A lifting gale of sea-gulls followed them; slim yachts of the element,
Natural growths of the sky, no wonder
Light wings to leave sea; but those grave weights toil, and are powerful.
~ Robinson Jeffers
(Pelicans)
In this world you’ve a soul for a compass
And a heart for a pair of wings
There’s a star on the far horizon
Rising bright in an azure sky
For the rest of the time that you’re given
Why walk when you can fly?
~ Mary Chapin Carpenter
♫ (Why Walk When You Can Fly) ♫
photos by Tim Rodgers
When one soul meets another kindred soul, a great surge of energy rushes through the weaving of the universe as an important connection is made. In the unexplored regions of human consciousness, another light has come on, revealing shared territory. This is the work of dedicated souls on the spiritual path: their individual light illumines the universe for everyone, brings hope, and keeps open the pathway to understanding. This sacred trust is maintained by all who have consecrated their existence to spiritual wisdom; it is a kinship that runs like a golden chain from one age to another. That golden chain comes now into our hands, a sacred trust not only to our ancestors but to our descendants and every inhabitant of the universe. It is our turn to make the next link, trusting that others in turn will complete the circle until the whole cosmos is connected in one bond.
~ Caitlín Matthews
(The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year)
Two years ago on this day, Tim and I drove down to Avery Point to see the beauty of a recent snowfall by the water. I was trying to photograph the lighthouse, framed by a tree’s branches and the blanket of snow. After snapping the shot I looked on the view screen and gasped in surprise! While I had seen orbs in the photos of others before, and was curious about the phenomena, this was the first time orbs had appeared in one of my own photos! And there were so many of them!
As a person who has in the past often gotten myself into trouble by insisting on absolute answers to all questions, this marked one of the first times I was content to accept a gift of mystery and magic from the universe without demanding an explanation, satisfied to embrace not knowing. My intuition has some ideas but I’m not clinging to any particular theory, scientific or mystical.
If you have any orb pictures you’d like to share, please let me know. Perhaps I will post them here on my blog, or link to them on your blog. I have since had a few more pictures with orbs in them, though none as spectacular as this first one!
Yesterday we decided to take advantage of our new membership to visit our local living history museum, Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America & The Sea, to see what Christmas might have been like around here in the 1800s. The museum has a shipyard that is currently restoring the whaleship Charles W. Morgan, other historic ships, a coastal village, a planetarium and indoor exhibit galleries.
(above) Undecorated Christmas tree atop the main mast of the training ship Joseph Conrad, indicating that this vessel will be in port on Christmas.
Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you – smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, “Come and find out.”
~ Joseph Conrad
(Heart of Darkness)
I have to admit at first I was a disappointed, somehow expecting to walk into a twinkling winter wonderland. But later I remembered that they didn’t have electricity back then! Candlelight was an ever-present fire hazard. And it wasn’t until after the mid-1800s that Christmas trees became popular. So Christmas was not such a big thing at that time. In fact, the shopkeeper (below) at Stone’s General Store explained to us that no one expected to receive more than a single homemade gift. And that if we didn’t see what we needed to make our gifts in her store, then she would be pleased to order the items for us.
Even in the homes of the wealthy the holiday decor was simple. I love the winter afternoon sun filtering through the curtains (below) in the Thomas Greenman House parlor.
We stopped by the Mystic Print Shop and, with close supervision, I was allowed to print my own 19th-century Christmas card on an old press. Christmas cards were then the “latest” rage in Victorian fashion.
There were wreaths on every door in the seafaring village and on some of the windows, too. For the present I leave you with pictures of a few of them!
One must say Yes to life, and embrace it wherever it is found – and it is found in terrible places… For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
~ James Baldwin
(Fumbling Toward Divinity: The Adoption Scriptures)
May the nourishment of the earth be yours, may the clarity of light be yours, may the fluency of the ocean be yours, may the protection of the ancestors be yours. And so may a slow wind work these words of love around you, an invisible cloak to mind your life.
~ John O’Donohue
(Echoes of Memory)
The use of this digital painting is a gift from Val Erde. Thanks ever so much, Val!
Infinite riches are all around you if you will open your mental eyes and behold the treasure house of infinity within you. There is a gold mine within you from which you can extract everything you need to live life gloriously, joyously, and abundantly.
~ Joseph Murphy
(The Power of Your Subconscious Mind)
Each that we lose takes a part of us;
A crescent still abides,
Which like the moon, some turbid night,
Is summoned by the tides.
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1634)
Like the prodigal son
I return to you, the sea.
You who scare the idylls off
into tame inner fjords, bays and inlets
because you are much too majestic for weekend yachtsmen,
outboard motors and hobby anglers.
Without so much as a blink you swallow the sun
like a raw egg-yolk for supper
and at daybreak you lift heavy banks of cloud
dense with rain and squalls, a wet cloth
on sleep-heavy eyes and throbbing temples.
With the horizon like a diadem about your brows
you write your salt letters to the shore.
Land changes,
men and beasts come and go.
Only you
live your solitary life, the world’s
blue eyes fixed on the stars and eternity.
If the Earth has a soul,
it swims in you.
~ Kolbein Falkeid
(Homecoming to the Sea)
Sunday night we decided to have supper at the health food store in Mystic and then take a little stroll along the Mystic River. We wound up eating outside and enjoyed a little tourist-watching. The summer tourist season is fading away… The old salts at Schooner Wharf must be tired of having their gravel parking lot thrown into the river, rock by rock. (see signs above) We didn’t see the attack seagull, but then again, we didn’t dare to even touch a rock!
The brick building across the river in the next picture used to be an elementary school called Mystic Academy. Now it is a “senior care community” called Academy Point at Mystic. Some of the people living there must have rooms with fantastic views…
The reflections of the clouds in the water were delightful…
A boat color coordinated with nearby homes…
When we started to drive home we finally noticed the huge almost-full moon. So we made another stop at Eastern Point and took a picture of her, looking towards Avery Point. With the moon illusion at work here, she looks much smaller in the picture than she did with the naked eye…
I found this interesting explanation at Grand Illusions, but I don’t really comprehend it!
The first problem is for photographers. A wonderful picture presents itself, with the full moon just rising above a spectacular horizon. Click, the picture is taken. Yet the result is disappointing. The moon seems much smaller in the photograph than it did when viewed with the naked eye. Even professional photographers fall for this one. Yet on a normal lens, 50mm on a 35mm camera, the field of view is around 50 degrees, and the width of the moon, subtending an angle of 0.5 degrees, will be 100th of the width of the photo! Many photographs that you see in magazines, containing both a moon and a landscape, will be composites. The landscape will be taken with a normal lens, the moon taken with a telephoto lens, to get a bigger image.