Wavian Digital Arts & New Media

"Beauty, Part III" by Carvens Lissaint (inspired by Mega)

2012-01-28T23:26:00.001-05:00

He said
Hey yo, fat ass, yo, biggie mcfatfat, yo, you so fat, I'm gonna blow all the motherfucking fat people up on one island and make a big ass bowl of chunky soup.

He said
you so black you gotta eat oreos with some white gloves.

He said
you so fat it look like you got two midgets in a headlock.

Oh he said you ain't have no nipples.

She said, I mean, Carvens, I mean like, you're handsome and everything but like I mean like, you're like my brother, we can't...

She said
OMG how did you get your skin that color?

She said
She said
You know what? This is what she said.
I swear to god this is what she said.
She was like Carvens, you're so ugly you should kill yourself.

He said
how do you stop black people from coming to your house? You hang one in the front.

He said
yo fatass I want you to have a stroke from you running up those steps.

She said you should kill yourself.

And when I was in the fifth grade, I wrote a suicide note.

That was the first time, I believe, someone loved my writing.

In the fourth grade, my valentine told me that I couldn't be seen with her because all the kids might actually think she liked me.

In third grade I ate lunch by myself
every day.

In the second grade
a kid punched me in my mouth at the end of recess.

Two of my teeth fell to the pavement
I laid on the ground, blood spilling from my lips for fifteen minutes before anyone asked if I was okay.

In the first grade, a white girl at snack time told me that my skin looked I never took a shower, she's never seen something so black.

In kindergarten, I was the only student who stood awake
during nap time.

You know, feeling alone is not foreign to me.

In the classroom, children spoke the harsh language of tear gas
I cried in more bathroom stalls than I can remember learning

My bullies were swastickas dressed in Catholic school uniforms

The machete eyes,
the machete eyes of my peers would carve smiles out of my face like a jack-o-lantern

They always needed an overweight, dark-skinned target to dart through,
a pinata to hang in the nucleus of the playground while each kid took a swing.

I learned how to hate myself
at such an early age.
I wrote "God doesn't love me" on the inside of all of my notebooks

I would pray, every night, to be a superhero, asking anyone who watched over me
if they could grant me the power of invisibility
so I could vanish off the face of humanity
each time my confidence was steamrolled to the concrete

You know
My freshman year of high school
my stomach and muffin top was so big I could barely see my feet
I used to breathe like a coughing motor cycle

My sophomore year
I wanted a girlfriend so bad
I used to practice making out with the mirror
just so it would be perfect when I finally fell in love

My junior year
I grew a foot taller,
I lost 30 pounds but still was heavy with self-consciousness

My senior year I was the most popular kid in school but still saw a sea of faces cackling at me whenever I turned my back

My freshman year of college I started having sex with women in the hopes to find
myself in the museum of their pelvis
so gyrate my hips under the bodies of their sweat and of temples crashing
I used to pound bodies into the spine of mattress
screaming at the top of my lungs
what's my name
just so they could remind me who I was

Depression

Depression

Depression
can drive humans to very hollow places

Places where flocks of vultures lurked in the things I found beautiful
and I often asked myself

Am I beautiful?
Am I worth glancing at twice?
Can anyone love me as much as I love God?
Does everything really happen for a reason
or am I just some laughing stock
of this inside joke the whole world is in on but me.

It took almost two decades of living on this earth
to finally love myself.

If you only knew,
If you only knew how hard is was to write this poem

How hard it is to embrace every stretch mark like a life line when I feel dead inside

To say, to say that my skin color is a shade of armour that can never be bruised
to say, to say that my smile is a page of the bible
that my face is a halo that spent its entire life basking in the sun

I learned how to love my weakness
I wear my insecurities like a good suit to a job interview

I'm awkward, I'm awkward, I'm awkward, I'm awkward
And I love it

I make a fool of myself

I make a fool of myself
but still have the confidence of a firefly buzzing in the gut of a cave

I cry
I cry
and I fight and I cry and I fight and I cry, I cry and I fail and I fall and
I get the fuck back up.

I,
I'm no longer afraid to stumble,
to fall flat on my face and look around like nothing happened
to turn the center stage into a playground

Have you all looked at me, lived in my own skin, and wake up every morning
look deep into the mirror and say you know what,
you know what Carvens, I love you
I love you so much
And you are beautiful.

On insignificance...

2012-01-19T20:26:00.002-05:00

"They do read [your] site, they just don't know it by name. And why would they? This is the Internet, where we're all information junkies. We want the facts, and we want them delivered in the most efficient way possible, maybe with some jokes thrown in. If someone is clicking on an article called "Six Farts That Changed the World (And Four That Didn't)," they're not clicking to see a byline or the personal theories of some author; they're clicking to see if the time Gerald Ford non-sexually farted into Rita Hayworth's open hand made the list (it didn't)."

(So, make sure you write well. -ed)

Quote source: The 4 Worst Things About Writing for the Internet

Why parts of the Internet will go dark Jan. 18

2012-01-16T11:14:00.001-05:00

Have you heard of SOPA - the Stop Online Piracy Act? It *sounds* like a good idea -- piracy bad! -- but a closer look at this act reveals something terrifying that may change the Internet as we know it.

Google (this includes blogger!), Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Wordpress, Reddit, The Wikipedia, The Cheezeburger Network, Boing Boing, Twitter, Ebay, LinkedIn & some other major players are considering going dark to take a stand against SOPA because the wording of this proposed bill is so vague & penalties so steep that there may be potential for much abuse. Like, just *linking* to something might be enough to get you in trouble.

Right now the bill looks like it's going to be approved as the majority of senators are in favor of it. We need to reach 41 more senators to make a difference. The senate votes Jan. 24. Here's what you can do:

This page lets you put in a zip code and click a button to notify your local senators.

Please help keep the internet free.

https://wfc2.wiredforchange.com/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173

Focus: the key to achieving your goals

2012-01-05T06:00:00.005-05:00

"The key is every day focus.... To be focused on goals. To not be tempted by seduction to move forward. It’s like the image [above]. It’s an optical illusion. The circles are all diversion and appear to be constantly moving. The black dots are your goals. Focus on any one dot and all of the circles will slowly stop moving. Every time things start to move around you, taking you off the road, think about these black dots you can focus on."

- James Altucher, The ONE Way to Achieve Your New Year's Resolutions

quote on cats

2012-01-04T06:00:00.004-05:00

My BFF's kitty gazes into the distance.

"Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want."
- Joseph Wood Krutch

it lives in the wild...

2012-01-03T20:43:00.000-05:00

I took this photo in Arizona and then turned it into a digital watercolor.

"Sometimes I try to write about you, about us, and the words just crumble. Ashes, dead petals. I go aphasic, although I'm supposed to be skillful with words. I sit here broken. I make a move to put it all down, and a million marbles skitter across the floor and into crevices and down vents. I can't whip our story into some tidy, domesticated thing, so it lives in the wild and scratches at the window when I dream. I can't make it come here when I call it, or be what I want. I never could do that." -- Christie Chapman

Christie Chapman, on her quote above:

"Here's what I guess I am trying to say. Let's say you lived some big, poignant story with a person. You shared some adventure with someone. Then it ended. It lives in the past, for all sorts of very good (if painful to think about) reasons. Yet the memories creep into your mind and even into your dreams all the time. It feels like this great, meaningful story... and you feel that if you could just somehow weave these experiences into a coherent piece of writing that resonates with others, you would not only do the story justice but finally move past it a little. You would have tamed it, or at least translated it into words. You would have won out, at least a little, against its tyranny over your emotions.

"Only, you can't put this big, amazing story into words. It's elusive; it lives in the ether and won't let you translate it (put it into a labeled jar). So the story is this wild, untameable force. And for that reason, you worry it will always have power over you. Sometimes domestication is a good thing, dammit."

Christie Chapman

Learning to draw: sketches from 2011

2012-01-02T21:06:00.002-05:00

I started taking an intro to drawing class around this time last year -- here are the sketches from my year of experimenting with learning to draw.

I ROCKED a pear, yo.

We did a lot of still life studies in class. This is pen & ink, not charcoal/pencil like the others.

It's harder to capture the white balance than I thought.

The best thing in class was seeing how many different ways people drew what they saw.
No drawings were even remotely similar. Angles & shading can change the entire picture.

Experimenting with different ways to shade.

