Notes-change of blog address

I have moved blog addresses. No longer posting here, I am exclusively at my new address, http://drawingattentiontolife.com.  If you like to visit the new site, please add the new address to your bookmarks and come on over!  It will look very familiar…

All good wishes,

Anne

On My Walks

When I left the house today to walk, I was in a huff.  Throughout the day, I made several careless errors on documents that I sent out to others and when I considered them as a group, I was feeling pretty bad about myself.  How could I have made those mistakes?  (One of them I still sort of feel like was a technical glitch, but in reality I can’t imagine how the computer could err without a contribution from me.)  Anyway, negative emotions were rampant.

And you know what?  My walk was much less satisfying than usual.  I passed half a lap of my route before I could see anything to look at all and then a quarter of a lap before I could see anything other than the grunge…trash in the gutters, brown grass, weeds, bird poop on the sidewalk.  It wasn’t until I was almost home that I even noticed the buds on the trees, the daffodils in yards, and the clear skies over the Foothills.

By that time I was asking myself if it was doing me or anyone else any good carrying those negative feelings around…of course, I answered no, but replied how difficult it is to drop them.  But, I tried, and by the time I returned home I was feeling better.

Funny how a walk outside can clear the mind…and the emotions.  I’m going to try to hold onto this peace I found.  It feels a lot better than what I was feeling before.

Another look at the moon

A light in the night

Whooooo is it?

At dawn every morning this week I have heard an owl just outside our home.  I’m wondering why suddenly he (or she?) is hooting; is this a seasonal owl behavior?  Never lasting very long, the song is distinctive.  I wish I knew what the bird looked like too.  Is it a Great Horned Owl?  I hear that species is typical for the owls found around here.

But no matter whether the owl be a he or she, a Great Horned Owl or a Barn Owl, large or small, whatever…it makes me smile and wonder at the life out in the darkness.

(No, there is no owl in the photo…too bad, isn’t it?)

Does this look creepy to you?

I can’t quite figure out why this tree looks strange to me, but those roots just don’t see, right.  Gnarled is okay, but somehow these things seem stunted and awfully white.

This seems an issue of expectation, don’t you think?  Tree roots are supposed to have certain qualities and when they don’t, well, it’s difficult to feel good about them.

What might that say about how we feel about other people?  Any  issues with expectations in relationships?

Simplicity

Words

Though spring begins slowly and tentatively, it grows with a tenacity that never fails to touch me.  The smallest and most tender shoots insist on having their way, coming up through ground that looked, only a few weeks earlier, as if it would never grow anything again.  The crocuses and snowdrops do not bloom for long.  But their mere appearance, however brief, is always a harbinger of hope, and from those small beginnings, hope grows at a geometric rate.  The days get longer, the winds get warmer, and the world grows green again.

–Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak:  Listening for the Voice of Vocation, 2000

And look at them now…

The other day I posted a picture of crocuses just starting to bud.  Today when I went out, I saw that the first bud had found lots of friends.  I realize that the March (and even April) snows may yet come but for this moment I am thankful for these gentle reminders that under the brown soil there are stirrings of life preparing to emerge.

Words

The hardest thing about really seeing and really hearing is that then you really have to do something about what you have seen and heard.

–Frederick Buechner, as quoted in In Constant Prayer (page 71) by Robert Benson, 2008