summer solstice

This beautiful lady bug was spotted as I lay in the sun, half pondering, half napping... funny too was that there was a red bird that perched itself on a branch near me and began calling around for his friend... I began to feel like I was in a disney animation.

Two people in a weeks time said I looked liked the CIA agent's wife, Valerie Plame. I had to google her to see who she is.


I burned my thumb with water I was making tea with-- a workmate told me to put musterd on it-- and it made the pain go away. I always knew I had a green thumb. Not sure what a yellow thumb means...

when all else fails

 

 

The week ended much better end than it's beginning. This is what life is at times - light and dark, sun and rain, joy and tears... I wore a fuschia orchid in my hair yesterday and it was just what I needed with the raspberry cotton top...

The butterfly picture was captured today. I was on a photoshoot, and while my clients took a break, I was able to capture these moments.

I got some new earrings today. They are aqua and blue with a shiny glaze over the top, encased in a circular silver circle, two on each earring, one above the other...

back to reality

The district assembly was in Pueblo Colorado this year, held at the fairgrounds. These pictures are from this weekend while visiting Pueblo.

Wabi Sabi

[Photo taken in Santa fe]
 
Roger Housden;
"IN Japan there is an entire worldview that appreciates the value of the imperfect, unfinished, and faulty. It's called Wabi Sabi, where the first term refers to something simple and unpretentious, and the second points to the beauty that comes with age. Wabi Sabi is the aesthetic view that underlies traditional Japanese art forms like the tea ceremony, calligraphy, and ceramics. It's an aesthetic that sees beauty in the modest and humble, the irregular and earthy..... What are the mazes, or labyrinths, after all, if not a metaphor for life? We often find ourselves retracing our steps, getting lost, and even coming upon the exit sooner or later than we imagined. Life can indeed be a-mazing. And as in a maze, the next step can be much closer than we imagine, and often in a direction we would never have suspected...."

purple delight

 
 
 

sunshine

 
 
 

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.
- Heinrich Heine

Micah tried the black bean burrito I gave him. His brother wanted a bite, and asked what he was eating. Micah replied "It's a blueberry burrito". Cute.

3 days {inspiration}

 

 

{Chimayo, NM}




THREE DAYS TO SEE

What would you look at if you had just three days of sight? Helen Keller, blind and deaf from infancy, gives her answer in this remarkable essay.

“I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight, silence would teach him the joys of sound.

Now and then I have tested my seeing friends to discover what they see. Recently I asked a friend, who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, what she had observed. “Nothing in particular,” she replied.

How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In spring I touch the branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud, the first sign of awakening Nature after the winter’s sleep. Occasionally, if I am very fortunate, I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song.

At time my heart cries out with longing to see all these things. If I can get so much pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight. And I have imagined what I should most like to see if I were given the use of my eyes, say for just three days.

On the first day, I should want to see the people whose kindness and companionship have made my life worth living. I do not know what it is to see into the heart of a friend through that “window of the soul,” the eye. I can only “see” through my fingertips the outline of a face. I can detect laughter, sorrow, and many other obvious emotions. I know my friends from the feel of their faces.

For instance, can you describe accurately the faces of five different friends? As an experiment, I have questioned husbands about the colour of their wives’ eyes, and often they express embarrassed confusion and admit that they do not know. I should like to see the books which have been read to me, and which have revealed to me the deepest channels of human life. In the afternoon I should take a long walk in the woods and intoxicate my eyes on the beauties of the world of Nature. And I should pray for the glory of a colourful sunset. That night, I should not be able to sleep.

On my second day, I should like to see the pageant of man’s progress, and I should go to the museums. I should try to probe into the soul of man through his art. The things I knew through touch I should now see. The evening of my second day I should spend at a theatre or at the movies.

The following morning, I should again greet the dawn, anxious to discover new delights, new revelations of beauty. Today this third day, I shall spend in the workaday world, amid the haunts of men going about the business of life.

Atmidnight permanent night would close on me again. Only when darkness had again descended upon me should I realize how much I had left unseen.

I am sure that if you faced the fate of blindness you would use your eyes as never before. Everything you saw will become dear to you. Your eyes will touch and embrace every object that came within your range of vision. Then, at least, you would really see, and a new world of beauty would open itself before you.

I who am blind can give one hint to those who see: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to the other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty, which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which nature provides. But of all the senses, I am sure that sight must be the most delightful.”

By Helen Keller


...brilliant reminders

breezy

 
 

 
 

The wind was constant and warm. Although we hiked for 2 hours, there was no chance for a drop of sweat to form, as the breeze carried away any possible thought of perspiring. This morning I am not sore for the walking, rather I hurt from the sun kissing my arms just a little too long...
 

Spring cleaning comes naturally to me. It's a physical and mental experience, clearing away and making room for that which is fresh and new. I felt the need to delve into some theraputic cleaning last night, organizing and sorting that which I had not looked into for some time. I became so completely engrossed in my endeavors, that I did not notice the time passing and never ended up watching the movie I had intended on completing my day with. Instead, I laughed out loud, and ended up crying too. I became delightfully surprised when I found 200.00 in my stationary box that I had forgotten about.
Ahh... now I am ready for April to begin.

these days

 

(near Taos, New Mexico)

We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance.
- Harrison Ford

green bananas

 

Spring will be here in just under two hours ;)







The elderly lady at the store looked over at me as we stared in dismay at the bunches of green bananas. Not a yellow one in sight. I joked, "Well I hope I am craving a banana in a few weeks!" She laughed and said an old man once told her to never buy green bananas! It took me a moment to understand, then she picked up the cluster of green bananas and with a wink placed them in her cart.....

Quote I heard and wrote down :
"Sometimes it's not until a storm comes that things get unearthed, we get to see what's underneath, but in time as we replant ourselves we will be thankful; because like the roots of a tree, it is what lies beneath that allows us to grow. "