Here I was trying to draw a body that contained a bit of a belly to see about different physical forms.

Another pen & ink.

I enjoyed trying to draw Edvard Munch's Madonna but it's on the flat side.
I need to learn good shading techniques to add dimension.

I struggled with the face here (and you can tell) but I was mostly concentrating on the body since
it was one of the first times I was branching out to a whole figure.

Here, experimenting with different postures.

Heart-shaped face.

I drew this after I came home from class itching to draw more. We'd been doing freeforms
all night and I drove home seeing lines and shadows in everything. It only took me 15 minutes
to sketch this out but only because I'd spent two hours "warming up" with freeform drills.

A quick 5-minute sketch of my hand.

Eyes are extremely difficult for me -- getting the right proportions is a huge challenge.

Charcoal drawing of fruit on a cloth setting. Capturing wrinkles in cloth is also extremely difficult.
Here I introduced color to add dimension.

I didn't intend for this to resemble Julia Roberts -- if I TRIED, I'm pretty sure it would have failed!
But kind of neat that it turned out that way.

Mug shot! Not really, but that's what this looks like.


This reminds me, in retrospect, of Mad Magazine's Spy vs. Spy series, for the outfit and rushing inference.

Aerial photos of Florida

2011-12-30T06:00:00.001-05:00

I took these on Wednesday's flight from Tampa to Baltimore. I love the receding view as the plane lifts into the air.

This one has the filter "Torn Edges" applied (Under "Filter," "Sketch" in Photoshop).

On happiness...

2011-12-29T06:00:00.002-05:00

Quotes on happiness
(because what better way to reflect on our blessings than at year's end?)

"The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself." ~Benjamin Franklin

"What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner." ~Colette

"People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost." ~H. Jackson Browne

"There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second." ~Logan Pearsall Smith

"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have." ~Frederick Keonig

"Happiness held is the seed; happiness shared is the flower." ~Author Unknown

"We are seldom happy with what we now have, but would go to pieces if we lost any part of it." ~Mignon McLaughlin

"One joy scatters a hundred griefs." ~Chinese Proverb

"Unquestionably, it is possible to do without happiness; it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind." ~John Stuart Mill

"Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." ~Joseph Addison

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." ~Mahatma Gandhi

"Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length." ~Robert Frost

May you have a wonderful new year!

Baby you were born this way (Lady Gaga cover by Maria Aragon)

2011-12-28T06:40:00.001-05:00

This little girl is incredible -- see her cover of Lady Gaga's Born this Way (also listen to the words and know you're beautiful the way you are). Thank you, Maria Aragon, for reminding us of this and for showcasing it with your amazing talent:

My mama told me when I was young
We are all born superstars
She rolled my hair and put my lipstick on
In the glass of her boudoir
There's nothin' wrong with lovin' who you are
She said, 'cause He made you perfect, babe
So hold your head up and you you'll go far
Listen to me when I say

I'm beautiful in my way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track, baby I was born this way
Don't hide yourself in regret
Just love yourself and you're set
I'm on the right track, baby I was born this way, born this way
Ooh, there ain't no other way, baby, I was born this way
Baby, I was born this way
Ooh, there ain't no other way, baby, I was born this way
I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way

Give yourself prudence and love your friends so we can rejoice the truth
In the religion of the insecure I must be myself, respect my youth
A different lover is not a sin
Believe capital H-I-M
I love my life, I love this record and Mi amore vole fe yah

Don't be drag, just be a queen
Whether you're broke or evergreen
You're black, white, beige, chola descent
You're Lebanese, you're orient
Whether life's disabilities
Left you outcast, bullied or teased
Rejoice and love yourself today
'Cause baby, you were born this way

'Cause you're beautiful in you're way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
You're on the right track, baby you were born this way
Don't hide yourself in regret
Just love yourself and you're set
I'm on the right track, baby I was born this way
Ooh, there ain't no other way, baby, I was born this way
Baby I was born this way
Ooh, there ain't no other way, baby, I was
I'm on the right track, baby I was born this way
My mama told me when I was young
We are all born superstars

friendship

2011-12-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

"No lapse of time or distance of place can lessen the friendship of those who are truly persuaded of each other's worth." - Unknown

The knots of life

2011-12-23T12:13:00.000-05:00


Photo by Jesse Aaron Mueller

“We learn the rope of life by untying its knots.” ~Jean Toomer

The key is to plant the seeds.

2011-12-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

"Every night I woke up in dread, terrified of yet one more insecure tomorrow.... The agony that youth was gone, and for the rest of my tomorrows I was finished, through, crushed by my responsibilities and the carved out hole of loss inside of me. I’m still afraid of slipping back into that crevice.... Once you’ve seen the darkness in the center of the Earth, the heat that can burn your brain to cinders, you know it’s always there, an open invitation to come back.

"But the important thing is that right around the middle of all of this, I started planting seeds.... The key is to plant the seeds. And never stop, even if weather, even if animals, even if mutations, look as if they are going to damage the garden and destroy it. Seeds take time to grow. A long time. And they need to be loved with patience, just like children. And there are seeds designed for every season. The key is to go out there, dig up dirt, and plant. Every day.... What seed will you plant today?"

James Altucher

See full blog post at:
http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/12/sometimes-things-just-keep-getting-worse/

on friendship...

2011-12-20T06:00:00.001-05:00

"Do not assume that she who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. Her life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, she would never have been able to find these words." -Rainer Maria Rilke

That is what art should do. It should make the world blush and give up its secrets.

2011-12-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

“This is what good art does. It takes a pebble in the road, or a human being, and it concentrates on them until they begin to glow. I think the concept and the notion of blushing is very important in art, and in my kind of art. You know, the artist concentrates on the detail of the object until it blushes in the way the love object blushes when a lover gazes at it with that particular intense gaze. That is what art should do. It should make the world blush and give up its secrets.” John Banville

at last you have found the area where very few people will be able to compete

2011-12-13T06:00:00.000-05:00

"Failure. Learning from your accidents... catapults you through the learning curve very quickly. My kids often give up instantly when they lose at something. That’s ok. They just aren’t interested. But once you find something where you pick yourself up and you say, “I HAVE TO DO BETTER” next time. THEN you know you are onto something – a passion, a dream, the field where you can become a grandmaster, the field where you can become an entrepreneur. It’s a secret you learn about yourself and you can be privately proud that at last you have found the area where very few people will be able to compete. 99% of people give up after a failure.... It’s the best filter that will tell you you will eventually succeed." - James Altucher

2011-12-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

I took this in Baltimore last year off Charles Street near JHU Homewood Campus.

There's a Hole in My Sidewalk
Portia Nelson

I:
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost…
I am helpless.
It is not my fault.
It takes forever to find my way out.

II:
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III:
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there.
I still fall in…It’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV:
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
I walk down another street.

Copyright 1993, Portia Nelson from the book, There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk, Beyond Words Publishing, Hillsboro, Oregon. Autobiography in Five Short Chapters.
http://www.mendontlisten.com/article_sidewalk.html

setting up Google Voice to route into one cell phone (for business AND personal use)

2011-12-06T15:40:00.000-05:00

I won't even go into how much TIME I spent on this problem, or how many other people I talked to that ALSO spent a ridiculous amount of time on Google Voice settings but apparently it's a common problem to set up a Google Voice number and have ALL incoming calls forwarded to the Google Voice mailbox, even ones going to the original number. I didn't want this. I have a business line and wanted business calls answered by my business voicemail and personal calls answered by personal voicemail.

So, after significant headdesking, it's working. Here are the steps:

Setting up a Google Voice business line to your personal cell phone:

(I did this with an iPhone 3GS, AT&T is my carrier):

1. Download iPhone app for Google Voice (so you can make calls from your phone as if from your Google Voice number. This won't actually affect your settings though).

2. Go to Google Voice on your browser and go into Google Voice settings:

Under the "Phones" tab, check "forward calls to mobile."
DO NOT check "activate Google Voicemail for this phone."

3. Under "Voicemail & Text" tab, record a greeting for Google Voice & name it whatever you want. When you click "record new," it will call you on your phone. When you answer, a recording will prompt you to leave a message. (You'll have the option of doing it over if necessary.)

If you want anything else -- voicemails transcribed, etc., check those settings.

