Tuesday, April 12, 2011

PATH -- Waiting for a Sign

                             [PHOTO SOURCE: National Geographic online images]

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SOME OF MY WORDS

I gave a ragged cry of despair at the losses in my life (youth, innocence, health, family, love, money, opportunity ...). In my heart, I heard a consoling voice.

Do not weep. As the winds of time blow across the land, all must find their path. You will see your path; it will be written in the sand and dust, and whispered in the breeze. Then you will know. It may not be the path you desire; but it will be the path you are meant to follow.
[~dht-2011]

**********
NOTE:  I chose this PIX to pair with my words, for to me, it graphically depicts a structure showing the ravages of time and sand, where there is no life, where there is no path. There's just lots of dust waiting for some stupid sign about some stupid path to be written in the dry, hot wind.

Here are the thoughts my Kindred Spirit and Cousin proffered about this posting:

The photo fits perfectly with the words; "winds of time blow across the land ... sand and dust ..." . Good job. Photo reminds me of visiting ghost towns in California; always interesting imagining the people who lived there and what their lives were like.



As humans we are usually wrong when we say "there is no life" when what we mean is that there is no sign of "human" life. What is wonderful about this pix is that is shows absolute signs of life, of nature reclaiming yet another abandoned human structure ... and life goes on.


Saturday, April 9, 2011

THE CHANGING SEASONS

                              [PHOTO SOURCE: National Geographic online images]

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The changing seasons

mark the passage of time

on NATURE's Landscape,

even as the lines on my cheeks

mark the hourglass

of my life's journey.

[dht-2011]

**********

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Hummingbird -- Visit

[PHOTO SOURCE: A color plate illustration from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur (1899), showing a variety of hummingbirds.]
**********

This morning I was watering the backyard with my garden hose by hand (the sprinklers still need repair) and enjoying the early morning sunrise, breeze, and pretty clouds. There were robins, doves, and quail in the yard with me foraging for nesting supplies and breakfast. Quietly a hummingbird came within two feet of my "NOSE" (really my nose), attracted by the fine spray of water from the hose. It took a drink or bath, and I held my breath and did NOT move!! This moment in time lasted about a whole minute. Then it flew away. The hummingbird makes a distinctive sound with the 'beating' of its wings, and I can usually 'hear' them before I see them. This was the FIRST time a hummingbird has come so CLOSE to me and a FIRST time one has come to drink and/or bath in my garden hose spray (that was in my HAND).

This whole experience was an early morning BLESSING that gave me joy and peace! I was so MOVED spiritually that I wanted to share this experience with you.

OUR DAYS ARE TRULY MADE UP OF THESE SMALL AND PRECIOUS MOMENTS!!! 
I am so glad there are flowers in the yard so that these small creatures feel safe to visit and find food!

HERE are a few PIXs of Hummingbirds that I found on the internet that looked nice (I did NOT have my camera to take my little visitor's PIX!)


THE HUMMINGBIRD:

HERE is a LINK to a description of the Hummingbird from WIKIPEDIA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird


[PHOTO SOURCE:  GOOGLE online images --  Green Violetear Hummingbird at a flower.]




GARLIC -- in my garden

                      [PHOTO SOURCE: Garlic painting from GOOGLE online images]

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Today I planted 50 garlic plants. I'll finish up with 50 more tomorrow. They are SO-O easy to grow in the garden or in a pot. The leaves are edible and can be cut and used like chives. The garlic plants that I planted today will mature and produce bulbs later in the season; and these I will dehydrate and store in garlic flakes and powder. I LOVE garlic in recipes, roasted, on garlic bread and in garlic mashed potatoes. I eat garlic every day in some form and it is a staple in my pantry. Garlic can also be braided into various shaped wreaths.


Just for fun, I have attached some GARLIC PIXs.

GARLIC info from wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garlic

HEALTH BENEFITS
http://www.garlic-central.com/garlic-health.html
http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/garlic-000245.htm

HOW TO ROAST A HEAD OF GARLIC
USE GOOGLE to search for lots of "HOW TOs" for roasting Garlic.

