stronger

a few favourites, some recent, some from les vast iPhoto archives

a few tres comforting gems of much needed wisdom from my new (imaginary) beau Joe (Joseph Campbell)

the cave you fear to enter
holds the treasure that you seek

opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves 
come when life seems most challenging

it is by going down into the abyss that
we recover the treasures of life

and my personal fav & mantra for right now

if you are falling … dive

dive, dive, dive

I've been struggling, learning, pushing myself, growing, falling, getting back up, falling again and again … & becoming so much stronger because of all this struggle - & a big hooray for that + I just added this freakin' fantastic song from Kelly Clarkson to my current creative mojo mix - oh my Kelly, merci ! for this one - can't stop me from dancin' & leaping around Creative Empire headquarters and just when I need it the most.

Happy Weekend !

bedtime

beams of love & sunshine - scenes from my crisp autumn walk this morning with my best girl, my love, Miss Winnie Dixon

She awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day her heart would descend from her chest into her stomach. By early afternoon she was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for her, and by the desire to be alone. By evening she was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of her grief, alone in her aimless guilt, alone even in her loneliness. I am not sad, she would repeat to herself over and over, I am not sad. As if she might one day convince herself. Or fool herself. Or convince others--the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because her life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. She would fall asleep with her heart at the foot of her bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of her at all. And each morning she would wake with it again in the cupboard of her rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the mid afternoon she was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad.

Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything is Illuminated

bedtime, my favourite time & the lure that pulls me through each day

& Pema too

lichen love* / annuals in the park still blooming / the help (?) / petunias in our garden / handsome Samuel 

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake 
is to be continually thrown out of the nest.

Pema Chödrön

* so looking forward to reading Elizabeth Gilbert's new book The Signature of All Things (mostly about moss ;-)

crushin' on Rob Bell

photos all from this mornings walk / omg Missy Dee could I love you anymore (don't think so) / autumn splendour / out and about this morning /  hydrangea / snap dragons still blooming & ah that pinkest  pink / along the harbour boardwalk / my girl, my love, my Dee who's' doing so very well for her senior status;-) 

I've listened to Oprah's interview with Rob Bell a dozen times at least.  I was able to pick up two of his books from the library What We Talk About When We Talk About God & Love Wins. I'll admit here & now I am totally crushing big time on Rob Bell - it seems he's able to connect that old style yucky, not interested in it at all kinda Christianity (the judgemental, wrathful mean kind) with a new hip, more science based but I too feel broken spirituality, soulfully, faithfully & I need/want help in finding some solace. Rob, somehow seems to have the glue to that puts the essence of the old time religion (even the word is hard for me to utter) together with the world we live in now & in a way that makes sense to me (and I'm sure to many others). In a way that feels good, hopeful & relieved. Hey, it's OK to pray - phew ! What he speaks about is something I've been searching for, for ages, but I didn't really know quite what I was searching for until I  encountered someone like him speak & write about those big, misunderstood and tainted topics the way he does. Grateful !

Super Soul Sunday - it's a really good thing

cats x 4

Betty leading the way back home / Betty looking particularly sweet + lovely light / Virgil believes this nubbly orange throw is his Mamma / Bleet loves Sam / handsome, handsome Oliver / more itty bitty Betty in the upstairs hallway lookout chair

prayer

The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fibre and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love. 

John Muir

I love watching/listening to Oprah's Super Soul Sunday interviews, each episode's new interview remains available online for several weeks. Currently Oprah sits down to chat with author Anne Lamott & former pastor/Christian contrarian Rob Bell. I usually listen to these conversations over and over again, sometimes 8 or 10 times, getting some new small nugget of wisdom or insight each time. The Rob Bell interview especially has touched me deeply, has tears well up in my eyes each new time I listen, tears of relief & gratitude & has me rethinking my own relationship to god (small g), wonder, nature & prayer - that they really are, to me, one in the same. This blog and my photos are my church and altar, my steadfast delight, wonder, appreciation & documentation of the natural world is my ongoing prayer.

I'm off now to listen to both Anne & Rob for the 5th time since yesterday morning. Helps keep me invisibly chained to the beloved teak topped desk ;-) for maximum creative productivity + is so good for my soul.

fall back

this fall splendour captured over the last week is nearly all gone, almost all the leaves are now on the ground ;-(

I know this much: that there is objective time, but also subjective time, 
the kind you wear on the inside of your wrist, next to where the pulse lies. And this personal time, which is the true time, is measured in your relationship to memory. Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending

the time changes tonight, we'll fall back an hour (that extra hour should come in handy ;-)
I can't believe it's November - where has my year gone ?