Which do you prefer?

Thank you Elk for your suggestions on Flickr!

I like the second version (posted 1st here) best. Which do you prefer?

(second version)

or

(first version)

A Joyful Walk in the Woods

This magical pathway is a section of the AT just moments from my house, and 2 miles North on the trail... I discovered it a few weeks ago when my mom and I did the 20 mile section from Pine Grove to Caledonia and I think it'll be my new walking place. Dancing through the corridor of Rhododendron to the sound of water splashing a few feet away, it feels as though I've entered a sacred grove of the ancients, their wisdom breathing me, from the inside out, wide open and... free.

It's amazing how close adventure is, so easily found around the corners of our everyday world, as we pause to study it from new angles, in different light...

My heart is filled with gratitude for this sacred day.

Tread Softly Because You Tread on my Dreams...

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

-W.B. Yeats

The Four, no. 20

I found I could say things with color and shapes

that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.

-Georgia O'Keefe

challenge posted on The Four

"...as if she'd passed through some door into a place where she could walk surely on the ground of her life." B. Kingsolver

Moving forward with dreams, taking risks, commiting myself to the living -the dangers of living for even one day!- fully engaged, participating, speaking loud enough to become visible, to say:

"But this is what I value and hold true. This is what I want. And I want to share it with you..."

Please, check out my new web-site, a space for me to articulate what I want and to engage others because living so fully, our hearts wide open, our breathing deep, involves a community of people, engaged in the conversation, helping us to understand and to evolve...

A Joyful (belated) Thanksgiving to all of you!

Response to the Four, no. 19

For challenge no. 19, click here. My response:

Blushing with Gratitude

These days filled with treasure, nights folded cozy beneath a starry sky. Following the rays of my head lamp, we walk arm in arm, stacking the furnace with wood, tucking our cold frames goodnight, with every step dazzled with gratitude, our dreams breathing us...

Patheos, balanced views of religion and spirituality

Some of you might enjoy reading an article I recently wrote on the Christian liturgical year. It's posted on Patheos, a relatively new web-site dedicated to interfaith dialogue.

The bridge between

"What is this flooding me, childhood or manhood...

and the hunger that crosses the bridge between?"

Walt Whitman

Moving Inwards

"Fundamentally it is inward--into the depths where obscure resistances are overcome,

and long lost, forgotten powers are revivified,

to be made available for the transfiguration of the world"

-Joseph Campbell

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

"Curious, beautiful, wondersome"

My response to The Four's no. 18:

sincerity of heart.

The Four's Challenge no. 17: LOVE

Pauses

Dance.

Dance, when you're broken open.

Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.

Dance in the middle of fighting.

Dance in your blood.

Dance, when you're perfectly free.

-RUMI

"And our faces, my heart, brief as photos"

The flower in the heart's

wallet, the force

of what lives us
outliving the mountain.

-J. Berger

a BELATED macro/mosiac Monday:

The bountiful harvest: August is such a FULL month... These hot peppers one of many delights!
May you fill your bellies with colorful greens and the sweet taste of ripened fruit!

Swiss Chard (Bright Lights) and Kale (Red Russian)

Happy harvest: a rainbow of color for ElK

The Four's challenge no. 16:

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
~Leonardo Da Vinci

To participate, click here

Summer Love

I encountered the "blue screen of death" a few weeks ago, lost everything on my computer (deep sigh) and spent a few weeks off-line, realizing how quickly the priviledge of having a computer has (on both a personal and cultural level) become necessity. The weeks without weren't so bad actually, especially in the fine company of my summer love (who would be the taste of a blueberry of course!)... But I am glad to be back and I look forward to once again visiting the many blog-places I've come to love!