sun – Page 13 – In the Woods

stillness becoming alive

ane.lisbet.norway.2015.800wide — “Glorious Illumination” by Ane Lisbet Smedås

Was it light?
Was it light within?
Was it light within light?
Stillness becoming alive,
Yet still?
~ Theodore Roethke
(The Quiet Room)

1.22.16.katie600 — Katie got a little bit of snow…

So… We finally got a snowstorm on Saturday, seven inches of snow here. Washington, DC and New York City got much more snow than we did. Record breaking amounts, in fact.

After eleven days of misery it was determined that I had a particularly nasty virus and that it wasn’t necessarily food-borne. I could have caught it the same way one catches a cold or the flu. Sobering thought.

I did not recover in time to go to North Carolina. Very disappointed, but we were given credit from our cancelled flight to apply to a new flight. Thank you so much, Jet Blue.

Yesterday I was dazzled by a photo my Norwegian friend Ane Lisbet posted on Facebook. It was from a walk she took in the afternoon, and I’m grateful she gave me permission to use it here. 🙂 The light is returning to Norway and my longing to go back there in a different season is getting stronger.

1.24.16.dima.katie800 — 1.24.16 ~ Dima and Katie

I hope we can schedule a new trip to see Katie and her parents very soon!

winter solstice

CarlLarsson.yard.washhouse — “The Yard and Wash-House” by Carl Larsson

Lift up your countenance! The sun’s growing higher.
The light’s pitching camp on free mountain tops.
That hope you conceived
on the winter solstice
stands like a new day’s dawning
in your eyes
shining forth.
~ Einar Skjæraasen
(Seasons)

Race Point

10.10.15.0729 — Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

One evening on our Cape Cod trip we went to Race Point Beach in Provincetown to see the sunset. It felt so good to be outside in the salty air, walking on the sand.

10.10.15.0731 — Tim at Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

10.10.15.0743 — Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

10.10.15.0744 — Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

10.10.15.0761 — after sunset at Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

I will never forget this trip to Cape Cod with my dearly loved husband of 40+ years. Until 2008 we used to come here all the time – summer vacations and weekend getaways. Sadly, Tim’s grandparents’ house in Provincetown was sold that year and my grandparents’ house in Dennis Port was sold in 2009. Our last trip, to bury my father’s ashes in October 2013, was all too brief.

10.10.15.0789 — Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

We did, however, go to Provincetown in May 2009 to celebrate our anniversary and stayed at a bed and breakfast called The Black Pearl. It’s no longer there, we discovered, the house now owned by someone else. We took a long walk on Beech Forest Trail. Six long years since that visit. The town and the seashore have changed. So have we. But we still found healing there, and peace. I think it will always be a place where we will free to be ourselves in times of transition. It will always feel like home.

10.10.15.0791 — Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth,
it can lie down like silk breathing
or toss havoc shoreward; it can give

gifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth
like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can
sweet-talk entirely. As I can too,

and so, no doubt, can you, and you.

~ Mary Oliver
(A Thousand Mornings)

10.10.15.0803 — Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

a mysterious place

10.10.15.0646 — Province Lands
10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

This is another of those strangely potent places. Everyone I know who has spent any time on the dune agrees that there’s, well, something there, though outwardly it is neither more nor less than an enormous arc of sand cutting across the sky.
~ Michael Cunningham
(Land’s End: A Walk in Provincetown)

Almost every time we go to Provincetown we go on one of Art’s Dune Tours to see the Province Lands sand dunes of Cape Cod National Seashore. In the past part of the tour took us down on the beach but we couldn’t do that this time due to severe beach erosion caused by storms the past couple of winters. So we had to be satisfied with exploring the dunes themselves. Unfortunately we weren’t able to book a sunset tour – those have been our favorites over the years.

If I die tomorrow, Provincetown is where I’d want my ashes scattered. Who knows why we fall in love, with places or people, with objects or ideas? Thirty centuries of literature haven’t begun to solve the mystery; nor have they in any way slaked our interest in it. Provincetown is a mysterious place, and those of us who love it tend to do so with a peculiar, inscrutable intensity.
~ Michael Cunningham
(Land’s End: A Walk in Provincetown)

10.10.15.0670 — Pilgrim Monument, in the distance, is 252 feet high

10.10.15.0673 — a little tourist from Switzerland

10.10.15.0674 — words left on a shingle in the dune

Our guide kept showing us where the sands have been shifting in recent years, impressing on us the endless flow of nature. How strange that while present there, time seems to stand still, if only for a moment.