Roasting your own garlic is very easy and worth every iota of what little effort, it requires because the aroma is intoxicating and the flavor smoky and mellow. In just 30 minutes, you will have a delicious appetizer ready to go. Serve with sliced crusty bread and olive oil.

TYPES OF GARLIC
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5591398_types-garlic-plants.html

Basic Types: Garlic plants are divided into two basic sub-species: softneck and hardneck. Softneck garlic is much more common and is the kind that you would buy at the grocery store. Hardneck are much less cultivated and more often found wild.

Softneck Garlics: There are two basic types of softneck garlic: silverskin garlic and artichoke garlic. Silverskin, as its name suggests, has shiny, whitish parchment covering the numerous cloves. Artichoke garlic has fewer, larger cloves with tougher coverings.


                     [PHOTO SOURCE: Above GOOGLE online images-garlic growing in soil]

                         [Above PIX from GOOGLE online images-garlic wreath.]

Your comments are welcome, especially recipes or hints on how you use garlic.

Monday, March 7, 2011

NATURE'S HOURGLASS

                         [PHOTO SOURCE: National Geographic online images]
                         (Weathered clothes pins on clothes line in an outdoor setting)

SOME OF MY WORDS

Our middle years are the best of times and proffer a chance to take 'stock' of where we have been and where we want to go. Down the road of tomorrow, the ravages of age will line the face and make us frail. However, these are but layers of time cocooning the child that lives in happy wonderment of making it to another birthday. [~dht-2011]


Each year is a special gift that you can hold and put into your Heart's Treasure Chest nestled with all the treasures and memories of yesterday. [~dht-2011]

***************

SOME WORDS OF OTHERS


"I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth." [~Jonathan Swift]

Old Time, that greatest and longest established spinner of all!.... his factory is a secret place, his work is noiseless, and his hands are mutes. [~Charles Dickens]

A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time. [~Oliver W. Holmes, Sr.]

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. [~Ogden Nash]

They say that age is all in your mind. The trick is keeping it from creeping down into your body. [~Author Unknown]

The other day a man asked me what I thought was the best time of life. "Why," I answered without a thought, "now." [~David Grayson]

Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many. [~Author Unknown]

Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such people, the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life. [~Charles Dickens]

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. [~Mark Twain]

It's important to have a twinkle in your wrinkle. [Author Unknown]

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. [~Samuel Ullman]

There is always a lot to be thankful for, if you take the time to look. For example, I'm sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don't hurt. [~Author Unknown]

Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle. [~Bob Hope]

The years teach much which the days never knew. [~Ralph Waldo Emerson]

In youth the days are short and the years are long; in old age the years are short and the days long. [~Nikita Ivanovich Panin]

A man's age is something impressive, it sums up his life: maturity reached slowly and against many obstacles, illnesses cured, griefs and despairs overcome, and unconscious risks taken; maturity formed through so many desires, hopes, regrets, forgotten things, loves. A man's age represents a fine cargo of experiences and memories. [~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. [~John Barrymore]

Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart. [~Caryn Leschen]

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age. [~Victor Hugo]

Years ago, we discovered the exact point, the dead center of middle age. It occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush to the net. [~Franklin Adams]

Everyone is the age of their heart. [~Guatemalan Proverb]

Youth is a disease from which we all recover. [~Dorothy Fulheim]

There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age - I missed it coming and going. [~J.B. Priestly]

I still have a full deck; I just shuffle slower now. [~Author Unknown]

To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old. [~Oliver Wendell Holmes]

Age is a high price to pay for maturity. [~Tom Stoppard]

The key to successful aging is to pay as little attention to it as possible. [~Judith Regan]

The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity. [~Mark Twain]

The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion. [~Doris Lessing]

There is still no cure for the common birthday. [~John Glenn]

Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty - they merely move it from their faces into their hearts. [~Martin Buxbaum]

You can't hide your true colours as you approach the autumn of your life. [~Author Unknown]

I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates. [~T.S. Eliot]

Whatever poet, orator, or sage may say of it, old age is still old age. [~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]

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Thursday, March 3, 2011

TWO SIDES OF A COIN


                             [PHOTO SOURCE: National Geographic online images]


***************

This Posting was a difficult one for me to 'post',  and I almost did NOT post it.  And then when I did post it, I ALMOST deleted it!!!   NOW, I feel REALLY GLAD that I overcame my "..." , for the comments proffered were very meaningfully to me personally! A special THANK YOU to my Kindred Spirit and Cousin for her comments, which I have posted below (near the end of this posting)!!!

