perception – Page 10 – In the Woods

it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

10.11.15.0812 — Herring Cove Beach ~ 10.11.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

One morning in Provincetown we drove out to Herring Cove Beach, where we used to spend days at the beach when the kids were small. The waves here on the bay side are more gentle than they are on the beaches facing the open Atlantic. When they got older they preferred the excitement of Race Point Beach. This beach is pretty rocky, lots of small stones, making trips in and out of the water rough on tiny feet.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
~ E. E. Cummings
(The Lyric Self in Zen & E. E. Cummings)

It was fun photographing the gulls sunning themselves in a different background than the large rocks they usually perch on at our local beach. The future is always uncertain, but lately possible scenarios seem to be monopolizing my thoughts, creating anxiety even as I try to stay living in the present. Spending so much time on the Cape has helped me restore a sense of peace with things as they are or will prove to be. It’s not so much a feeling of resignation, but more of an accepting of the inevitable flux and flow of life.

When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
(Letter to Clara Rilke, March 27, 1903)

appearances

4.11.15.4627 — 4.11.15 ~ Mystic River, Connecticut

There is one common flow, one common breathing, all things are in sympathy.
~ Hippocrates
(The Mystic Vision: Daily Encounters with the Divine)

Last week Tim & I spotted this great egret fishing for its lunch on the west bank of the Mystic River.

Life flows on within you and without you.
~ George Harrison
♫ (Within You Without You) ♫

The appearance is ever-changing, but the beingness is ever-present.
~ Joan Tollifson
(Painting the Sidewalk with Water)

living people

"Morning" by Edvard Munch — “Morning” by Edvard Munch

No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.
~ Edvard Munch
(www.edvardmunch.org)

everlasting snow

2.16.15.3319 — 2.16.15 ~ Elm Grove Cemetery, Mystic, Connecticut

Wont somebody bring the light
So I can see which way to go
Into the everlasting snow?
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #222)

frozen

2.16.15.3242 — 2.16.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut

These pictures were taken along the east side of the Thames River, looking south. The meteorologists are reporting that if this deep freeze continues, this will soon be the coldest month ever recorded in Connecticut. If this is what climate change will be bringing us, I think we will need to invest in some serious fleece lined boots. More snow due tomorrow and still more on the weekend.

2.16.15.3262 — 2.16.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut

Notice the chunk of ice in the water behind this duck. He seems to be doing better than the gulls, but where is the rest of his flock?

2.16.15.3279 — frozen waves stick to the riverbank ~ 2.16.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut

Every once in a while, Mr. Logic (Tim) and I will have a brief discussion about poetry. I’m for it, he’s against it, and we agree to disagree. He says it doesn’t make any sense to him. But the other day I was browsing through my Emily Dickinson book and thought perhaps Tim might “get” this one. Read it to him, and wonder of all wonders, he said it made sense to him! I so enjoyed the once-in-a-lifetime moment.

“Faith” is a fine invention
For Gentlemen who see!
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency!
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #202)

2.16.15.3281 — 2.16.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut

After this we headed over to Mystic. More pictures soon…

one hundred years

1.30.15 ~ Aunt Lil (with her great-grandniece Katie) on her 100th birthday

For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(Poems & Other Writings)

observing nature

theodorkittelsen.january — “January” by Theodor Kittelsen

The place to observe nature is where you are; the walk to take to-day is the walk you took yesterday. You will not find just the same things: both the observed and the observer have changed; the ship is on another tack in both cases.
~ John Burroughs
(Signs & Seasons)

first snow

theodorkittelsen.november — “November” by Theodor Kittelsen

I am younger each year at the first snow. When I see it, suddenly, in the air, all little and white and moving; then I am in love again and very young and I believe everything.
~ Anne Sexton
(Letter to W. D. Snodgrass, November 28, 1958)

numinous mystery

"October" by Efim Volkov (1844-1920) Russian Realism Painter — “October” by Efim Volkov

How lovely trees are. The human species grew up in and around them. We have a natural affinity for trees. … We human beings don’t look very much like a tree. We certainly view the world differently than a tree does. But down deep, at the molecular heart of life we’re essentially identical to trees.
~ Carl Sagan
(Cosmos)

When a man plants a tree, he plants himself. Every root is an anchor, over which he rests with grateful interest, and becomes sufficiently calm to feel the joy of living.
~ John Muir
(Steep Trails)

A tree is a self: it is unseen shaping more than it is leaves or bark, roots or cellulose or fruit. … We can not point to anything physical and say, “There is the self!” This holds for the tree’s activity as well as for the human’s. What it means is that we must address trees. We must address all things, confronting them in the awareness that we are in the presence of numinous mystery. Who shapes the tree? Who shapes my thoughts? We are in the mystery of the self.
~ Brian Swimme
(The Universe Is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story)