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26 April 2014

Grass and Sky, Missoula, Montana


"...Oh, we would ride and we would listen
And hear the message on the wind.
The grass in morning dew would glisten
Until the sun would dry and blend
The grass to ground and air to skying..."

-From "Anthem" by Buck Ramsey, Cowboy Poet (1938-1998)

25 April 2014

Evening Sky, Missoula, Montana


" As he walked back, alone on the hilly road, the evening sky took on a tremulous violet-blue that filled in and grew deeper until, suddenly luminescent and silvered, it faded to black. "In life," he had said to Orland, futilely staunching his dead brother's wound, "we are in death." Nothing lasts. Every moment is a moment passing and gone.
Yet, as he walked, and dusk faded to night, that violet-blue stayed with him in its essence, calling up his longing in the bottom of a trench for the whole sky.  It was above him now, vast and star-filled. Every star the brighter for the depth of unending darkness....
Angus walked down to the end of the wharf and felt a release that filled the sky.  Beauty had not abandoned him. He'd abandoned it. On the battlefield he'd risked life in the midst of death. And he had not risked it since. He closed his eyes and let the stars fall around him."
- From "The Cartographer of No Man's Land" by P.S. Duffy
(Wonderful book I just finished, by the way, and highly recommend.)

24 April 2014

SunKissed, Missoula, Montana


Warm springlight darting off creek bottom stones and weaving gold through lingering grasses brought to mind Grimm's "Rumpelstiltskin":


" ’Round about, round about,
Lo and behold!
Reel away, reel away,
Straw into gold!’ "

23 April 2014

Un-Earthed, Missoula, Montana


Un-earthed; perhaps in reference to: 
 the alien-spaceship clouds;  or trail rocks striving from their dusty winter bed, insisting toward the sky;  perhaps the top-of-the-world view, being above looking below.
 (Or a sly allusion to a post-houmous Johnny Cash album. Check out "As Long As the Grass Shall Grow")

Other thoughts, please?

22 April 2014

Twiggy, Missoula, Montana

I know they fall into the suckers
category (hah! just like the rest of us, at some point in time!), and are destined to be pruned back for the good of the plant (we’ve ended the human comparison, by the way), but these sprightly buds can certainly be admired for their vibrancy and vigor, their silky smoothness emerging unexpectedly from the rugged bark. Too often we focus on efficiency and miss the merits of serendipitous beauty.  Must…stop…smell…roses…or some such in season.

21 April 2014

Crazy Eggs, Missoula, Montana



(Crazy eggs - not to be confused with Jeff Beck's classic album, Crazy Legs.)

Upon arriving at our relative’s home for Easter dinner, I was greeted by this amazing example of continuing innovation in the field of Easter egg dye kits

The kit that spawned these splendid artworks came replete with flexible and collapsible clear plastic cups rimmed with colour-coded piping. 
So, if you lived off the grid, this is the epitome in egg-dyeing self-sufficiency: you could scoop water from your own creek into the little included cups, add the provided dye tablets, and then dip eggs donated by your very own cluckers - all without cracking open a crockery cupboard door. Well, provided you could convince your logical mule that egg technology justified a trip to town in the first place. 
Good thing there’s always an organic fallback option in beet juice, boiled onion skins and tea bags.

20 April 2014

Ascending, Missoula, Montana


“The way to Heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh.” - Jonathan Edwards

A part of me reads this quote and thinks of it as a negative thing, a hard thing, a religious thing with which free spirits should not be encumbered. But literal ascending is the opposite of staying at the same altitude, the easy mediocre status quo levell. When I think of it like that, it puts me more in mind of doing a bit of hard work toward rising above boring, or even above my most average self, toward the best me God has in mind. That knocks the religious right out, and simultaneously reinforces the dreams and hopes and imaginings that ran rampant in the mind and heart of a younger me.

Which is very fitting for Easter, since Jesus challenges what is religious in each of us, and offers something much better than our finiteness would ask or envision.
Happy day, happy Easter.