4. Under the "Calls" tab, change the default to "Call Screening On" (note: I don't have the box checked for requiring callers to announce their name because I believe that hinders customer service, but if you want this, it won't affect the final outcome).

Caller ID radio button: choose "Display Google Voice" (then, on your phone, add a contact for your business line so whenever it rings, you'll see the incoming call from that business name. I personalized the label so it says my business name and "Google Voice" in small letters (underneath instead of "iPhone" or "home" or "work" or the usual labels).

Check "Place missed calls in inbox."

5. Last but MOST IMPORTANT step: on your phone, you must deactivate conditional call forwarding (which is set as a default):

On your phone, dial ##004# and hit "send." This will ensure that calls coming into your phone are not all going to forward to Google Voice (the conditional call forwarding default).

RESULT from all these steps:

Calls to your business number forward to your cell. If no answer, they will route to business voicemail (or whatever you set as your Google Voice voicemail).
Calls to your personal number forward to the same cell. If there is no answer, they will route to your personal voicemail.

It doesn't matter if you decline the call or it rings long enough to go to voicemail, the correct voicemail box should still engage.

I keep my phone on silent almost all the time to keep disruption down when working so it was important to me that the correct voicemail picked up for its associated number. I hope this information is useful if you're having problems setting up your Google Voice account.

For Allison.

2011-12-05T17:46:00.003-05:00

“The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arise from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost.” Arthur Schopenhauer

Allison

Everyone has an important friend from childhood, their earliest friend, the one they first discover what it means to share laughter with someone outside the family. Allison was that person to me. We met in first grade. I was five, right about the age where my memories begin. On the last day of school, Mrs. Rose handed each student a special award for their talents and Allison got the "best behaved" distinction. It was the prize most revered because it was the hardest earned.

Allison, humble and wise even as a kid, did not brag like the others but instead stood quietly still, surprised by this unexpected badge as other students crowded around her to admire the well-deserved honor.

She was my first best friend and she shaped me. And she will never be forgotten.

I'd been looking for her online ever since I got online. (1994?) One day I Googled her name and found... her gravestone. I looked at my screen and started to cry.

I dreamt about her not that long ago and wrote:

Visiting Allison. (a dream)
I was 1,000 miles from home and visiting a college bookstore when I suddenly ran into my childhood friend, Allison, my best friend from about ages 6-12 before I moved away. I was somehow traveling backwards through time. I didn't ask how -- dreams are funny like that. I just knew it was happening.

She was young and beautiful in my dream, a sophomore in college. She was with her boyfriend who I knew would soon become her husband.

I watched her peruse through merchandise and pick up party lights."Ah," I thought. "You were not yet dead." She didn't know that two years from then she'd be gone, a victim of childbirth gone terribly wrong.

I went over and talked to her in my dream, wanting so badly to hold onto our conversation, the connection. Outwardly it seemed light, airy. We laughed together. I winced inside. She couldn't possibly know or understand that her foreshadowed death rattled around in my innards like a broken bottle, that I needed to double over and wrap my arms around myself to hold in the pieces that were coming apart.

One of the tiny lightbulbs dropped on the floor and bounced but did not break. I bent over to pick it up and thought, "Is this what it's like when you travel back in time to spend an instance with someone?" I thought. "Consumed only with when you would lose them, unable to fully enjoy the moment?"

I wanted to cry great racking sobs for the future as I knew how it would play out. I felt gyped. I went back to see her -- worked so hard for this moment -- and yet even then could not bring back the innocence that existed before I knew the pain of her loss.

We continued our light banter. I swallowed more glass. I found her a sweater she could wear on her way home. There was some comfort in giving her that, on that last occasion that I would see her. And we parted. She bought her party supplies. I watched her fade and slowly became conscious that I was dreaming. That's when I began writing this post in my head.

I woke up thinking of her and of all the other losses in my life I would know one day. How I'd be forever changed by each one, bent and gnarled like a charred, twisted oak, scarred by countless storms and fires.

Maybe this is the thing that makes us old. Loss. Because it robs us of our innocence that the world will stay as we know it.

RIP, Ali. Miss you.

Be kind anyway.

2011-11-20T19:49:00.000-05:00

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”
― Mother Teresa

If we did the same, by Chelsea Latimer (song & lyrics)

2011-11-02T08:20:00.000-04:00

If we did the same LIVE
(source: Chelsea's page on MySpace Music)
If we did the same
Chelsea Latimer

Call myself (in the mirror?)
Saying things I wouldn't want my momma to hear
As if the fear will medicate my unease
I built a cage and now I'm searching for my keys

chorus
If everybody would do it like you do
Day in and day out
What would we look like now
What kind of thing would we all create
If we all did the same
It makes you think
Would you multiply
the way that you,
the way that I
(I) Live my life

Another night we go out
Our morals we throw out
Ignore my mistakes
You won't see me through all my haze
and this nest I make
is my home
But I want to get away
I want to get away

chorus

Kinda makes you think
Should I complain
Kinda makes, makes you think
Makes me think....

Source: http://www.myspace.com/chelsealatimer/music/songs/if-we-did-the-same-live-18183559

Choose carefully...

2011-11-01T08:11:00.000-04:00

"Choose these people, these things, these surroundings- gingerly, with curiosity and optimistic hesitation. These are the characters that will hang their hats and kick up their feet, atop all of your treasures, the ones we see and the ones we don't...they'll complicate your plans and make appearances in your day-to-day thought patterns.... they'll consume parts of you, even if you are careful. Let the pieces they consume be some of your favorites...."

-- Chelsea Latimer

From her blog post Making Space...

the curse of the addict

2011-10-26T16:20:00.000-04:00

This is hilarious! But at about 2:20, I was struck by this:
"It is the curse of an addict to chase the thing that destroys it. But until you've done it, until you've LAUNCHED yourself off a thousand foot cliff for that thing that you love, you will NEVER understand the gravity of my plight." ::chills::

"You know what? I did all I can. I leave the rest up to you."

2011-10-02T00:34:00.001-04:00

"In terms of the question: “do I believe in a higher power?” I would have to answer that I do believe in the concept of “surrender” which may or may not imply a higher power (who knows?). In other words, many situations get so difficult you want to throw up your hands and just say, “you know what, I did all I can. I leave the rest up to you.” And who is that you? It might be a higher power. It might be a creative force inside of you that is dying for those moments to be unleashed. Or it might simply be the feeling of gratitude that is always worth cultivating to help one find more happiness in life."

--James Altucher

I believe...

2011-07-27T18:12:00.004-04:00

Monarch Butterfly
Butterfly Conservatory, National Museum of Natural History
Washington, DC

"I believe everything happens for a reason. People change so you can learn how to let go. Things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right. You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust yourself and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together." Unknown

If you get caught between the moon and New York City....

2011-07-24T15:25:00.001-04:00

I took this a few weeks ago -- the colors are a little oversaturated but I still love the skyline at sunset.

“What we are aiming at when we fall in love, is a very strange paradox. The paradox consists of the fact that when we fall in love we are seeking to re-find all or some of the people to whom we were attached as children. On the other hand, we ask our beloved to correct all the wrongs that these early parents inflicted on us. So that love contains in it the contradictions, the attempt to return to the past and attempt to undo the past.”- Woody Allen as Professor Levy, Crimes and Misdemeanors

Take photos like a sniper (and other "How To" photography tips for low light)

2011-07-18T15:28:00.002-04:00

Click to enlarge:

Source: picturecorrect.com via Shanna on Pinterest

You have learned everything there is to know.

2011-07-15T16:36:00.001-04:00

Once upon a time, a woman moved to a cave in the mountains to study with a guru. She wanted, she said, to learn everything there was to know. The guru supplied her with stacks of books and left her alone so she could study. Every morning, the guru returned to the cave to monitor the woman's progress. In his hand, he carried a heavy wooden cane. Each morning, he asked her the same question: "Have you learned everything there is to know yet?" Each morning, her answer was the same. "No," she said, "I haven't." The guru would then strike her over the head with his cane.

This scenario repeated itself for months. One day the guru entered the cave, asked the same question, heard the same answer, and raised his cane to hit her in the same way, but the woman grabbed the cane from the guru, stopping his assault in midair.

Relieved to end the daily batterings but fearing reprisal, the woman looked up at the guru. To her surprised, the guru smiled. "Congratulations," he said, "you have graduated. You now know everything you need to know."

