Green Bay

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Rain rain go away, come back some other day. It’s different for me this summer from any previous summer I can remember - so much rain. I’ve enjoyed it though. I am walking in the rain. I am wearing my ‘Wellies’ more than ever. The grass is long with wild flowers, because it is too wet to mow, so let it grow.

I went to Shelburne Farms the other sunrise (or at least sunrise time) to shoot across the water at my favorite Adirondack range, thinking I may get a nice sky to top the wonderful mountain range, but no, just fog and rain I could see. I should have known not to expect anything certain. Life doesn't work that way. There is beauty in so much nature offers. Just enjoy what is Mike. I also enjoyed a wonderful outside breakfast, lakeside, at the Inn at Shelburne Farms.

The grass is green this August - most often it is brown. It is nice to see the green bay at the Inn at Shelburne Farms. Life doesn't get much better.

Green Bay

zonal geraniums

Up Close

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What don’t I see, in nature? And, what don’t I see in myself? Getting up close and paying attention is revealing. Asking, listening, looking for what is, is a fruitful adventure. Like the Brown Knapweed below - I usually mow the weed down. Instead, I made paths to walk the fields - front middle back. I photograph the ordinary, up close, and see the extraordinary - the color, the droplets, the detail, the cartoonish figure smiling to the sky, the bug. I too am Nature. What’s to be revealed when I look up close, inside, to my Inner Wisdom. I look for LOVE…. I find LOVE - It is good.

Brown knapweed up close

Road to Bountiful

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Actually, the image below is a road to Richmond, Vermont. I imagine though, beyond my horizon - a trip to Bountiful. The morning light over the aesthetic bridge sets the mood for reflection - reflection on what’s important to me given a theoretical five years. The time frame adds a sense of urgency; not to add stress, but to know that maybe I best not let the grass, under my feet, grow too long before honoring my priorities.

I hear keeping your plans to yourself is good advice. My belief is preparing to tell my world is thought provoking, and adds the element of - now my world knows - I better act, or be marked, just a dreamer. I also know, if you want to make God laugh, tell him/her your plans.

Juxtaposition the idea of a plan for five years with my mantra, Live LOVE now, and you may wonder, what’s the deal with Mike? Is he troubled with single hood after fifty-four years married to Patty? Actually, it’s a new world for me now, and I love it. I am getting clarity - it’s a little like my former associates at AIS Planning say with their new tag line - “Plan your tomorrow, so you can enjoy your today” I am thinking about traveling down a pretty short road. I am making my five year view, a rolling five years, though. Who knows how many healthy five year periods this aging body will roll along.

Here are my salient reflections about the next five years: deepen family and friend connections, listen to my Inner Wisdom while deepening my spirituality, communicate my understanding of live LOVE now, have soul mate(s), explore and photograph natural wonders, travel often to be with family and friends, reflect skyward and produce book including reflections to accompany images, play more - worry less.

Road to Bountiful



Love Lilies

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Susan Shelly loves her lilies - she is nationally known for her hundreds, maybe thousands, of lilies she so passionately tends to, on her hilltop property in Underhill, Vermont. She opens to the public to enjoy, not her variety of flowers, but her variety of lily flowers. What a treat.

I asked Susan - don’t lilies have a short life? Why just lilies? She said yes, they bloom for a short time, but there are varieties popping up all the time, even as late as September. She lost me in the details, but the flowers filled my cup - made my day. I love it, as I believe the other members of the Northern Exposure Photo Group that made the private showing at low light. I have ten interpretations of the beauty I saw at MESipe.com recent images, and flowers tabs.

Love Lily (my name)

Salient Seeds

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Nature is miraculous, isn’t it - a seed to a person, plant, a rare four leaf clover. Emmett and I took a walk on my newly mowed path in the front field, where I planted a number of Black Walnut trees. I have ignored tending them for a year of so - the nursery said they should be ok on their own after a few years. I thought I lost all sixty I planted, with the late Spring freeze - all the leaves dropped dead. Miraculously, new leaves popped - maybe a positive of heavy rains this summer. I see about two feet of new growth - wow. Nature doesn't stand still. All are part of Nature - what a wonderful gift. We grow - as One, together.

