Sunday stroll…

I thought maybe we’d go back to Tofino, BC for this week’s Sunday Stroll, and
look for the bears again… I promised you more bears, and here they are, along
with the beautiful inlets and always watchful eagles. Enjoy!

Sunday stroll…

I thought, given that these are Sunday strolls, that maybe I would post
some of the many, many religious images from my trip to New Mexico.

It seemed that everywhere I looked, there was a cross, or a bell, or an
intricate mosaic. Here are some of my favorites from Chimayo, Taos
and Santa Fe… you can see the history of the area in them.

The overwhelm and the undertow…

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity,
we shall harness for God the energies of love,
and then, for a second time in the history of the world,
man will have discovered fire.

~ Teilhard de Chardin ~

This week’s Sunday Stroll takes us to Long Beach, on one end of the Pacific Rim
National Park in British Columbia. These photos were taken on some hallowed
ground – the former summer camp of the local tribe – used, possibly, as late as
the 1950’s.

I’ve been noodling this post all week while battling the Summer Stomach Virus
and I think it will make sense to you now. I hope so.

I really want to show you what I see – the overwhelm and the undertow that is
both literal and figurative. We all feel it, every day – the pull of the tides, of the
moon, of who knows what else. If we are still enough, it is there.

Life builds up in just this way. Look at these waves grow in power,
in strength, in size – just as the daily-ness of life does.

Wherever you are, whatever you do, the every day neediness of
the things that run our lives begins to stack up on itself. It rolls over
and over, momentum growing…

until it crashes against what remains solid in you. Those walls you build,
the beliefs you hold, the stories you repeat over and over until they
become more real that what is, in fact, actually right in front of you.

I do it, too. We all do. It is part of human life on this planet. And
after the crescendo, if we have found a way to bring peace within
our selves, it begins to subside. At least a little bit.

Slowly, the waves move out and there is more room. Room to breathe,
to learn, to find a way to know that this will happen again, but that
we don’t have to suffer so much. Hopefully, we find room in our dailiness
to make space for the inevitable rising of the tides, for that flow which
turns the planet, and us, literally.

Still, it can stir everyone up and reorganize life in a way that can take
some adjusting…

Or it can leave us feeling pretty beached – high and dry, alone and
exposed until the next high tide reaches us where we are.

If you are lucky, we begin to try to find some high ground. A vantage
point from which you can see the big picture, and begin to see a new
way to look at things.

In any given day, there is both the overwhelm and the undertow.
It’s all in how you ride those waves. Or let them wash over you, knowing
all will be well, in the end.

Sunday Stroll….

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.
~ Edward de Bono ~

There has been a wonderful trend this week, among my favorite blogs – Walking on My Hands, A Design So Vast and Life After Benjamin – which I think Pamela started. We all tend to get into deep and somewhat serious subjects and, I think, often do not let our lighter sides show much in our posts.So I am getting on the bandwagon, joining my friends and thinking about what makes me smile. I figured this little collection would make a perfect Sunday Stroll. Here we go… a rather odd collection, at first glance, but all things that float my boat in one way or another…

Often, what catches my eye has to do with patterns. The intricacy in simple things – like the bark on a tree – just amazes me. Or a fern, just starting to unfurl….

And once it unfurls, there’s even more to be amazed by….

Plants are just full of detail and color and shapes.

And sometimes, they are just stunning, no matter what stage of growth they’re in!

I love the way they reach for the sky, too….

Or find the perfect little space to grow in…

Sometimes, it’s all about your perspective.

Ok, just to prove that there are things in the world that make me happy outside of nature, here are a few recent favorites. I love hand lettered, hand drawn and colored stories.

And anything that moves in silhouette against the sky.

And hand lettered signs with great messages!