"How's that?" the woman asked.

"You have learned that you will never learn everything there is to know," he replied. "And you have learned how to stop the pain."

you were once a perfect wish (Buddhist Meditations for tonight)

2011-06-30T20:18:00.004-04:00

you were once a perfect wish, originally uploaded by ~stillpositive.

Today I was going over some Buddhist meditations to create a sense of peace with the imperfection that comes with life. There's never enough sleep, not enough time, too many things to do, not enough understanding or patience, and sometimes not enough love or forgiveness. How can we center ourselves amongst negativity?

Reflections to find a sense of peace

Sit someplace peaceful, come to a calm place and reflect on yourself first because when you can love yourself, you can love others:

- I have some bad habits and faults, but am I really all that bad?
- Many things I do don't lead to perfect results but at least I try to do my best.
- Focus attention to the heart, sense a warm, loving feeling develop.
- We are all worthy to receive love.
- Let this loving feeling gradually fill up the body and radiate outward.
- Say:

May I be healed of problems, dissatisfaction and pain
May I be able to forgive myself and find peace
May I be able to live from my heart
May I be happy, with only good thoughts and experiences.

- Breathe in love with every breath and feel the healing power of giving yourself the space to be.
- Now let this love stream out to others, the people around, family, friends, the street, town, country, the world.
- Remember people you don't necessarily like; they also just want to be happy.
- They need to feel loved, just like you.
- If someone did something that upset you, think about the cause of their behavior. Reflect: do I never make such a mistake? Do I always treat people perfectly?
- Can I expect others to be perfect all the time when I also do not manage that?
- Try to have the courage of breaking through the standard habits and overload them with thoughts of love instead.
- Say:

May you be healed of problems and pain
May you forgive yourself and find peace
May you be able to live from your heart
May you be happy and give happiness to others.

- Don't be afraid your love will run out; true love is a never ending source of energy.

- Only our own feelings of hatred, frustration, impatience and egoism limit the stream of love to others.

Thoughts of the expectation of perfection and the stress these expectations can cause:

- Who am I really, what are all my negative qualities?
- Does this mean I am the worst person in the world?
- How many people do I know without any negative qualities?
- Can I expect myself to be perfect, without any faults?
- What are my positive qualities?
- Can I not at least help people, care about them, generate compassion?
- Does not everybody have good and bad qualities?
- Why do I have to judge so hard on myself for being human, with good and bad qualities? Likewise for others?
- I can strive for love, compassion and betterment; these things are possible.
- Say:

May all people discover and develop their potential for loving kindness, compassion and patience.
May all people be free from the problems caused by their confusion.
May all people find love and peace in their hearts.

An exercise in expression and forgiveness of slights:

- Visualize Buddhas and enlightened beings above and around you
- They shine their compassionate blessing upon you.
- Imagine being in front of the person you need to forgive or want forgiveness from
- In the presence of the enlightened beings, say what you have to say
- Tell them what you really feel and why you want to forgive or want their forgiveness
- Imagine this person looking at you with compassion and understanding
- While telling them about your anger and regret, radiate out all your love and compassion to this person
- Know the person understands you and answers with love and compassion shining from the heart
- Open your heart and accept love and forgiveness.

From my heart, I forgive you for whatever you did, intentional or not.
May you be happy, free of confusion and understand yourself and the world.
Please forgive me for whatever I did to you, intentional or unintentional.
May we open our hearts and minds to meet in love and understanding.

Feel the warmth of healing between you.

Source: these meditations came from http://viewonbuddhism.org

What Work Is by Philip Levine : The Poetry Foundation

2011-06-24T10:42:00.000-04:00

What Work Is by Philip Levine : The Poetry Foundation
"You know what work is—if you’re
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it."
(full poem at link)

30 Day Photography Challenge

2011-06-23T14:55:00.001-04:00

I love this, from White Peach Photography on Pinterest.com:

Source: whitepeachphoto.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

I love Pinterest. If you're there, let's hook up. Here's my profile.

free images online (a list of links)

2011-03-31T15:00:00.002-04:00

I got this from a work mailing list. Always check copyright and usage information for all media you use.

Where can I get free images, art, clipart, and photographs?

U.S. Government Photos and Images
Public image free library
Jupiter Images, royalty free imagery
Creative Commons (also has music)
National Science Foundation
Microsoft Office Online Clip Art, images and media – generally royalty free
VA Public Affairs Resources (intranet)
National Library of Medicine

Where can I find Military (veterans) Clip Art?

http://www.hqda.army.mil/aoguide/clipart.htm
http://sill-www.army.mil/Graphics/clipart_library.htm
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-mm.htm#clip
http://www.bayonet.net/clip_art/index_graphics.html
http://www.smartdraw.com/
http://www.navy.mil/view_galleries.asp
http://www.defenseimagery.mil/index.htm

Also:
Defense Video and Imagery Distribution System
http://www.dvidshub.net/
DefenseLink (click on Photos/Videos)
http://www.defense.gov/multimedia/

U.S. Army Women’s Museum
http://www.awm.lee.army.mil/

Where can I find other military photographs?

DoD Joint Combat Camera Center
http://dodimagery.afis.osd.mil/

DoD News Photos
http://www.dod.mil/photos/

Air Force
http://www.af.mil/photos/

National Archives
http://www.archives.gov/research/formats/photos.html
http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/ (select "limit to digital copies" to filter only the stuff available online)
http://www.archives.gov/research/search/
(Right now, this is a prototype of the Online Public Access database so it's in development)

Army Corps of Engineers Digital Visual Library
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/DVL/default.aspx

Center of Military History
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/art/A&I/Photos.htm
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-dvic.htm

Where can I find satellite images?

http://msrmaps.com/Default.aspx

Where can I find pictures of flags?

World Flag Database
http://www.flags.net/

Flags of the World
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/

Where can I find maps? (Site with many links to map sources)

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/map_sites/map_sites.html

Where can I find high end professional photos and clip art for purchase?

Try a stock image collections like iStock and Getty Images. Check to see if they are authorized for purchase card.
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=11898779
http://www.digitaljuice.com/

Does Wikipedia have clip art?

Yes, Wikipedia has lots royalty free and copyrighted material.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Creative Commons

The National Archives, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, and NASA participate in the Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/commons and have their own Flickr photostreams.

Royalty Free Icons and Clipart Stock Images

http://icons.mysitemyway.com/

Free Flash files

Free Flash files
http://www.flashxml.net/
Flash Interactivity basics
http://ittraining.iu.edu/workshops/flinb/

Trust

2011-03-28T22:28:00.002-04:00

Trust, originally uploaded by UnforgetFire.

"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." ~Ernest Hemingway

photos of DC

2011-03-21T22:54:00.000-04:00

WWII Memorial

Korean War Memorial

Vietnam Memorial

Washington Monument

Signs of spring!

They're everywhere.

Maybe if I share the path...

2011-03-17T06:00:00.001-04:00

source unknown

“Maybe if I share the path I walk then a little more of your pain will vanish. I want you to heal, whoever you are. I don't care what pain you've brought the world, I just want yours to subside. No matter what, your path is yours. Dont follow misery or worry. Devote every moment of your life to improving your dreams. Love your world. Cherish the good you do. Let go of hatred. Dream of love.” Unknown

Don't prod or poke.

2011-03-15T06:00:00.003-04:00

(Turtle pic from Aqualand Pets Plus)

“To find out what others are feeling, don't prod or poke. If you want play with a turtle, you can't get it to come out of its shell by prodding and poking it with a stick, you might kill it. Be gentle not harsh, hard or forceful.” ~ Unknown

Never apologize for showing feeling...

2011-03-13T14:27:00.000-04:00

Deep in Thought by Fay Shutzer

“Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.” ~Benjamin Disraeli

soul mates

2011-02-28T21:49:00.000-05:00

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. A soul mate's purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so out of control that you have to transform your life.” - Elizabeth Gilbert

I got this from the fantastic blog Life in Quotations.

we know what we want, even when we hide it from ourselves...

2011-02-21T22:00:00.001-05:00

"...what I'm saying is that we know what we want and we will do what we have to do to get what we want even if in order to get what we want we must keep our true motives hidden from ourselves and others." Cary Tennis

I googled you, by Yahia Lababidi

2011-02-13T12:36:00.002-05:00

I googled you
by Yahìa Lababidi

To all those I dearly love,
but for the sake of my sanity
must avoid or cannot afford
to see in person, or even speak to:
Yes, I did, I googled you.

