Old age is the most unexpected of all things that can happen to a man. ~ Leo Tolstoy (Promises to Keep: Thoughts in Old Age)
Old age. All the facial detail is visible; all the traces life has left there are to be seen. The face is furrowed, wrinkled, sagging, ravaged by time. But the eyes are bright and, if not young, then somehow transcend the time that otherwise marks the face. It is as though someone else is looking at us, from somewhere inside the face, where everything is different. One can hardly be closer to another human soul. ~ Karl Ove Knausgård (My Struggle, Book One)
This old age ought not to creep on a human mind. In nature every moment is new; the past is always swallowed and forgotten; the coming only is sacred. Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (Circles)
There is a solitude of space A solitude of sea A solitude of Death, but these Society shall be Compared with that profounder site That polar privacy A soul admitted to itself – ~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1696)
Childhood is a mystery: the soul is timeless, the body new, and the world complex. What a conjunction: the great unfolding in the small. … Childhood asks us what reality really is, what the world is, and where it came from. Childhood asks where life came from, and where it goes. Does the soul exist? Where was the soul before birth? How many realms are there? Are fairies real? Do ghosts and spirits exist? Why are some people lucky and others unlucky, why is there suffering? Why are we here? Are there more things in the innocent-seeming world than we can see? These are some of the questions that the state of childhood asks, and which perplex us all our days. … Childhood is an enigma, a labyrinth, an existential question, a conundrum. It is the home of all the great questions about life and death, reality and dream, meaning and purpose, freedom and society, the spiritual and the secular, nature and culture, education and self-discovery. ~ Ben Okri (A Time for New Dreams)
young and mature laughing gulls 8.18.13 ~ Eastern Point Beach
Gulls – a word of inherent paradox. Almost anyone can recognize a gull – or “seagull” – as such, but to identify certain gulls to species can vex the most experienced observers. ~ Steve N. G. Howell & Jon Dunn (Gulls of the Americas)
8.18.13 ~ Eastern Point Beach
“regular” herring gulls with their new and smaller laughing gull neighbors
I love these petite laughing gulls and their little black legs!
Until April of 2012, when we were visiting our son and his family in Georgia, I was unaware of the fact that there were about 50 different species of gulls, about 22 of them found in North America. At Cumberland Island National Seashore I was very surprised to see two black-headed gulls perched on a dock.
Then in the summer of 2012 we noticed a couple of HUGE juvenile gulls at our local Eastern Point Beach here in Connecticut. After some sleuthing we determined that they must be the largest of all the gulls, great black-backed gulls. Awe-inspiring! I took pictures of them next to what we started calling “regular” gulls to show the difference in size.
This summer we were hoping to spot some adult great black-backed gulls, which we finally did. But before that, I noticed we had more new visitors, these little gulls with black legs. Time to purchase a reference guide! I’m not 100% positive, but I think they are laughing gulls.
Now what species are my beloved “regular” gulls? Again, not absolutely sure, but I think they are ring-billed gulls. The problem I seem to be facing is that gulls molt several times as they mature and look a little different during each of their four cycles, sometimes dramatically different.
an adult great black-backed gull with a “regular” ring-billed gull
great black-backed gull contemplates taking off
8.21.13 ~ Eastern Point Beach
8.21.13 ~ Eastern Point Beach
It was considered unlucky to kill a seagull, as they are the souls of dead sailors. So if a seagull were to land on the bow of the ship, you didn’t want your captain to see you chase it off as a comrade has come to visit. ~ K. E. Heaton (Superstitions of the Sea)
So many of my ancestors were lost at sea – I have to wonder sometimes…
perhaps the great black-backed gull is headed for the approaching ship
“Houses of Squam Light, Gloucester” by Edward Hopper
The Props assist the House Until the House is built And then the Props withdraw And adequate, erect, The House support itself And cease to recollect The Augur and the Carpenter – Just such a retrospect Hath the perfected Life – A Past of Plank and Nail And slowness – then the scaffolds drop Affirming it a Soul – ~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #729)
Giant Gas Cloud in System NGC 6240 Image Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/E. Nardini et al; Optical: NASA/STScI
Imagination! who can sing thy force? Or who describe the swiftness of thy course? Soaring through air to find the bright abode, Th’ empyreal palace of the thund’ring God, We on thy pinions can surpass the wind, And leave the rolling universe behind: From star to star the mental optics rove, Measure the skies, and range the realms above. There in one view we grasp the mighty whole, Or with new worlds amaze th’ unbounded soul. ~ Phillis Wheatley (On Imagination)
This weekend I received the sad news that my sister’s dear cat, Bernie, passed away. We are all heartbroken, even though we knew he was very old and very sick, and even though we are relieved that his suffering is over. Bernie was a wise soul who taught me many things about life, about acceptance, and about curiosity. Over the years he and I shared many long walks in the woods around my father’s house – he was a wonderful companion.
I invite you to read my first post on this blog about him here: Bernie
On Christmas Day, 2011, Bernie didn’t want to take a walk with me, so I sat with him at the top of the stairs for a while, petting his thin and bony body, talking to him. Then I went out for a walk in the woods by myself before it got dark. I knew then that we would no longer be walking together…
Farewell, my brave friend, and may you rest in peace. We miss you so much…
Not too long ago thousands spent their lives as recluses to find spiritual vision in the solitude of nature. Modern man need not become a hermit to achieve this goal, for it is neither ecstasy nor world-estranged mysticism his era demands, but a balance between quantitative and qualitative reality. Modern man, with his reduced capacity for intuitive perception, is unlikely to benefit from the contemplative life of a hermit in the wilderness. But what he can do is to give undivided attention, at times, to a natural phenomenon, observing it in detail, and recalling all the scientific facts about it he may remember. Gradually, however, he must silence his thoughts and, for moments at least, forget all his personal cares and desires, until nothing remains in his soul but awe for the miracle before him. Such efforts are like journeys beyond the boundaries of narrow self-love and, although the process of intuitive awakening is laborious and slow, its rewards are noticeable from the very first. If pursued through the course of years, something will begin to stir in the human soul, a sense of kinship with the forces of life consciousness which rule the world of plants and animals, and with the powers which determine the laws of matter. While analytical intellect may well be called the most precious fruit of the Modern Age, it must not be allowed to rule supreme in matters of cognition. If science is to bring happiness and real progress to the world, it needs the warmth of man’s heart just as much as the cold inquisitiveness of his brain. ~ Franz Winkler (Man: The Bridge Between Two Worlds)
