See Reality, Choose, and Do
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.
Mystical Morning Matters
There are moments that become available just because one seeks some fresh air for a night.
The landmarks stay the same, the fog and light shift as the sunrises.
And it is just outside our door, because we can haul the front door around behind the truck, along with a bed, table, stove, fridge and even a kitchen sink. A bit much for a guy who loved backpacking into the outback where no one else ventured to disturb a good night’s rest. Now we haul a toilet and electricity with us, not least of all to power a 27 inch screen to edit photos on.
Luxury. Well it may easily become my home permanently, so not really, not at -40° and +35° C.
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.
What you have, what we each have, is life.
This is my view, that you can choose …
to make things better …
or worse …
than you encounter them.
As for me and my household, we choose to make things better, not that we always do so but that we rely on Grace, Amazing Grace, for us and for all.
What will you do today?
What will you choose?
How will you choose between making things better or worse,
not only for yourself, likely at the cost to others around you;
but to make things better for yourself by making things better for others, all others around you, even your enemies?
Failure is not an option, it is a given; and how will you choose to respond
to your own failure?
to others’ failures?
Amazing Grace?
Or Damning projection?
Choose this day as every day and the world is as you choose, at least in a very small part.
As for me and my household, we surrender to Grace.