what to do when lost...

In the middle of this road we call our life

I found myself in a dark wood

With no clear path through ...

(Dante, Divine Comedy)

Lost

Stand still.  The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost.  Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes.  Listen.  It answers,

I have made this place around you,

If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost.  Stand still.  The forest knows

Where you are.  You must let it find you.

~David Wagoner

...of mystery and night...

(digital art by bz)

Haunted Houses


by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1858)




All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.


We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.


There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.


The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.


We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.


The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.


Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.


These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star
An undiscovered planet in our sky.


And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,—


So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

~Longfellow

digitally manipulated photograph

Below is an image photographed a few months ago in Old Montreal.  These old buildings have clearly been renovated - but in line with strict municipal codes that protect them from being demolished for new development and decree they must be restored to match their original design, and replicate as much as possible the original materials.

It was a dark day, rain threatening to fall at any moment when the photograph was snapped.  I have not edited the photograph below to adjust the lighting.  Notice the unique stone wall and iron gate between the two buildings.

Below is a closer view of the wall and gate.

Of course, I could not resist the temptation to digitally manipulate my photographs (fortunately there are no municipal codes interdicting such wanton adjustments to historical monuments ... yet), and you will see three different editings of the first photograph in this post.  I used textures, filters and a variety of blending modes to make them look like paintings.

I'd love to hear what you think.

Now, please enjoy this little poem about an old stone house:

 

The Old Stone House

Nothing on the grey roof, nothing on the brown,

Only a little greening where the rain drips down;

Nobody at the window, nobody at the door,

Only a little hollow which a foot once wore;

But still I tread on tiptoe, still tiptoe on I go,

Past nettles, porch, and weedy well, for oh, I know

A friendless face is peering, and a still clear eye

Peeps closely through the casement

as my step goes by.

~Walter de la Mare

(Please excuse the quirks in alignment and spacing in this post.  It looks right in the 'Preview', but once posted it is jumping around and not co-operating with me at all!)

quietly ...

~spent~

Season after season

I live, I give

succor, seeds, scent~

My soul force spent

in sweet service

to beauty and to life~

My life force spent

No sacrament amiss

Now kiss...

 me with your compost knife.

~bz

more autumn splendor

Nature, my immortal mother,

You give me a brief lifetime

Yet you put immense designs in my heart ...

~Gabriel D'Annunzio

Every country walk is an act of adoration.

~Simone de Beauvoir

~weathered and worn~

Nature presents her lessons

For those who can attend:

Though weathered and worn

There is beauty at the end.

~bz

Month by month, things are losing their hardness;

even my body now lets the light through.

~Virginia Woolf

digital art experiments

All of the following digital art was produced in PhotoShop Elements by combining paintings, photographs and collages of mine.  Once merged, the composed pieces are treated with different blending modes and adjustments in opacity.

Especially in times of darkness,

That is the time to love,

That an act of love

Might tip the balance.

~Aeschylus

(just a little reminder to myself ~ :-)

update and autumn pics

The photographs further on in this post were taken this week from my front porch and back deck.

 Thank you all for your well wishes and expressions of concern.  X-rays last week reveal the bones in my arm/wrist are healing well. The pain has diminished, mobility is still a problem (e.g. put my back out trying to hook up my bra!).  However, the big question is ... can my marriage survive this handicap!!! 

The injury and  lack of mobility have put a strain on both dh and I, and on the relationship.  :-)

Here are a few things you could have heard at our place this week: 

  "Eeeek, don't wash the dirt off your shoe in the kitchen sink!" 

"What's the problem with eating beans and toast again tonight?" 

 "Yes, when you make a meal you do have to time things so that everything is ready at the same time!"

 "Yes, when you fold clothes and put them away, they should be completely dry!" 

"No, I don't want to play spa, blow dry your hair, or give you a manicure!'

 "No I don't think I should scratch inside the cast with a long, jagged, metal barbecue skewer!"

"How many jars have I opened for you this week?"

"Too bad you can't join me in savoring this superb bottle of wine, since you are on pain meds."

"I was sure you said that women dressed only in an arm cast turned you on!" 

"Are we having fun yet?"

just when ...

Just when we are safest, there's a sunset touch,

A fancy from a flower-bell, someone's death,

A chorus-ending from Euripides,

And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears

As old and new at once as nature's self,

To rap and knock and enter in our soul.

~Robert Browning

the journey

The journey is simply a reawakening to the knowledge of where you always were and what you have always been.  It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed.

~Alan Watts

Fall pics

A few fall shots taken very close to home, by a one-armed, broken-wristed, pin-tortured, point-n-shoot-wielding, pain-medicated, fed-up, amateur photographer.  :-) 



ouch

moi

hi everyone!  last weekend  my daughter's dog, maya, went missing for 36 hours, and silly us, we assumed that would be the end of the drama during this 3 wk doggie-sitting gig. HA! 

while rough-housing with her outside, early friday morning, i was backing up at fast clip and tripped on a rock.  while air-borne my instincts decided it would be better to brace my fall with my hand than hit my head.  well, my head was spared, but i broke both the ulna and radius bones in my wrist.  the radius actually shattered and split.  OUCH!   DOUBLE OUCH!!

spent two days in hospital, waiting to be operated on to insert pins to re-align bones.  had choice of general anesthesia or local - chose local even though process to freeze arm and not have freezing seep into body was weird and grueling - i'll spare you the details.

am back at home, popping pain killers and reduced to brief stints at computer, typing with one finger.  i will read your posts but probably not comment for a while.  i may post some photographs here and there, but don't expect much for a while.

so, how are you spending YOUR weekend?  hope you have been more fleet of foot than i.  :-)

how can one sweet, beautiful doggie cause so many problems?

Reluctance

Autumn is a seductress, luring sun worshippers into a certain fall away from warmth and light.  Enraptured by Autumn's radiant show, one can almost not notice Summer's curtain coming down.  Like an encore performance at the end of a theatrical spectacle, Autumn's flashy splendor distracts Summer's loyal fans from noticing that the run is over, the show is packing up and moving to another hemisphere.  Here are some showstoppers that have helped distract me from the close of Summer 2010. 

Included with the photographs is Robert Frost's poem Reluctance which describes almost universal sentiments at this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere.

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods

And over the walls I have wended;

I have climbed the hills of view

And looked at the world, and descended;

I have come by the highway home,

And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,

Save those that the oak is keeping

To ravel them one by one

And let them go scraping and creeping

Out over the crusted snow,

When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,

No longer blown hither and thither;

The last long aster is gone;

The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;

The heart is still aching to seek,

But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man

Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

Of a love or a season?

~Robert Frost