Amid the shipwreck on the world wide waters
I found precious little flotsam bearing your name
a blurry picture here, some garbled voice there
still it was enough for me to summon you
create a history and sense of belonging

Of you, there is always far too much afloat
your smiling face like a cardboard cutout
that everybody poses with at the fair
yet occasionally there will be a rare find
and I'll feel we spent an intimate afternoon

You, I check in with periodically,
your news and views surface in installments
that I rearrange to better remember
not how you are now but as I knew you then
when we laughed hard and you were my heart's friend

All of you I miss as I trace your outlines
through the one-way mirror of my monitor
and when I shut down, you remain with me
as pulsing presence and urmurs in my blood
(thanks to that intravenous internet injection).

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Yahìa Lababidi, a Lebanese-Egyptian, came to the U.S. to attend George Washington University. After graduation he returned to Egypt and worked as an editor/speechwriter for the United Nations. After nearly ten years, he returned to the U.S. and now lives in Silver Spring.

About the decision to leave his native country, he says, "I needed to change my life before it changed me. . . I needed to get out, try something entirely different, and challenge myself with new ways of being."

While he speaks fluent Arabic, English is the only language he writes in. His work appears in "Agni," "Cimarron Review," "RainTaxi," and other publications. He is the author of "Signposts to Elsewhere" (Jane Street Press, 2008), Trial by Ink: From Nietzsche to Belly Dancing,(Common Ground Publishing, 2010) and a chapbook, "Fever Dreams" (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2010).

Excerpt from the Takoma Voice (Vox Poetica section, February 2011 issue, pg. 35)

Love after Love

2011-02-02T13:33:00.002-05:00

Love hurts - hole heartedly!!!, originally uploaded by ruchit05.

“Love after Love”
by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

"When I begin..."

2011-02-01T17:22:00.001-05:00

Vail Henry

"When I begin a creative task, I like to nudge myself toward insanity. Eyes curling up, mouth ready to bite, I spin and disorient my thoughts. Art requires my emotional presence in face of absurdity. I relinquish part of myself to what is nonsensical. This is an act of immense trust—or of an unstable mindset. But without this disconnection, I can only see the banalities of what is—never the wonder of what might be." ~Vail Henry

self-portrait: in the snow

2011-01-30T22:15:00.001-05:00

This photo was actually taken during LAST year's epic 2-foot snowmageddon but I wanted to post it out of inspiration from last night's uncontrolled driveway ice skid which involved a bag of shaken (but unharmed!) groceries and front row viewing for some very amused neighbors. That performance almost rivaled the graceful descent down icy steps I exhibited a few days earlier. (Hmm, I see a pattern... maybe a photo collage: "Graceful Descents, by Holly Russo" - heh.) Snow is everywhere!

This means being wrong about some things.

2011-01-27T05:00:00.000-05:00

Bird Sunset Crop, originally uploaded by Sven1976.

"When new knowledge comes, we have to make room for it; we have to part with old knowledge; that means admitting that we were wrong about certain things. Part of this new knowledge may involve seeing how you were taught to allow people to treat you badly and not to speak up for yourself. I am not saying that you deserve what happened. I am saying that all of us are taught disempowering habits of cultural accommodation, and as we grow and get knocked around we have to examine them and learn how to protect ourselves. If you examine the social behaviors you were taught as a young child, and the belief system you carried into adulthood, you may find the cruel habits of those around you mirrored in your own psyche. That can be painful. But it is one of the only sure routes to change." - Cary Tennis

Where there's snow, there's amoebic dysentery

2011-01-26T19:00:00.000-05:00

Proof that, "Where there's snow, there's amoebic dysentery." @plumbob78

I am at heart a savage.

2011-01-25T05:00:00.004-05:00

"If I were to say the first thing that comes to mind, the easiest thing, the most honest, deeply felt thing, I would be saying "fuck you" all day long. I am full of fuck-you. I am at heart a savage. So I must wait for the fuckyou to pass so I can say, Excuse me, ma'am, may I have a dinner roll?" Cary Tennis

I call this piece "my graceful descent."

2011-01-24T21:01:00.005-05:00

The second in my self-portrait series, I call this piece "my graceful descent."

I call this piece "my graceful descent downhill.", originally uploaded by spleeness.
Click to enlarge -- see the grace and composure up close!

This is an old (extinct) volcano called SP Crater in Northern Arizona, about 25 miles away from Flagstaff. It's 820 feet high and took about 2.5 hours to climb to the top because the soil is so difficult to gather a good footing. This photo documents the graceful journey I made up and down its rocky, slippery sides. Isn't my grace inspiring?

Why is it called SP Crater?

C. J. Babbit, an 1880s rancher and early landowner of the mountain, expressed his opinion that the mountain resembled a pot of excrement (Shit Pot), and this became the accepted local name. When viewed from certain angles on the ground, the combination of the smooth round shape of the cone, the dark lava spatter on the rim, and the long dark lava flow extruding from the base do indeed resemble a toilet catastrophe.

Sorry you asked? :) Read more about SP Crater.

New addition: self-portraits. Enter simple joy

2011-01-23T19:53:00.000-05:00

Inspired by photographers who post artistic self-portraits (like Katie West and Retrogradation (nudity alert: NSFW), I figured I would try this sometimes too. I find myself particularly drawn to photos that seem to tell a story rather than just "model" shots -- I like the idea of building circumstances around a scene: what are they thinking? What are they doing? -- and hope to play with this a bit. Patrick Calder does this too, but with other people, not self-portraits. His shots depict people doing things, a moment frozen in time. It's simply lovely.

I took this Saturday:

black & white: "simple joy"

I can almost hear you saying: "Maybe she is joyful because she's NOT folding the pile of laundry in the background?" lol!

Be mindful today of the human race.

2011-01-20T05:00:00.001-05:00

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." - Albert Einstein

What do photoshop filters do?

2011-01-19T20:02:00.004-05:00

When I first started poking around in Photoshop a while ago, I wondered what all the various filters DID. How did they alter pictures? What effects did they have? (And what right do I have digitally-manipulating everything anyway? Doesn't that make me a crappy photographer? Well, if you're a purist, probably, but I get into that more later....)

For now, here are some examples.

Photoshop Filters, visualized

THIS photo (which is actually harshly overlit and pretty boring) turned into a pretty image with some easy clicks. Here's the original:

Original photo: BORING.

1. Glowing Edges Filter:

(Select "Filter," "Stylize," then "Glowing Edges")

2. Ink Outlines Filter:
Enlarge to see how each petal has a handtouched quality now.

(Select "Filter," "Brush Stroke," then "Ink Outlines")

3. Photocopy Filter:
You can alter the color by changing the foreground and background. I used red & white:

(Select "Filter," "Sketch," then "Photocopy")

4. Stamp Filter
I can almost see this as hotel bathroom wallpaper or curtains (which can sound either delightful or repulsive depending on your taste).

(Select "Filter," "Sketch," then "Stamp")

Each filter has slider bars so you can adjust the results as you like. I love playing around with the options.

So, this question has come up before and I've been thinking about it.

Is it wrong to Photoshop your photos?

I have mixed feelings about digitally manipulating my pictures. I have enormous respect for photographers who don't -- they're so good they don't need to. Or maybe they're also more moral or steadfast to honor the authenticity of their photos. However, I alter mine.

Purists find this loathsome. But I'm not out for any contest. I do it for fun. If I found equal enjoyment picking up lint balls or cooking, whatever, right? I'm not touting grand claims. Mine is the quiet contentment of the pleasurably-immersed.

Most of the time I only alter levels (which adjusts contrast) but Photoshop rocks -- the watercolor filter is my favorite.

Photographer vs. Designer

I don't call myself a photographer (notice this is an art journal?) but I do call myself a designer. I guess that's what designers DO: we fuss with things until they look nice. (Yes, "nice" is subjective.) Interior designers don't create sofas and pillows and rugs but rather arrange them until aesthetically-pleasing.

I design myself too -- each morning I step out of the shower and commence a very primate-like grooming ritual involving hairdryers and curlers and makeup and a large boar-bristle brush.