SOME OF MY WORDS


Knowing something and feeling something deeply are two sides of a coin.

Some things that happen are so devastating that they eclipse everything else until healed.

Some things are so wonderful that it's hard to relinquish them.

Two different feelings.
Two different perspectives.

Both powerful responses in a different landscape.

Polar opposites—
sunset – sunrise
night – day
rain – shine
cold – heat
wet – dry
dying – living
death – birth
moonlight – sunlight
endings – beginnings
goings – comings
goodbye – hello
low – high
short – tall
ugly – beauty
old – youth
dull – sharp
sour – sweet
hate – love
down – up
far – near
left – right
east – west
north – south
false – true
fake – real
push – pull
passive – aggressive

JUST A TOSS OF A COIN!

[dht-2011]

***************

Here is what my Kindred Spirit and Cousin said about my words.


This reminded me of a quote: '"You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see... what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something." Richard Feynman, US educator & physicist (1918 - 1988)


‎'Polar opposites', the balances of life.
"Some things are so wonderful that it's hard to relinquish them" = parenthood.  Even though we remain parents after our child have left (as we want them to do), the longing for the child remains. Today's poem/reflection (to me) is all about family and especially about children and also about 'changes' that occur regardless of whether or not we want them.  The question is always:   Will we be able to adapt [to our life's changes]?  Or will the changes encompass us, drag us down and spit us out [a more weary, fragile, and wary person]?  Good points to ponder.


***************
In this offering: What do you notice about the words? Their meaning? Sentence structure? Pairing of Sentences? First word, middle, or last words of Sentences? What words could be substituted? What connection words added for clarity? What meaning of your own would you assign to these words, phrases, sentences?

--------------- OR, Why didn't you just say so! ---------------
What will today bring?
Are events and circumstance just a toss of the coin in one's life?
If there a choice, on which side of the coin will you live?


(COMMENTS ENCOURAGED and WELCOMED)

NATURE'S SECRETS

               [PHOTO SOURCE: National Geographic online images]


***************
SOME OF MY WORDS

WHAT sweet poetry of NATURE'S anthem
resides in this inhospitable shell

WHAT mental stream of consciousness
keynotes a monologue of regret

WHAT creature exists on Earth's plane
at the changing mercy of NATURE'S whimsy

WHAT awaits the searcher
at the gong of life's end clock

WHAT unanswered calls of yesterday
go unsaid today and forgotten tomorrow

WHAT new dawn foretells
of fortunes lost on yesterday dreams

WHAT spent passion wounds
there cauterized by heartache

WHAT layers yet to unfold
reveal repeating patterns of yesterday shadows

WHAT sweet NATURE does restore
the balance and chase away demons

WHAT instrument NATURE's brandish
doth level the sharpness of lingering regret

WHAT rich nectar of NATURE does sustain
through moments of despair with assurance all's well
[dht-2011]

***************

SOME WORDS OF MY KINDRED SPIRIT AND COUSIN
This is "sweet poetry" indeed!  The poem goes so well with the picture.  The thing that first caught my attention was the circular patterns in the photo and the poem seems to be of things 'coming around', changing, the "circle of life" (so to speak).  I would venture to say the above questions might be part of your creative process.  "... phantoms, demons, shadows await the explorer" to be sure, but adventure, beauty, and solitude also await.  Although the season is irrelevant (to me), I feel it is late Summer or early Fall ... and I am a "participant", i.e., it is me in the photo standing outside the tent - waiting for my companion to return (notice the two sleeping bags) and enjoy the perfect moment-in-time together.

