dark and the second light:
The moon, the second light, the light of the dark hours, but only for part of each month.
It’s like second chances: it’s not quite like the first light/chance; but when it works out, the beauty/joy is amazing.
Turning just a bit and waiting and shooting again sometimes nets another, if not better, also beautiful, worth contemplating photo.
The perspective one takes changes the outcome, dramatically.
In the end, the view is just marvelous, and hauntingly so.
When It Just Keeps Getting Warmer Below Zero
Or
We made it through the superstition of Friday 13th.
The sun is up and the weather report says -7 climbing by mid-afternoon to -3.
Hurrah!
The thermometer says:
Looks like -9 or -10 to me.
But…
That’s just fine and warm with the highs for the next 5 days all out of the minus temperatures!
So the sun rises to light the world golden
And we plan to be outside.
What will you do in this warm wave of winter?
This post was delayed, due to to a memory error. I’d tell you about it but I’ve forgotten what it was, something to do with WP Memory Limit.
Yesterday, driving in the early morning heavy fog, the sun started to poke through just ever so slightly and this flew by.
I stopped, pressed for time or not, to catch the light.
Can you catch light, really? Waves or particles, with bare hands, and hold it tight to own it?
Never, but one can take the light of the world through the yuck of crude meanness and, as Leonard Cohen taught me to say, celebrate the light that gets in just because of the cracks. Actually Chet Hoversten taught me to say it, in more Lutheran theological language, which has served me all my life: the Grace of God is not earned, but enters our lives, in spite of and just because we are broken people, and this Grace and favour given as a free gift, never earned, not even for believing the right things, transforms our lives, sets us free, establishes that God is for us no matter what, and then this Grace allows us to surrender and ask: so with this absolute freedom, given by none other than God, what am I going to do (what are we going to do) with this … this freedom, this life, this Grace, this unconditional forgiveness:
Are we going to try to control it and foist it on others: That is to create our own hell out of it, just saying.
Or
Are we going to try to codify it and foist it on ourselves and others: That is to create our own hell out of it, just saying.
Or
Are we, am I, going to simply ask each morning and each moment, how can I extend this Grace unmerited to as many people as possible this day, this moment?
Photography is easier, and more difficult: you can capture the light, and then share it. And as many know the worst weather often creates light that is the most spectacular, by being specular, and it makes possible some great photography.
Now, I was running hard, and just had fun, so this is not the BEST photography, it’s just fun, to be enjoyed:
The fourth and final … and I had to jump out of the freezing, fingers throbbing cold, without even time to put everything back in the cases and move on, hoping there’d be another take for the light. But within a few km the sun broke clear through from 2 hours in the sky and all that was left was to make the next deadline.
And later that night, falling asleep in my chair more than once I put the exposure bracketed files together with HDR and tweeked. So this is light and software and playing around with reality.
Not suggested to be done with God’s light in our lives. It already had endless exposures bracketed for us to see, and assembly by software or however is simply not helpful, nor needed to notice the awesome, amazing Grace …
For each of us.