Buildings in vibrant downtowns which are cleaned regularly don't attain the muddy (yet authentic) flat grime of ghettos. Manicured lawns, assembled by ambitious suburban neighbors, look very different then natural meadows. Yes, much of society is designed.

So, I continue to appreciate both art and design, and thank you for stopping by for a peak.

ps. I have fake plants. ;)

If you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.

2011-01-18T17:00:00.007-05:00

From the NOAA image library

"I hate cynicism. It's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen." ~Conan O'Brien

A time to let go.

2011-01-14T18:10:00.001-05:00

Photo: Vincent Jacques Skyshows
Obtained from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day,
January 13, 2009

"Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over." ~Gloria Naylor

"during my eight months underwater..."

2011-01-13T05:00:00.002-05:00

From the NOAA Image Library

"I spent a lot of time trying to convince people I was suffering during my eight months underwater, and I still don't feel completely as if my claims to it are believed, but when that pulse point is hit, I suffer. I suffer in an acute sense -- in the wolves-down-the-hill, sun-exploding, bone-crushing, empire-falling way that innocent people suffer when evils are visited upon them without provocation or reason. I feel all the injustice and betrayal of their act rushing through my skin. It's bad. Sometimes I lie still and can't move." From a reader to Cary Tennis's column

...they are dying before the steel javelins and arrows of...

2011-01-11T05:00:00.003-05:00

Stormclouds rising in Flagstaff

‎"I mean no particular dream, you understand, but the whole radiant flock of them together—with their rainbow wings, iridescent, bright, soaring, glorious, sublime. They are dying before the steel javelins and arrows of a world of Time and Money." -Barbara Follett

"More darkly, the steadily-diminishing pile of cheerfully-wrapped candies..."

2011-01-09T17:00:00.001-05:00

"Even as a minimalist, Felix Gonzalez-Torres also had a whimsical, humanistic side that showed the influences of pop art on his installations. In this "portrait" of his deceased partner, Ross Laycock, Gonzalez-Torres created a spill of candies that approximated Ross's weight (175 lbs.) when he was healthy. Viewers are invited to take away a candy until the mound gradually disappears; it is then replenished, and the cycle of life and death continues. While Gonzalez-Torres wanted the viewer/participant to partake of the sweetness of his own relationship with Ross, the candy spill also works as an act of communion. More darkly, the steadily-diminishing pile of cheerfully-wrapped candies shows the dissolution of the gay community as society ignored the AIDS epidemic. In the moment that the candy dissolves in the viewer's mouth, the participant also receives a shock of recognition at his or her complicity in Ross's demise."

From the National Portrait Gallery's exhibit "Hide and Seek: Differences and Desire in American Portraiture" (the AIDS theme). Hours 11:30-7pm, Free, this particular exhibit closes Feb. 13th.

Accessible via Green Line off the Gallery Place metro stop, Washington DC (follow the "exit to Galleries"sign when leaving metro station).

We are tested when we least expect it.

2011-01-06T05:00:00.003-05:00

Flagstaff, Arizona sunset, watercolor filter applied

"We assume we will behave well when tested. But we are tested when we least expect it -- in the middle of the night, in an unfamiliar area, when we are weak or distracted or afraid. If we could study first, we might perform better. But we are never prepared for life's biggest tests." ~Cary Tennis

compassion

2011-01-04T05:00:00.003-05:00

Purple flowers in Flagstaff, AZ

“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.” ~Frederick Buechner

Happy New Year! Wherever you are, it's ok.

2011-01-03T05:00:00.001-05:00

Dove from a farm in Kentucky, watercolor filter applied

"I don't think we need to magically be in a great place at the end of a year. Or magically know our goals to start off a new year. I think, sometimes, that it's already magical that every day we wake up with the strong belief that we can make things better." Penelope Trunk (from Top Posts of 2009 (sort of) [This quote is way at the bottom of the post] )

To love at all is to be vulnerable.

2011-01-02T16:04:00.000-05:00

I took this on a hike during monsoon season in Sedona, AZ, 2009.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket -- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” ~C.S. Lewis

"In the city of stone..."

2010-12-22T17:01:00.000-05:00

"In the city of stone, seeking the wisdom of those too soon changed to angels when they were far from home." ~ J. Higgins

Be gentle with yourself.

2010-11-24T19:45:00.001-05:00

(I took this photo today with my phone
through large glass windows at work.)

“Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun. Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices no more easily made. And give, give in any way you can, of whatever you posses. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.”
~Kent Nerburn

After a while...

2010-11-19T09:35:00.000-05:00

This quote, from Kier's blog, touched me:

Petunias with 'palette knife' filter applied.
“After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul, and you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t mean security, and you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises, and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child, and you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans. After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure… that you really are strong, and you really do have worth.”

~Veronica A. Shoffstall

...the rust of life.

2010-11-12T10:19:00.000-05:00

(Taken summer, 2010.)

"Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power. A childlike and abiding trust in Providence is its best preventive and remedy."
~Tryon Edwards

As is bitterness (at least that's what I would add if it were my quote).

We are all mark makers.

2010-11-04T22:38:00.001-04:00

Scribbles after my new art class... learning to see.

"Drawings are not simply things to look at; they are a direct form of positive communication. Part of the reason they communicate so directly is that drawing belongs to everyone. Acts of drawing occur all the time -- someone applying eyeliner, doodling whilst on the phone, or making someone a map on the back of an envelope. We are all mark makers."

Tonia Kovats
Traces of Thought and Intimacy

autumn

2010-10-31T21:45:00.001-04:00

Photo from Reed Page.

"Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn."
~Elizabeth Lawrence

Complexity

2010-10-28T11:26:00.002-04:00

Stonewall Peak 06, originally uploaded by GeekHiker.

"The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity." ~Douglas Horton

Freedom

2010-10-27T20:18:00.002-04:00

First Flight, originally uploaded by Fort Photo.

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” Gandhi

How I Became a Madman, by Khalil Gibran

2010-10-05T15:31:00.003-04:00

Photo by Bruce Hiner

How I Became a Madman, by Khalil Gibran

You ask me how I became a madman. It
happened thus: One day, long before
many gods were born, I woke from a deep
sleep and found all my masks were stolen,
--the seven masks I have fashioned and
worn in seven lives,--I ran maskless
through the crowded streets shouting,
"Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves."

Men and women laughed at me and
some ran to their houses in fear of me.

And when I reached the market place, a
youth standing on a house-top cried, "He
is a madman." I looked up to behold
him; the sun kissed my own naked face for
the first time. For the first time the sun
kissed my own naked face and my soul was
inflamed with love for the sun, and I
wanted my masks no more. And as if in a
trance I cried, "Blessed, blessed are the
thieves who stole my masks."

Thus I became a madman.

And I have found both freedom and
safety in my madness; the freedom of lone-
liness and the safety from being under-
stood, for those who understand us enslave
something in us.

But let me not be too proud of my
safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe
from another thief.

aquarium photo shoot

2010-09-29T21:42:00.000-04:00

Some shots from the Baltimore Aquarium. I love their spectacular jellyfish exhibit.

Hope

2010-08-29T22:36:00.001-04:00

“Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent.” Mignon McLaughlin

meet the planets...

2010-08-18T21:56:00.000-04:00

"My work is a way for me to go to the planets without the physical trip, and to meet myself when I get there." Paula Rice

This collection hails from a planetary art exhibit at Lowell Observatory during the summer of 2009, in Flagstaff, Arizona. Entitled "The Planet Series: Figurative Interpretations of the Planets Around the Sun -- A Sculpture Project" by artist and professor Paula Rice, evoking the human sense of the mysterious and desire to grasp the universe surrounding us.

The newspaper of Northern Arizona University (NAU) describes her work as:

Rice’s humanlike planets not only set out to capture her experience of the universe as “loving, intelligent and harmonious,” they also incorporate the empirical evidence of planet surfaces provided through photos from the Hubble Telescope.

“My new work is a way for me to imagine a reality incomprehensively vast and bring it down to human size,” Rice explained. “The series is about us here on Earth. For the first time in human history, our sense of place and the size of our imaginations have to stretch to include new information about these worlds.”

She said each ceramic planet features new landscape and surface information from the space photography.

