A Goooooooood Day!

I am wanting to be a famous Raven Photographer.  Ha ha.  No, really.  I do.  Only problem is that they do not co-operate.  I am tenacious, though.  So we shall see.  They are intelligent, humorous, wary, and very forward when one does not hold a camera in hand.

My brother feeds Ravens in his back yard.  He even knows some of their favorite snacks, like Aunt Cleo's pancakes.  He puts the "compost" out in their garden and bangs the pot on the fence.  Goes inside and watches them come sailing out of the forest from his kitchen window.  The Ravens chuckle and gobble up their treats.  They hear the pot bang, call in the whole clan, and drop in for snacks.

Some day a Raven will follow me home.  Even when I am up in the mountains on the way to the Lake,  from their vantage point my house is only about three miles away.  Every trip I invite them, show them the way.

This was a fun interlude in my day:  Grand Kidlets.  Ice cream and good company = Smiles.

Took a circuitous route home.  Found piglets in the vineyard.  They are an integral part of a system where bye the soil is tilled and fertilized by pigs and chickens.  There were four of this size; very extremely cute.

Flamboyant Flowering Quince, made the more bright by the sun setting behind the hill.  Wow.

And ever so coincidentally meeting Mary, who's smile is the BEST!  Now seriously, isn't this the coolest way to end a day?

Hugs.
xoxo
LPC

Laughing with the Horses

He is the Littlest Guy.

 He is the Biggest Guy.

Perspective:  Skyler (the human) is 6'3"ish.

Pretty cute, I say.

This Guy hangs his tongue.

 Hanoverian advantage.

Got him by the chin hair.

Needless to say, they're good buds.

xoxoLPC

Prelude

Yes, here in N. Calif., we are experiencing one of our weird winters.  And, yes.  I am loving it, for I chafe under the discomforts of cold, wet winters, much preferring "strangely warm" days in January!  I notice that Manzanita blooms mid winter, to remind us that Spring is gathering herself together, and will burst forth in poppy orange, lupine purple, and a multitude of colors within the spectrum.  Recently I saw a whole flock of Western Bluebirds, flashing a blue more pure than sky.

I love these lantern shaped little pinks.  They make me maudlin.  Did you ever read The Little People books?  I love that they live behind the reality of the big people, their homes accessible through the cracks in the baseboards.  When I see these flowers in the spring, I am sure that the little people illuminate their cozy little homes with them.

In a sacred manner they have sent voices.

Half the universe has sent voices.

In a sacred manner they have sent voices to you.

heyoka from Black Elk Speaks

What I have not understood has to do with the Nature of Things.  How life is.  How my tears and sorrow are part of the fabric of things.  How even discomfort is sacred.

Sometimes I think that I spend an inordinate amount of time staring at Things.  Yes, this is the way of an artist, this one anyways.  Like I am memorizing a moment, a sense, even a silhouette or shadow breath movement.  Recognising plants, birds and animals from my past, most likely from my past's past.  Like Raven, looking down at me looking up at her.  She knows, like Manzanita knows.

And there is nothing to do about it.

Love,

LPC

Odds & Ends. Essence.

Ran out to the car to grab up the camera.  The light was streaming into the studio in a most bright and cheerful way; hurry.  Took the photo.  Things in the studio are changing.  There is no hanging back, no hesitating.  Time is of the essence.  There isn't even anything to let go of, if you can imagine that.  Cliche run amuck.  Everything ever said has been said already.  In a thousand languages.

Download the photos, to find a charming group of images.  I stare at things.  Hungry, I guess, for the essence of whatever.  Like the pigeons:  I was putting gas in my car and was staring at the insulators and wires and the height of the pole and the blue sky.  White.  White round pigeon breasts.  Life on the wires.  Notice how pigeons always land just the right distance from one another?  No one is crowded or knocked off.  That I know of, at any rate.  Reminds me of Starlings zooming en masse and not crashing.  Around here humans run over one another, well the ones in cars run over the ones in shoes, or on bicycles.  Sorry.  There I went.

There are many ways to God.  At this time, my way is staring at things.  At color.  Negative space.  Line.  Whisper.  Clouds way so high I can't really see them, so the blue serves the purpose.  Stare.  Quiet.  Notice that God has not gone anywhere.

