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Tag Archives: Spirituality and Photography
Untitled
Birds
room for one more
The road
the road came
this way
to see the trees
Weeds
“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
A. A. Milne
On Channing Pond
Our neighbor up the street has pond-front
property as a result
of the street being re-paved.
Purple iris
when to enjoy
your iris?
NOW!
Yellow iris
Bend in the Road
A bright, warm Saturday afternoon in October, what could be better than going for a ride in the country to find apples and black walnut fudge?
Alex and Claire had been married a year now and whatever they did, they plunged in and found the fun in it. Responsible people on their jobs during the week, they walled off the weekend for their time together. Work hard, play hard together, that’s Alex and Claire.
Apple in the cup holder and fudge in his right hand, Alex steered with his left. “Oh this fudge is good” he said. “There’s nothing that sets it off better than black walnuts, a dark, delicious taste.”
Claire agreed.
Alex and Claire had never been back in here, along this road. A dirt road but well kept.
Alex was perhaps concentrating a little too much on the fudge as they went around the bend.
Sheep! A herd of sheep in the road! Alex slammed on the brake, fishtailed and corrected but not fast enough to save one of the sheep. It was pretty clearly dead as it lay in the road.
Alex jumped out of the car and the farmer yelled “What are doin’ Mister, drivin’ so fast on these roads? You killed one of my favorite ewes.”
Alex was speechless. He tried to swallow but couldn’t. He pulled himself together and said “I’m very sorry and I know that is not nearly enough. What can I do to make up for this?”
The farmer scratched his chin with a broken finger nail, looked up at the sky and said “I know you didn’t mean to do that but I’m out one good ewe. $200 would help.”
Alex and Claire counted out their money and handed the farmer ten $20 bills.
The farmer took them, licked his finger and counted the money. “OK. I’ll move the herd and you can go on. But you be more careful.”
Just then a police car came around the bend and just missed the closest sheep before it stopped. It was a county cop and he took down Alex’s license number and checked it before getting out of his cruiser. He opened the door and got out, his belt creaking with the pistol, baton, bullet case, flashlight and handcuffs he had on it. He walked, not fast, not slow, over to Alex and the farmer.
Ignoring Alex, the cop turned to the farmer and said “Orvie, we’ve talked about this in the past. You’ve pulled this trick once too often. Get those sheep back in the field. You and I are going for a little ride.”
The cop turned to Alex and said “Well, you were going too fast coming around that curve weren’t you? How much did Orvie take you for?”
“$200.” Alex said, rather abashed.
“There’s a lesson for you. Why don’t you go on your way and just be more careful, will you?”
Stillness
Image and text copyrighted by Barry L. Lively
The marsh was beyond quiet, it was still. It was not asleep, it was still, watchful. Nothing moved.
If we could speed up our perception and look more closely at the intervals between what we think of as events, perhaps we could experience stillness there. Possibly a “flavored” stillness which in some way reflects the most recent events. But we are usually thinking about something in the past or anticipating something else in the future. Appreciation of stillness means living in the Now.
Claude Debussy is credited with saying that “Music is the silence between the notes.” Now that might also be “flavored” stillness, stillness in and of music.
I moved on. We later walked back the same way and the heron was gone. The surface of the water was ruffling in the breeze.
Spirit and Seeing 