I visited this art exhibit and fell in love with the Greek-like forms of planets as human figures. The text below each photo was taken from the exhibit itself.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mercury
Ceramic; oxidation-fired and smoked

Mercury is the closest planet to the sun and the smallest of all the planets in our Solar System. Its surface is pocked with impact craters. Mercury is a world of fire and ice, with temperatures reaching 750 degrees Fahrenheit (400 degrees Celsius) during the daytime, and dropping down to -200 degrees Fahrenheit (-129 degrees Celsius) during the planet's long nights.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Venus
with Asteroid
Ceramic and cast iron; oxidation-fired and smoked

Known as Earth's sister planet, Venus compares with our home planet only in size and mass. Our closest planetary neighbor is shrouded in a dense cloud cover containing sulfuric acid droplets and an atmosphere that consists almost entirely of unbreathable carbon dioxide. These clouds produce a greenhouse effect that drives temperatures to an average of 900 degrees Fahrenheit (483 degrees Celsius).

Most features on Venus are named for real and mythical women; examples are craters Eve, Sacagawea and Cleopatra.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Earth
Ceramic with glazes; metal; oxidation-fired and smoked

The third planet from the Sun is the only body in the Solar System where water exists in all three phases: solid, liquid and gas. Two-thirds of the Earth is covered with water, but even the driest deserts on our home planet harbor life.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mars
Ceramic with glaze; oxidation-fired and smoked

The most-studied planet in the Solar System, Mars is both familiar to us and mysterious. Streaky markings and dusky patches change with the Martian seasons; dust storms occasionally cover the entire planet. Water was once abundant on the Red Planet, as indicated by ancient shorelines, channels and lakebeds.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jupiter
Ceramic with slips and glazes; oxidation-fired and smoked

This giant among the planets is eleven times the diameter of Earth. Its hydrogen and helium composition, in combination with other elements, lends vivid colors to Jupiter's dense clouds. The Great Red Spot, a huge whirling cloud system, has been in existence for at least several hundred years. The four largest of Jupiter's 63 known moons (called the Galilean moons) can be seen with binoculars from Earth.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Saturn
Ceramic with lusters; fiberglass (by Ivan Bronston); oxidation-fired

Like Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, Saturn is gaseous with no solid surface. It is characterized by its brilliant rings, a complex system comprised of billions of chunks of ice, each in its own orbit around the planet. Its average density is less than that of water; in a large enough ocean, Saturn would float.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Uranus
Ceramic; fiberglass (by Ivan Bronston)

The first planet discovered with a telescope, Uranus is twice as far from the Sun as Saturn and four times larger than Earth. Methane gas imparts a greenish-blue color to an almost featureless globe. Uranus and its ring system are "tipped over," likely the result of a cosmic collision billions of years ago.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Neptune
Ceramic with underglazes and glazes; fiberglass (by Ivan Bronston); oxidation fired

Although similar in size and composition to Uranus, Neptune reveals unique features. High winds drive prominent cloud belts and blue storm systems around the planet. Like the other gas giants, Neptune has a ring system and many moons.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Pluto
with Kuiper Belt Objects
Stoneware with underglazes and glazes

Pluto was discovered in 1930 at Lowell Observatory by Clyde Tombaugh, a young research assistant. It was officially reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Small, cold, and icy, Pluto orbits the Sun on the fringes of the Solar System along with thousands of Kuiper Belt Objects.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

More information about Paula Rice's planetary series -->

Sometimes courage is the quiet voice...

2010-08-18T06:00:00.000-04:00

I took this at Fort Ebey, Whidbey Island, Washington State, 2009

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.”

~Mary Anne Radmacher

she likes to read

2010-08-17T18:53:00.003-04:00

she likes to read, originally uploaded by dinerdog.

“A book is good company. It is full of conversation without loquacity. It comes to your longing with full instruction, but pursues you never.” Henry Ward Beecher

“It seems to me we can never give up longing..."

2010-08-16T13:09:00.006-04:00

Stump of petrified wood (stone, now, in the shape of a stump), Petrified Forest on a cloudy day. Before I visited here (this was taken in 2009), I thought I might see some standing trees too, but not so much.

“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.”
~ George Eliot

All changes have their melancholy...

2010-08-13T09:49:00.004-04:00

I took this at the golden hour on the way from the
Petrified Forest to the Painted Desert, 2009.

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy, for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another."

~ Anatole France

The trouble is, if you don't risk anything...

2010-08-07T13:29:00.003-04:00

Sunrise in the Everglades
Photo by Richard Frear, National Park Service
Credit: NOAA Image Library

"Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. . . . It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."

~ Erica Jong

"There is heat in freezing..." (How to Be Alone poem)

2010-08-06T18:17:00.004-04:00

How to Be Alone
Tanya Davis

If you are at first lonely, be patient.

If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find its fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.

We can start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library, where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books, your not suppose to talk much anyway so its safe there.

There is also the gym, if your shy, you can hang out with yourself and mirrors, you can put headphones in.

Then there’s public transportation, because we all gotta go places.

And there’s prayer and mediation, no one will think less if your hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously avoided based on your avoid being alone principles.

The lunch counter, where you will be surrounded by “chow downers”, employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town, and they, like you, will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with “eat lunch and run”, take yourself out for dinner; a restaurant with linen and silver wear. You’re no less an intriguing a person when you are eating solo desert and cleaning the whip cream from the dish with your finger. In fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it’s dark and soothing, alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.

And then take yourself out dancing, to a club where no one knows you, stand on the outside of the floor until the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no ones watching because they’re probably not. And if they are, assume it is with best human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats, is after-all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you’re sweating. And beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things. Down your back, like a book of blessings.
On LYBIO.net you can find - The Largest community of social networking with text-script-video blogging service. http://www.lybio.net

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you. Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, they are always statues to talk to, and benches made for sitting gives strangers a shared existence if only for a minute, and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversation you get in by sitting alone on benches, might of never happened had you not been there by yourself. SOURCE: LYBIO.net. Copyrights: Tanya Davis

Society is afraid of alone though. Like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements. Like people must have problems if after awhile nobody is dating them.

But lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless, and lonely is healing if you make it.

You can stand swaffed by groups and mobs or hands with your partner, look both further and farther in the endless quest for company.

But no one is in your head. And by the time you translate your thoughts an essence of them maybe lost or perhaps it is just kept. Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from pre-school over to high school groaning, we’re tokens for holding the lonely at bay.

Cause if you’re happy in your head, then solitude is blessed, and alone is okay.

It’s okay if no one believes like you, all experiences unique, no one has the same synapses, can’t think like you, for this be relived, keeps things interesting, life’s magic brings much, and it doesn’t mean you aren’t connected, and the community is not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it.

Take silence and respect it.

If you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it, if your family doesn’t get you or a religious sect is not meant for you, don’t obsess about it.

You could be in an instant surrounded if you need it.

If your heart is bleeding, make the best of it.

There is heat in freezing, be a testimate.

Many of us spend our whole lives...

2010-08-05T22:57:00.005-04:00

I took this photo of yellow flowers in Arizona last August
(and applied a watercolor effect).

"Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond the pain."

~ St. Bartholomew

This being human...

2010-08-05T13:01:00.003-04:00

Noctiluminescent Clouds, taken by Astronaut Ed Lu
Image from NASA's Earth Observatory

"This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all!.....He may be clearing you out for some new delight. "

Rumi- full poem here.

Thanks to Chelsea, for posting this beautiful snippet on her blog and inspiring me to share it too.

Start now. (Right now? Well, sure, why not?)

2010-07-25T23:49:00.003-04:00

I took this in Arches National Park, May 2009. -Holly

"You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down but the staying down."

Mary Pickford

Fantastic photos of lightning

2010-07-22T23:14:00.005-04:00

The reason lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place is that the same place isn't there the second time.
~Willie Tyler

Inspired by recent summer thunderstorms, I went to Flickr to look up some of its most striking lightning photos (like my reverse pun? ;). Here are my favorites, condensed from 15 pages of pictures. I specifically chose photos that were not too manipulated; some shots were incredible but consisted of multiple lightning strikes condensed from various layers into one image, which, though incredibly-impressive, didn't truly represent the storm. (At least most photographers seem very honest about their methods of capture and editing and thus mentioned when photos were altered, so this wasn't difficult.)

Clicking on a photo will take you to the original source on Flickr; each photographer is credited (by their Flickr name), and locations, if known, are given.

Onward into the storm!