Winter cold day, with rain approaching.  What holds me back?  Away from taking on the difficult?  Writing this morning and yesterday, too, the question haunts me.  I do not like not-knowing the answer or the outcome.  My early training was to keep it to myself, which turned into a weird timidness in adulthood.  The writing has exposed the fable of early-childhood, how those beliefs which took hold and morphed into fact aren't, really.  Today's writing opened the door to more "true circumstance."  I hold back out of some fear, some consideration of others, some more fear.  I hold back so that those damn fears don't come true, or turn into frustrating tears.

Life is a prayer.  Underlying the "true circumstance" is the True Circumstance.  Purpose comes with the gift of life.  Listening to birdsong,wind or the coyote howl thrills me.  Packing in the wood, hauling out the compost and ashes keep me focused.  Feeling sorrow, love, gratitude remind me that I am human, and alive.

And this is some of what's happening from the light shining into the studio.

Thank you for your love and steady presence.

xoxo
LPC

Portrait

In a way

every

portrait

is 

a

self

portrait.

***

xoxo

LPC

Cozy Rainy Day

I am responsible for dinner tonight.  So, I've soaked the beans, and now they are simmering in the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale that I borrowed.  And, I am back up here in my window seat, happy as a clam. Took a hot tub in the rain (ah, bliss).  The people are all settled in for a rainy day with books, puzzles, more books, movies I've never heard of before, yarn for knitting, books and enough food and beverages for an army.  It is quiet, and then conversation and laughter breaks out.  I have been carrying the #3 Dragon Girl book around for at least three months.  Cannot seem to get into this last one.  Maybe tomorrow?

Photography for today is on hold.  But I am burrowing into fearless Creating, by Eric Maisel, Ph.D.  The format of the book is to read, then to write into the meditations/suggestions.  Oh my.  Big stuff.  This morning, about possessing an idea that you've (I've) wanted to work on for the longest time already..."The one that you're sure someone else has already done a better job with, and so reject?"  There is no (NO) good reason to reject an idea you've long harbored, he says, like he is sitting here in my window seat with me.  "Bring it back...  Dust it off.  Remember that choosing is anxiety-provoking and that the anxiety of this stage is confused mind anxiety.  Accept your confused mind... For now, just dust it off, honor it, think about it, cherish it."  Omg.  Are you kidding?  Then he says, "With a fresh (albeit confused) mind, look again at the idea that you've long wanted to pursue.  Name it again..."

Oh, Goddess!!  This gets uncomfortable.  That old idea has been shelved for, umm.  Decades.  Arggh.

Look!  My sweet, giant, restless Muse.  She is pounding in the rain.  Frothing, bubbling, roaring.  She is right there when my eyes rise from the page.  Moving, changing, ferocious, constant, ancient and completely renewed.  She doesn't honor convention (doesn't need a horizon today), she keeps her own time, she invents landscape and seascape, she destroys and starts over.  She carries nutrients, swirls with current, creates wind.

She sends her scent up and over the cliff to me.  Seaweed, surf, wet, slippery and drenching.  Come, she says.  No fear stands between you and I.  Only love.

Mmmmm.  This is getting good.
xoxoLPC

Love the Coast

It is gray out here.  Soothing.  Calming.  Cozy.  Fog down to the ground.  Drizzle.  No horizon, just foreground.  The surf is pounding, rumbling, just over the cliff.  I love it here.  Wet.  Muted.  Quiet.

Summer grasses tangle with blackberry vine.  Fog gathers in creased blade.  Crystal orbs group to drip into Earth, seep back to the Ocean.  An awesome system.  In place.  Constant.  Infinite.

Ebb.  High tide slams into rock, sprays white and salty.  Crashes over black in white froth and foam.

This is not my palette.  But I am fascinated.  Movement, rushing sound.  Focusing through the lens of the camera composes a canvas, a thought.  Beneath the surface of the wave are blues, turquoise, and gray reflection from the sky, which is down to, and included in the water.  It's a poem in the making.  A page in the writing.  Love in motion.

See the little kelp?  Living right there.  Taking a daily beating.  Happily?  Perhaps:  it has it's real estate, its exercise, its nutrition.  But but but does that equal happy?  I see no ipad, no bank on the next rock, no improved kelp, no cathedral, no school, no BMW, no tears, no squabbles.  There is family.  Community.  Sharing the rock, several rocks covered with these kelpies.  I mean kelp. Kelpies is a whole 'nother subject.

Tell me.  How does happy feel to you?

Loving you.  Yes.
xoxo
LPC