***************
"OH MY WORD! YOU have such a poetic SOUL and NATURE! YOU 'see' what is only revealed by the inner heart! YOU are truly one of the NATURE'S BLESSED!! [dht-2011]

Twice BLESSED are ye who see the heart where time and 'stance masks!"
[dht-2011]

"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.”
[C. Pissarro]

***************
In this offering: What do you notice about the words? Their meaning? Sentence structure? Pairing of Sentences? First word, middle, or last words of Sentences? What words could be substituted? What connection words added for clarity? What meaning of your own would you assign to these words, phrases, sentences?
--------------- OR, Why didn't you just say so! ---------------
WHAT patterns do you see in this PIX?
WHAT mysteries of NATURE come to mind?
WHAT phantoms, demons, shadows await the explorer?
WHAT season is this?
WHAT time of day's cycle?
WHAT abode? Permanent? Temporal?
WHAT are you? Participant? Observer? Advisor? Companion? Uninvolved? Disinterested?
Don't give a 'hoot' or 'whistle'?
JUST an interesting PIX and some jumble of syllables?
---------------


Saturday, February 26, 2011

Penguin -- Another Day, Another Nature

                         [PHOTO SOURCE: National Geographic online images]


***************
 
SOME OF MY FAV QUOTES

My grandmother used to say, “If you can't change something, change the way you think about it."
[-Maya Angelou]

**"GRAMs always 'know' best!"  [dht-2011]  **
 
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”
[-Maria Robinson]
 
“Even though we've changed and we're all finding our own place in the world, we all know that when the tears fall or the smile spreads across our face, we'll come to each other because no matter where this crazy world takes us, nothing will ever change so much to the point where we're not all still friends.”
[-unknown]

“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.” 
[-Flora Whittemore]

“Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.” 
[-Keri Russell]

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
[-Pericles]

“There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.”
[-Winston Churchill {Sir Winston Leonard Spencer -Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, DL, FRS (30 Nov 1874 – 24 Jan 1965) was a British politician and statesman} (my Maternal Cousin, THAT's right!) ]

“Life can either be accepted or changed.  If it is not accepted, it must be changed.  If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted.”  [-unknown]

“You've changed so much.  I guess that's what happens.  I wish you knew how much you changed me.  I wonder if I changed you, if your life is different because of me.  Because mine's different."
[-unknown]

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” 
[-Reinhold Niebuhr]

“Change is the essence of life.  Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.”  [-unknown]

“Everything in life is connected somehow.  You may have to dig deep to find it but it's there.  Everything is the same even though it's different.  Somehow, everything connects back with your life.  The faces in certain places may be different, but the situation is the same.  Irony is a hidden factor that creeps around us in life, letting its presence felt only after it has left.  Picture back to a year ago and the situations you were in.  Look at how things are different yet somehow everything is still in some way cognate [alike].  Everything connects together to form the balance of life, to maintain structure.  Change is and always will be inevitable, but everything is relative, and all the moments and times in your life will come back around again, you just might find yourself on the other side of the coin.  Things are always changing, as fast as everything stays the same.”
[-unknown]

“Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret, and depression.  Do not repeat them in the future.”
[-Swami Sivananda]
 
“Life is change.  Growth is optional.  Choose wisely.”  [-unknown]

“We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love.  It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.”
[-William Somerset Maugham]

“It is always the simple things that change our lives.  And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen.  Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so.  You feel like running, but life is on a stroll.  This is how God does things.” 
[-Donald Miller]
 

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SOME OF MY WORDS
 

TODAY, 26 Feb 2011, was a life-changing day for me.  So I am posting these sayings that seem to 'fit' my new perspective with a photo that seems to pair with the 'new' !!!!


MY FAV saying and the one that most 'fits' me today is the last quote by Donald Miller!
 