10.10.15.0682 — afternoon sun over the dune

autumn dyes

sunlight backlight ~ 10.24.15 ~ Mansfield Hollow State Park, Connecticut

Autumn – overlooked my Knitting –
Dyes – said He – have I –
Could disparage a Flamingo –
Show Me them – said I –
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #786)

slipping into the sea

10.12.15.1111 — before sunrise from our balcony ~ 10.12.15 ~ Dennis Port, Massachusetts

An incurable early bird, on the last morning of our little weekend getaway I found myself unable to sleep and so decided to get up and read and gaze out of the sliding glass doors of our room at the Sea Shell Motel in Dennis Port on Cape Cod. It was about 40 minutes before sunrise and there was an intense yellow orange glow on the horizon.

10.12.15.1116 — walking over the dune ~ 10.12.15 ~ Dennis Port, Massachusetts

As sunrise approached I decided to bundle up in my coat and my new Norwegian wool hat with ear flaps and walk down to the windy beach to take some pictures and enjoy some early morning solitude. It was the best moment of the day.

10.12.15.1119 — sunrise on the beach ~ 10.12.15 ~ Dennis Port, Massachusetts

Thoughts turned to beloved grandparents who lived in Dennis Port, just up the street. When I was little we stayed with them at their house but sometime in the late 1980s, when my own children were little, my grandmother’s health problems became such that staying in a motel nearby became necessary. There’s no way to count the times we have stayed at the Sea Shell in the past 30 years or so. Each room is unique and charming, well-worn but clean and comfortable. No frills, just a short wooden walkway over the dune to the beach, the sounds of waves breaking close by.

10.12.15.1123 — the sun keeps rising ~ 10.12.15 ~ Dennis Port, Massachusetts

I wanted to come here for old times’ sake. So often on this recent trip nature would vividly illustrate the simple truth that nothing is solid in the boundless flow of time and place, there is nothing to grasp. It was here that my grandparents embraced me with abiding wisdom and persisting love. But now they are long gone, even though I feel their presence still. The waves break on the sand and disappear and yet are still there, like the voices of my small curious children. Cape Cod is slipping into the sea.

scattering abroad

9.15.13.9164a — corn maze ~ 9.15.13
Buttonwood Farm, Griswold, Connecticut

For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.
~ Edwin Way Teale
(Autumn Across America)

A light wind swept over the corn, and all nature laughed in the sunshine.
~ Anne Brontë
(The Tenant of Wildfell Hall)

Hardangerfjord

On this day we woke up in Bergen, rented a car, and made our way out of the city to Hardangerfjord. We spent most of this day driving the length of the fjord (179 km or 111 miles) and enjoying the scenery, making a couple of stops. The first thing we spotted was this tiny island with a little building sitting on it. It was so picturesque we looked for a spot to pull over so we could take pictures of it. As we were waiting to cross the highway we heard shrieks of delight and turned to see two girls coming down the side road on a bicycle. I got this picture (above) as they were turning around and getting ready to head back up the hill. They were gone as quickly as they appeared!

So then we walked across the highway and took lots of pictures of the little island, wishing we could somehow see the other side of it! It might be a boathouse?

Dawn-awakening coves, hammer-blows
of light against the sky and out there
in the fjord mouth, birdsong, clamorous, crescendo
as from a works yard,
the strident assembly of a brand new day,
a sun will soon be ready for launching!
~ Stein Mehren
(Early)

This pretty scene (below) was also to be appreciated – I love how the mountains were reflected in the fjord.

Next stop: Steindalsfossen Waterfall

summer solstice

"Ukrainian Landscape" by Efim Volkov — “Ukrainian Landscape” by Efim Volkov

There came a Day – at Summer’s full –
Entirely for me –
I thought that such – were for the Saints –
Where Resurrections – be –

The Sun – as common – went abroad –
The Flowers – accustomed – blew –
As if no Soul the Solstice passed –
That maketh all things new.

~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #325)