Tag Archives: sunset

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: On the Edge

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I have to admit that I am on the edge of exhaustion and barely hanging on. I am currently helping with two family members’ moves, planning a Retreat for my spiritual community, and preparing for a house guest. My body aches, my mind is running in circles.

I am also on the edge of complete excitement and hopefulness as all of these events bring opportunity, new life, and joy.

So, I will give my best effort, keep showing up and put one foot in front of the other.

I don’t want to fear the edges. There’s a lot of growth and beauty there, and a lot of learning potential.

Thanks, Patti, for the invitation to be curious about the edges! See her post HERE.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Natural Light

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“Wake! For the Sun, who scatter’d into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav’n,
and strikes The Sultan’s Turret with a Shaft of Light”
― Omar Khayyám

Our eternal message of hope is that dawn will come.― Martin Luther King, Jr.

“And when the dawn comes creeping in,
Cautiously I shall raise
Myself to watch the daylight win.”
― D.H. Lawrence

“Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.”― Henry David Thoreau

“Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”
― Annie Dillard

“There is nothing more musical than a sunset. He who feels what he sees will find no more beautiful example of development in all that book which, alas, musicians read but too little – the book of Nature.”
― Claude Debussy

Natural Light, the Sun, traces an arc in the sky each day, reminding us of how perspective changes with the passage of time. In every 24 hours, we witness hope, newness, growth, diminishment, and rest. That pattern is extended in a widening scope throughout history. It was my intention to choose words from writers who have observed and experienced the place of human beings in that cycle. Their voices mark the awareness of our longing to take our rightful place under the Sun, to know the wonder and beauty of living in dignity and in harmony with all things in Nature.

Thank you, Amy (The World Is A Book), for inviting us to reflect Natural Light in this Challenge.

 

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New Photo Challenge: Lens-Artists “Look Up”

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I have been suffering with Photo Challenge withdrawal symptoms, but it’s good to know I’m not alone and that new challenges are always out there. The Lens-Artist group is posting weekly challenges on Saturdays, so I’ve signed up. If you’re interested in joining, HERE is more info. 

This week’s challenge is to “look up”. I just got back from a trip to Badlands National Park, where we enjoyed a marvelous sunset from atop the crest of one of the many ridges. Looking up at the sunset while looking down into the layers of colored rock was a sort of “mirrored” view. 

Thanks, Pati of Pilotfish Blog, for this challenge!

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Sunrise, Sunset

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Many years ago, four members of my family were cast in a community theater production of Fiddler on the Roof –  my late husband, myself, my son and my daughter. My son, fabulous dancer that he is, performed in the Russian cossack dance and the Jewish bottle dance. To bring this full circle, we will be celebrating my son’s wedding ceremony this weekend. 

The wedding scene in the musical features a beautiful tune called “Sunrise, Sunset”.
“…Is this the little boy at play?
I don’t remember growing older, when did they?
What words of wisdom can I give them,
How can I help to ease their way?
Now they must learn from one another,
Day by day.”

To Josh and Daena: may all your sunrises and sunsets together fill you with joy and wonder!  

Rise/Set

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The End of an Exciting Day

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For my second day of training at Old World Wisconsin, I got to finally get away from paperwork and training videos and get on site to see the historical buildings where I’ll be a costumed interpreter.  I gotta tell you, I AM SO EXCITED!!!!  My first stop was to see St. Peter’s Catholic Church in the Yankee Village area.   This church was built in 1839 and has a wood stove right smack dab in the middle of the center aisle of the nave.  No bridal procession is gonna get around that sucker!  One of my jobs will be to pull the rope on the carillon to start and end the day.  Swingin’!  I also got to play the pump organ.  I have never even attempted this kind of feat before today.  It was a bit like trying to pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time, as my feet had to keep the bellows going while my fingers worked out the four-part harmony, but I managed to squeeze my way through a verse of Amazing Grace without too much difficulty.  What fun!  After some consideration, I realize that hymn is probably not Catholic, although it may be from the right period.  I still have so much research and learning to do!

I had to cut my time in the Village short and ride up to the German immigrant area to see the place I’ll be working on week days and with school groups.  It’s an 1870s farm with a two-story house, bake house (or summer kitchen), granary, pig barn, regular barn, smoke house and three garden plots.  I will be the interpreter for all these areas.  I will be making bread in the big brick oven (it goes back about 8 feet!), tending the garden, keeping an eye on the pigs so they don’t escape, chopping wood with a mallet and froe, greeting guests and inviting them to interact with the place.  Oh, so much fun going on!  AND, I got fitted for my corset today!  I can hardly stand it!!

Came home to turn my computer on for the first time and saw more than a dozen e-mails.  Then I checked the poetry prompt for the day.   It looks like fun, but frankly, I’m too pooped to poet.  I have so much homework to do, so many questions to answer about the world I am stepping into.  Instead, I will leave you with these sunset shots from our trip to the Mississippi and let you think about settlers moving west into the unknown.  Why is history important… in the big picture?  Why is experience important?  Why is it important to share experiences through stories?