Salient Seeds

Four leaf clover

Wild in Richmond

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I loved having a view of Lake Champlain from our Overtake Condo in Burlington. I moved, a little reluctantly, to Richmond, where I am a good twenty minutes from the Lake. I gave in to my condition that we build our multi-generational home within five miles of the Lake, to go to the foothills of the Green Mountains in Richmond. I am happy though, because I get a new prospective of beauty being so close to the mountains. The rolling topography from our home at Purple Lark Farms is spectacular. We view Camels Hump and Mount Mansfield from a neighbor view from one of the seven hills that surround our acreage. I feel like I am in a valley, even though I am a 4% incline for two miles, from Richmond village. Visit if you can - you’ll love it.

Wild in Richmond

In Position

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It’s the 4th of July - actually the 3rd of July, at Joe and Barb Gaida’s place on Lake Champlain, feasting with friends, in prep for the annual fireworks show in Burlington. The warm-up is the sky - hard to match with man-made works - so grateful to take in! Boats in position, under Nature’s beautiful cloak.

In Position

Mutilation or Motivation

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I carried the OM symbol in my billfold for fifteen years. I thought it would be a good tattoo along side my Celtic butterfly, symbolic for: “happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it the more it alludes you. Put your mind to others and it comes and rests gently on your shoulder.” I recently tossed the OM symbol from my wallet figuring I would never be motivated to go through the pain and cost of the tattoo on my back that I, and most others, would never see. But because of my recent drive to reach the depths of my Inner Wisdom with meditation, I resurrected the crazy idea. Am I a masochist or what?

OM

Above the clouds

New Growth

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Looking skyward is amazing - cloud formations unlike former sights I recall. Have I been oblivious to what’s above? I know I have been unaware of all that’s within. I am searching outward and inward. I believe there is much to discover in the Nature I am one with. I long to know what’s up, what’s within. It is a wonderful trip I am on. I love it!

Come See

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A hospital visit is not what I normally wish for you. However, I just placed ten images on the Blue Path, on the main floor at UVM Medical Center in Burlington. BCA leases the art to the hospital and receives a commission on any sales. They are a valuable nonprofit service to both lessee and artist. Come see.

Also, don’t miss the Vermont Open Studio weekend. I would’t suspect you would visit all 143 open studio’s through out Vermont, but stop by Northern Exposure Photo Group’s open studio. All the info you need is below.

Museum in the Sky

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There is a museum in the sky. I suspect the reason you see so many wonderful depictions of skies in art, is that artists see the skyward beauty when they look for their expression.

My image WONDER, below, is an image I stumbled on when looking back on my many images while at Steve’s and Rosie’s North Shore of Lake Superior get-away. Unf……believable. So grateful to see wonder.

Calm Big Water

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What is it about water - calm big water - that relaxes me? I am drawn to water - especially calm big water; the ocean, the sea, others too, where the horizon is mostly water and sky. Sometimes you can’t tell where one stops and the other starts. Ever changing beauty. I love it!

My senses are aroused with a sun rising morning walk on a seemingly endless ocean beach - the rhythmic sound of water to shore, birds singing - even gulls, the ocean smell, a mild warm breeze caressing my body, and simple, beautiful sites to see. I expect my image of a ‘life time’ will be an image capture of a wall worthy ocean or sea, that delights me every time I pass by.

Plum island

Sun Day

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This Spring I have been finding myself saying unf..….believable, a lot - sites of rushing water, structure moving winds, wonderful cloud formations, uniform greening overnight - Wonderful sites I am sometimes able to capture. So much nature activity, overwhelming to think about. The buds bloom without seeing the movement. I am in awe! I am grateful.

Now it is time to notice the calm, the peace. Internalize. Breathe in, out. It’s a Sun Day.

sun day

The Sky is Falling!

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Water water everywhere. I’ve seen more flooding in Minnesota in years past. I have more appreciation and respect for water now, though. I see algae in lakes. I have been hospitalized with dehydration. I’ve seen the damage water can cause by floods, hurricanes, mold.

I also know the value of water. Life is not possible without it. You find water, you know life is near. No, the sky is not falling, but care we must. Nature and divine source, responsible for its existence, will take care of balance. Our responsibility is to take care, to the extent we can.