THE PHOTO illustrates to ME in its imagery ---

ALTHOUGH I may look different on the outside while among you, IF YOU LOOK CLOSELY, you will see how much we are the same—IF YOU TAKE THE 'TIME' TO LOOK CLOSELY!
[dht-2011]
 

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Monday, February 21, 2011

SPRINGTIME in my Garden

                     [PHOTOS SOURCE: my camera—my garden, a "Brandy Rose"]


(I wrote this , 21 Feb 2011, and took some photos, just awed and inspired by the wonders happening in my garden with the arrival of Spring in California!)


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I hear the remembered sounds of a spring
dawn in my garden
 
Bird song tempts me closer to my window—
camera at the ready
 
I thrust back the draperies
to reveal the restoration of my garden in full progress
 
Spring has arrived!

Flower blossoms greet the welcome blessings of sunlight
 
Butterflies flirt on petals
 
Bees conduct honeyed business
 
Hummingbirds anoint and twitter
 
Robins forage and primp

 A WALTZ is played –
the tune, the lyrics, and
the rites of SPRING!

[dht-2011]


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                               [PHOTOS SOURCE: my camera—my garden, "Canna"]


                  [PHOTOS SOURCE: my camera—my garden, "Iris and Petter Pan"]










Sunday, February 20, 2011

DAY'S VENUE


                      [PHOTO SOURCE: National Geographic online images]

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WHERE goes the day
Down yesternight's passage

How blind today's privilege
Lost fast in yesterday's grasp

Tomorrow's dream a pledge
Whence nature's precedence assures

Breast expanse upon deep breath
While shallow essence sums life's interval

What key holds true for grantor's trust
Whilst surety and worth stand anon
 
Time bespoke metered sameness
Whose vowel foretold spoiled fortune

Ribbons linger as fragments
Where once whole, a heart full

Shattered spectrum of hopes
Cast away on ocean's tears

Love's gamble played and lost
Age of regret the debt

Once concealed by life's chains
Now released by nature's bail

What hostage behind the threshold
Where compromise affords release

What sound the closing door
What venue the open window

What knock insures a beggars entrance
What token barters the price

[DOROTHY HAZEL TARR, dht-2011]

***************

In this offering:

What do you notice about the words? Their meaning? Punctuation? Sentence structure? Pairing of Sentences? First word, middle, or last words of Sentences? What words could be substituted? What connection words added for clarity? What meaning of your own would you assign to these words, phrases, sentences?


--------------- OR, Why didn't you just say so! ---------------


Today is just a memory that has passed into yesterday.

Thoughts of yesterday blind you to the beauty of today.

Tomorrow is a new beginning as sure as the sun will rise.

Now the lungs expands, as if you had been living with too little air for a long time, where before your breaths were shallow and the pain too great for deep breathing.

What is the secret to giving your trust to another, while other(s) do nothing to earn and secure your trust?

The rest of your life will be nothing but more of the same ... misfortune.

The ones you LOVED the most in this world, have all cut away a piece of your heart, until all is left are tattered ribbons of melancholy and despair.

A bright future so full of a kaleidoscope of hopes lays shattered, lost and washed away with oceans of tears.

It may be better for some to LOVE and LOSE, than never to LOVE at all; but what price must be paid and for what duration.

The years of aching emptiness and pain are camouflaged in life's daily routine, but soon there will be an end to the pain as nature ends its hold to death's surrender.

Where are the words of forgiveness and compromise that release pain's grip on a broken heart?

The silence of the closing door confuses the opening of a window; as the lack of plain speaking confuses the path to understanding.

What will it cost the one who knocks; and what more must the one who knocks surrender?

[DOROTHY HAZEL TARR, dht-2011]

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PHOTO CAPTION -- or just a few words to go with the PIX.

It is astonishing how a few short phrases pierce the gray of your world with a single beam of light. [DOROTHY HAZEL TARR, dht-2011]

 WINDOW DREAMs

How sharp the contrast between

the heart's abode now worn with time's despair

and

the gaping mawe of fate with

its distant vistas casting new shades of meaning

on another world (another life, another time, another place)

filled with vibrant colors, sweet breaths, soft gentle breezes,

and LOVE's warm embrace.

[DOROTHY HAZEL TARR, dht-2011] 

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