A duck family goes for an early morning swim on the lake.
A Canadian geese family goes for lunch and a swim in the lagoon.
And in the afternoon, a mother starling
feeds her hungry family in their nest in a tree!
Different families. Different times of day. But love and caring in all the families…
See here for more interpretations of ‘Family’.
Ahhh… beginning a new day
and beginning new lives…
To see how others interpret ‘Beginning’, click here.
‘One travels more usefully when alone because he reflects more,’
said Thomas Jefferson.
What is this hitch-hiker thinking
as he heads towards Missoula, Montana?
Is he feeling loneliness or solitude in light of Paul Tillich’s words:
‘Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone
and solitude expresses the glory of being alone.’
And, is he a solitary person as in Paul Theroux’s statement:
‘Solitary people make the best travellers’
And, as we all know…
‘The one thing that matters is the effort,’
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
as we ‘…climb every mountain!’
For more interpretations of ‘One’ see here.
‘The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere….’
John Muir reminds us…
and what better way
to start the day
than with a grand sunrise…
this one, over Beaver Lake, Ontario
Meanwhile, Ansel Adams points out that,
‘Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature
can be revealed in the expressive photograph.’
Grand rock formations
in the North Dakota Badlands …
…and this grand rock
at a highway pull out,
in North Queensland,
invites us to touch the iron-red rock face,
and the fine, intimate grasses.
Then there’s the grand view…
from grandstand seats
on cliffs,
in Victoria.
and a grand vista…
of the horizon
where big sky
meets open spaces
of vast American prairies,
making us feel small and insignificent.
Or, as Jill Ker Conway says of an outback Australian horizon, ‘On the plains, the earth meets the sky in a sharp black line so regular that is seems as though drawn by a creator interested more in geometry…’ and where, ‘Human purposes are dwarfed by such a blank horizon.’
See here for more grand pictures…
Ker Conway, J. (1989). The Road from Coorain. William Heinemann Australia
‘Every moment of light and dark is a miracle’
says Walt Whitman…
and the spectacular transition
from dark to light never ceases to amaze…
Meanwhile, Dylan’s ‘big, fat moon’ is up there…
and like the owl and the pussy cat
in Edward Lear’s rollicking rhyme,
we can dance ‘by the light of the moon,
the moon, the moon…’
‘Light…’ also reminds me of Ezra Pound’s words:
Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hands.
But that’s another story….
For more ‘Let there be light’ entries, click here
Books and music:
Berg, R. (1984). Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussy Cat. Richmond Hill, Ontario: Scholastic.
Dylan, B. ‘I’ll be your baby tonight’, in Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2
This entry is later than expected because I had an unexpected computer glitch!
The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in your street (Robert Doisneau).
So, with camera in hand, we attempt to capture the unexpected – if the unexpected happens like…
a snapping turtle trundling across our lawn one sunny Saturday afternoon
– fortunately, photos were possible because it was slow as a …
and a midland painted turtle clambering on the dock
– with the bonus of an unexpectedly clear reflection.
After leaving the gym, we never expected to see
a giant stick insect resting on the car.
Joy and bliss can come from the little and most unexpected thing if only we program our mind to enjoy these little things (Unknown), like….
these pink-orange tulips unexpectedly bright against
green grass and an old grey fence of a farmer’s field.
Life is full of surprises… or expect the unexpected …
but a tilting lifeguard hut, devoid of a solid base,
was an unexpected sight on a morning beach walk…
and even more unexpected, was the same lifeguard
hut swinging from a crane as it was gingerly placed
on the back of a big truck late in the afternoon.
These ‘layers’ are opposites in so many ways…
The badlands of North Dakota
A flower in a tropical garden…
but I couldn’t find its name – can you help?
More than Reading Blog 