Beneath The Fan

September 27, 2018.  This poem emerged from a diverse spirituality group that meets every other month.  We each share something responding to the session’s focus – then we sit in silence.  Silence can be relative.  Certainly sounds normally unnoticed take on new significance when human clatter subsides.

Last week I took in red yucca seeds and a quote from Florida Scott-Maxwell in response to the challenge: What can you see when you are able to look past all your comfortable assumptions, judgments, prejudices, and fears?  There were several seed-related  responses, and the various seeds/interpretations were swirling in my head as we began what would’ve been silence … but for the old fan directly above me.

Love Given Time

September 24, 2018.  In a reflective mood, looking forward – an energizing mix!  Here’s a love poem to go along with sharing my news: partners for years (we gave each other time), Gary Kendrick and I became husband and wife on Friday – Autumnal Equinox – also 16th anniversary of meeting on Austin’s pedestrian bridge over Town Lake.

The owl in this image was purchased by my mother back in the ’80s when visiting me in Florida.  This bird made of shells has been with me since Mother’s death in 1990, reminder of her wise guidance through changes. The butterfly (also from the ’80s) and the owl sit side-by-side near the front door – encouragement to go on out and embrace inevitable change.

Aspen In Palm

September 17, 2018.  Yesterday Michael Fiveson posted an image that immediately set my gears spinning.  A single fallen aspen leaf from Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park – shaping a day of multiple stops with ample intervening energies – yet all day long this image kept nudging. The image within image (tree reflected in leaf) fascinates – Mother Nature as collage artist!

The haiku below evolved, and Mike graciously agreed I could post my haiku with his photo: from Mike’s Look at Life  – https://m5son.wordpress.com/

September Rain Lilies

September 9, 2018.  Rain, blessed relief of 100-degree days, washing away a multitude of apprehensions – some environmental, others attitudinal. A small field in the middle of Austin (near Seton Cove Spirituality Center) erupts in masses of rain lilies after successive days of rain. Again yesterday, I hit the brakes to hop out for photos. This collage combines a clump from September 2013 with a close-up from September 2018.

The sight of these prompts a big grin and a boost of spirits.   Here’s sharing …

 

 

Directions / Choices?

September 4, 2018.  We drove Saturday to Odessa TX, to spend Labor Day weekend with good friends.  Not a new drive – a couple of known paths from our house to San Angelo, one obvious path from there to Odessa.  Only … somehow  we missed a turn and by the time we noticed the road no longer looked familiar, we were waaaay past that turn.  Unwilling to forfeit time retracing, we proceeded to the next town (Goldthwaite TX).  Studying Google Maps on my phone, strange changes kept occurring.  Our printed maps were all in the truck that tows our Airstream – not with us in the Prius.

Goldthwaite  further frustrated with no indication where its roads out of town would lead.  But Lady Luck presented herself in a Welcome Center. (Who’d expect such in the middle of nowhere? And open on Saturday!)  She sent me back to the car with a county map stating on left edge: “To San Angelo”.  We were not yet aware at the county line our road dead-ended into a T … with zero indication what lay ahead in either direction.

Oddly, I have an urge to drive that way again (intentionally) for photographs.  I’m relying here on images from maps and a photo of a similar pasture.  Maybe next Spring when the wild flowers are blooming … to San Angelo for lunch and back again, with a map and Garmin along for the ride …