Looking Further - Ice & Stone 6 on Rattlesnake Creek, Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

And this is the last of these shoreline dreamy-ice images, hoarded and savoured a bit too long unto myself, like that last perfect bite of your favourite holiday food. But even with furious snow/hail/rain flurries today, spring persistently advances and fresh views await.

Looking Into - Ice & Stone 5 on Rattlesnake Creek, Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

"Sometimes a man walks into the night and does not understand why he cannot see. He blames himself for the dark he is in.” 

- Henry Meloux in Manitou Canyon, p.107, by William Kent Krueger

Almost Silence - Ice & Stone 4 on Rattlesnake Creek, Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“He didn't hear anything except flakes settling on pine and hemlock needles, a sound that was almost, but not quite, silence.”

-from Through the Evil Days by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Seeing Inside Out - Ice & Stone 3 on Rattlesnake Creek, Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“For the world is--allow us the homely figure--the human being turned inside out. All that moves in the mind is symbolized in Nature.” - George MacDonald (1824–1905), in 1867 essay The Imagination: Its Function and its Culture

Close Observance - Ice & Stones 2 on Rattlesnake Creek, Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“I draw, not to annoy people, but to amuse them, or to make them see things that are worth observing and that not everybody knows."

-Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) to brother Theo (1857-1891) in 1882 

(Thanks to Ingrid Schaffner for Iincluding this quote in her lovely & instructive book The Essential Vincent van Gogh.)

Letting Go - Ice and Stones on Rattlesnake Creek, Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“The truth about strong emotion is that it's difficult to sustain. Despite how victimized we feel, it's hard work hanging on to anger, even when it's tinged with righteousness. Holding a grudge against someone is (sometimes) more trouble than it's worth.” - Kinsey Millhone in R Is For Ricochet by Sue Grafton (1940-2017), p. 231 

Breaking Through Frozen - Rattlesnake Creek, Missoula, Montana

”They have no idea that sadness can freeze more than just your joy and break more than your heart.”

 -from The Letter: An unforgettable novel of love, war and secret kept for generations by Ruth Saberton

Sunlight Falling - Rattlesnake Creek, Missoula, Montana

“The second day in Oxford arrived, luminescent, the honey hues of sunlight falling from the leaves to settle on the grass like spilled paint. The air was as clear as glass and soft as cotton.”  - from Becoming Mrs Lewis by Patti Callahan, Chapter 12 

Snowberries - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

Snowberries out in 
full force - luminescent sign:
Next corner, autumn 

-Cyndy Hull

Rushing Stream - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.”

- George Eliot (1819-1880) from Janet’s Repentance, chapter 5, in collection Scenes Of Clerical Life, free at this Gutenberg Project link

Mossy - Greenough Park, MIssoula, Montana

“We are all passengers on this little mossy ship, this delicate dory sailing round the sun that humans call the earth. Joy, shipmates, joy. “ — Edward Abbey (1927-1989), The Hidden Canyon — A River Journey)

Neurosis At Bay, For Today - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“I think it was Thomas Merton who said that the easiest way to rid yourself of neurosis is to surround yourself with nature, or more specifically trees.

"You can't be neurotic in front of a bunch of trees," he claimed; nor, I hasten to add, in front of dunes or sea or humble scrub pine. 

Standing here at the edge of the world shows me how exaggerated my own emotions seem to be. 

This, strong, silent place interrupts confusion, rage, and depression, and just now I feel more at home with the landscape than with people.”

-Joan Anderson, in A Year By The Sea, p.13

Humble Clarity - Greenough Oark, Missoula, Montana

“That inner voice has both gentleness and clarity. So to get to authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty, and the inevitability of something.” - Meredith Monk

Restful Moving - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“What makes a river so restful to people is that it doesn't have any doubt—it is sure to get where it is going, and it doesn't want to go anywhere else.” -Hal Boyle (1911-1974)

 (Despite floating through this blog several times before, this quote still provokes timely thoughts. Maybe even deep thoughts....)

Whigmaleerie Stump - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

Today’s splendid found word, courtesy of C.S Lewis: whigmaleerie: 

2. A whim, fanciful notion, a crotchet, fad, vagary (Source: Dictionary of the Scots Language)

“...I’m talking of science, not of Butler and Bergson and Shaw and all those whigmaleeries.”

-p. 49, The Dark Tower story fragment by C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Autumn Edges - Rattlesnake Creek, Missoula, Montana

“Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.”   -Herman Melville (1819-1891)

 

Perfect Golden Gloaming - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

"...When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting..."
-  Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885), October's Bright Blue Weather

(The colours really were this perfect!)

 

Bosky View - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

 “Bosky” - a favourite word that can’t be trotted out on a daily basis so hurrah for this opportunity! Yesterday, we traipsed Greenough Park’s bosky golden-glow trail, delighting in a new view at every riverbank twist.

Dreams of Autumn Leaves - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

A great night of generosity toward the ongoing good work at the LA Dream Center! There is still opportunity to be a part - you can even still bid on that lunch with Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell! (Some pretty interesting connections here....!

Oh, yah - sorry - a bit distracted - the leafy view is all Montana, earlier this evening. Enjoy!

Good Giving Up - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

"So often our focus is on supporting the identities and structures that were put in place for us by the more powerful damaged people in the family as caricatures of themselves. Giving up even one of these identities can be threatening to the organism. But the willingness to change comes when the pain of staying where you are is too great….”  -Anne Lamott, p. 212 of Almost Everything