Daffodil
“Nature is an incomparable guide if you know how to follow her.” -Carl Jung
(Daffodil from my yard.)
Yes
A flowering tree in my front yard.
I’m still on a William Stafford kick– just received two books in the mail and am awaiting a third..
Yes by William Stafford
It could happen anytime, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.
It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out ~ no guarantees
in this life.
But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.
Yard In Bloom
Lazy lake / Book report
Atchison State Lake, March, 2011. I’m looking forward to heading out into the countryside with my camera this weekend. Lots of new spring growth and fresh air that I need to take in.
I read a book on Sunday called “The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment” by Thaddeus Golas — I had picked it up (with a grain of salt) at the Lawrence Public Library book sale last fall. I’m not so sure a lazy mind (hence, a lazy man) could reach “enlightenment” — whatever that really means, and it was very obviously written in the early 70s with lots of reference to certain cultural ideas of that time.. Anyway, I underlined a few passages that I thought I could put down here:
“The way you see the world depends entirely on your own vibration level. When your vibration changes, the whole world will look different.”
“You take yourself with you wherever you go. As they say in Zen: If you can’t find it where you’re standing, where do you expect to wander in search of it?”
“We should give what we would expect to get, good or bad, in the same circumstance, and begin with the knowledge that all beings are equal.”
“When we are relating to beings whose vibrations are higher or lower than ours, we feel unstable and uncertain.”
“There is a good attitude to take towards any goal: It’s nice if it happens, nice if it doesn’t.”
Beginnings of my window garden
Thyme, Rosemary, and Lavender.. and I added one more cup to sprout a couple sunflower seeds — I have a nice sunny corner in my yard where I think I can transplant them. I’ve got one growing already in my hibiscus tree pot by total accident — I dropped a seed in while feeding the squirrels and it sprouted.
Only a Northern Song from Yellow Submarine (Animated Film) HD – The Beatles
I watched “Yellow Submarine” (again) this afternoon.. one of these days, I shall coordinate time and test my limits with paper cut animation. I think it would be awesome to make something like Yellow Submarine with lots of abstract movement and colors and sound but with paper cuttings. I can’t really explain it but it’s an incredibly amazing feeling to sit back and watch my work come to life with movement and sound, and I don’t feel like I’ve even scratched the surface.. I’m working on some concepts for some more very short animations right now, so hopefully those will come along sooner than later.
Silence (1968) by Jules Engel (Experimental Animation)
Crocuses in my yard
“To a Crocus” (1827) by Bernard Barton
Welcome, wild harbinger of spring!
To this small nook of earth;
Feeling and fancy fondly cling
Round thoughts which owe their birth
To thee, and to the humble spot
Where chance has fixed thy lowly lot.
William Stafford – Kansas Poet
I’ve been reading a lot of Kansas raised poet Williams Stafford’s work lately and am really enjoying it. There’s a really great biography on the Poetry Foundation’s website (read it here). I’ve always been inspired by the imagery and ideas within poems, and I really connect to a lot of those in Stafford’s work.. maybe it’s the Kansas thing..
Independence Creek, Atchison, KS, 2009.
Sending These Messages
by William Stafford
Over these writings I bent my head.
Now you are considering them. If you
turn away I will look up: a bridge
that was there will be gone.
For the rest of your life I will stand here,
reaching across.
If these writings can bring a turn
or an echo that touches you ~ maybe
a face, a slant, a tune ~ you will stop
too and bend over them. When you
look up, your thought will reach
wherever I am.
I know it is strange. and there is no measure
for this. The only connection we make
is like a twinge when sometimes they change
the beat in music, and we sprawl with it
and hear another world for a minute
that is almost there.
Geodes Magnified
I wrote about these geodes last Friday. Read it HERE.
When I was a kid, I liked to go rock hunting. One time I was walking down a gravel road at the county lake and I found a geode, just small enough to get lost in the gravel, in the middle of the road. It had purple tinted crystals.. I’ve since lost it, but it was a very memorable find.