Florida west coast, by Duane Schoon

Cloud-to-ground lightning over Waratah Bay. (South East Victoria, Australia), by Diamond Hoo Ha Man

Lightning in Perhentian Island, Terengganu, Malaysia, by Fadzly @ Shutterhack.

Lightning on the Columbia River, by phatman. "In the middle of the night we had a lightning storm, so I decided the smart thing to do was to go take pictures of it. Little did I know the lightning was less than a mile away; the strike you see here was certainly hitting the water. The sound of thunder followed almost immediately."

Lightning crossing the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. Looking down the St. Croix River towards the I-94 bridge from Hudson, WI. Image by ottergoose.

Louisiana coast lightning strike, by Philip Schexnayder.

Lightning striking near the Hampton Roads Tunnel by shoebappa

Lightning Striking Pinnacle Peak Mountain, Arizona. North Scottsdale. Maricopa County. High sonoran desert, by striking_photography

Navajo Indian Rock house with lightning striking behind, also by striking_photography

by DDFic (Dayton, Ohio?)

Lightning photographed in central Oklahoma in May 2001 driving back from a day of storm chasing in the Texas Panhandle, by michaeljames ("you can see that the stroke easily overexposed the film in places." <-- still a neat shot.)
Lightning strikes off the Surfside Beach Pier in Surfside Beach, South Carolina, by Paul Cory

Lightning strike in field in Wyoming, by cultr.sun

Lightning in Thailand, by Petri Lopia

cavemanz (Larry Zimmer) (location unknown)

A poet is a man who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times.
~Randall Jarrell

Double Rainbow with Lightning

2010-07-20T14:56:00.003-04:00

Double Rainbow with Lightning, originally uploaded by tenfrozentoes.

"Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity." ~Joseph Addison

beautiful photo of a crab, from Photog NV

2010-07-07T15:03:00.003-04:00

Tango waving hello to friends on the internet, originally uploaded by Nguyet.Vuong.

From Nguyet Vuong on Flickr, I loved this beautiful photo of their crab Tango, waving.

The moment you feel, you're nobody but yourself.

2010-06-29T21:17:00.001-04:00

Me when Tycho was a pup.

A Poet’s Advice
E. E. cummings

A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feeling through words.

This may sound easy. It isn't.

A lot of people think or believe or know they feel - but that's thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling - not knowing or believing or thinking.

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.

To be nobody-but-yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn't a poet can possibly imagine. Why?

Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time - and whenever we do it, we are not poets.

If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you've written one line of one poem, you'll be very lucky indeed.

And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world - unless you're not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.

Does this sound dismal? It isn't.

It's the most wonderful life on earth.

Or so I feel.

...art can be like a new tongue...

2010-06-25T13:05:00.000-04:00

courtesy Postsecret

"...art can be like a new tongue that allows us to speak and pray in ways that might otherwise be impossible. And if we listen, we may come to understand that we are always on our spiritual journey -- even when we feel most lost."

Frank Warren, founder of PostSecret

courtesy Postsecret

Man can live about forty days without food...

2010-06-14T20:56:00.004-04:00

I took this photo in Arizona & experimented with watercolor effects.

“Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope”

Author unknown

Our shadow lives inform us.

2010-06-01T21:44:00.005-04:00

Arches National Park, May 2009, (c) Holly Russo

"In our emotional lives, we are often the people that we cannot be in public. We are children; we are soldiers; we are murderers; we are vengeful judge and jury. Or helpless victim. Or whatever. Choose your shadow. We lead shadow lives. And these shadow lives inform us; they are very much who we are. So we must acknowledge them." ~ Cary Tennis

Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy.

2010-05-31T22:52:00.003-04:00

Caribbean rain cloud
(taken in Cozumel, Mexico)

"Maybe we're not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy. Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes simply to be human. Maybe we're thankful for the familiar things we know. And maybe we're thankful for the things we'll never know. At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate."

~Meredith Grey

Flowers, cupcakes and the shrubbery of doom...

2010-05-27T23:59:00.000-04:00

Today's theme is: photography of flowers in my yard, when I am not eating cupcakes (scroll for the orchids on the table at Georgetown Cupcake!) or wandering around Washington DC.

Blogger bestie Mirella McCracken (left) and I
on the steps outside the National Archives, Washington DC.

Butterfly bush buds.

Backside of pansy petals.

Tiny white flowers from an unknown bush (B&W photo).

Hyacinths.

Rose with Photoshop's "Paint Daubs" filter applied.

Tiny fruits next to tiny leaves on a not-so-tiny shrub.

Orchids on the table at Georgetown Cupcake
(*highly* recommended, btw... most awesome cupcakes on the planet!)

Just a fun pic - can you believe how many people are on line?
44!! I counted. But psht, those cupcakes were worth it!

The National Cathedral, Washington, DC
(which I passed on the way to Georgetown for cupcakes!
Can you tell what the highlight of the day was? heh.)

Pansies, taken with iPhone.

Lily, taken with iPhone, also with "paint daubs" filter.

I'm not sure what this is but found it in the front yard. Looks like a scallion growing upward. I'm pretty sure it's a "weed" but heck, even roses would be considered weeds if unwanted, so I hesitate to denigrate what looks like an interesting plant.

And now a video for you that I found from YouTube: How to properly destroy the shrubbery of doom:

Thanks for stopping by! May your shrubbery welcome you home. :)

Colorful and entrancing macros by Photographer Debra Wall

2010-05-25T15:27:00.006-04:00

I am simply enamored. I want to take photos like this someday. Check out photographer Debra Wall's Flickr photo set - she has over 70 stunning photos in her beautiful collection, like these (and many more):

Dogwood by Debra Wall

Lily Stamen by Debra Wall

Daisy by Debra Wall

India Bangles by Debra Wall

Metal Leaf by Debra Wall

Marigold (?) by Debra Wall

Lily's Beads by Debra Wall

We are here to...

2010-05-14T16:05:00.004-04:00

I took this photo of seed pods at Fort Ebey,
Whidbey Island, Washington.

"We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bullsh--. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed!"

—Nicolas Cage to Cher in Moonstruck

Be kind anyway.

2010-05-03T12:06:00.003-04:00

Tulip Innards, taken with Canon Powershot SD 1100 IS.

I'm not religious but I saw this and fell in love with the sentiment anyway:

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.
Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.
Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.
Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.
Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

~Mother Teresa

... it is still a beautiful world (Desiderata, by Max Ehrmann)

2010-04-28T11:01:00.008-04:00

Death Valley Flowers, 2007

Desiderata
by Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Powerful pictures of nudes

2010-04-26T23:30:00.004-04:00

Sascha Hüttenhain

Beauty is an experience, nothing else. It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement of features. It is something felt, a glow or a communicated sense of fineness.

~D. H. Lawrence

Living beings are wondrous, are they not? I set out to establish a collection of artistic representations of the body as a type of gratitude for the vessels that hold us. For every moment I ever berated my thighs for not looking perfect, have I ever thanked them for carrying me through my days? Embarking on this journey was a way for me to celebrate the body and display the myriad ways they express our inner states.

It took me hours of poring through many incredible works of art and photography to assemble a collection I thought avoided cliche sexual poses and stereotypes (seriously -- do a search on "artistic nudes" and you'll see what I mean). I wanted to capture moments of reflection and honesty; the self with clothes and cloaking stripped away and only the posture serving as the prominent way to express mood. I especially targeted artistic photos and skilled sketches with a compelling and candid nature to exhibit the innumerable forms of beauty.

This set has limitations, however. These are all takes on the female body, for now, but I hope to grow this collection and include additional examples. If you have a photo or sketch to recommend, please let me know: hollyrusso@yahoo.com (or comment below).

Thank you to the artists who created such captivating pieces. I have included links to the original source along with the artist's name, if known, if you'd like to learn more about their work.

Thomas Shahan

A picture is a poem without words. ~Horace

artist unknown

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. ~Thomas Merton

Corban Renouf

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nguyet Vuong

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. ~Twyla Tharp

Zhaoming Wu

A trembling in the bones may carry a more convincing testimony than the dry documented deductions of the brain. ~Llewelyn Powers

Kelly Borsheim

We don't stop at our skin. ~Dolores Krieger

Daniel-Peci Daniel Peci

Flesh goes on pleasuring us, and humiliating us, right to the end. ~Mignon McLaughlin

Vicente Manansala

I don't believe in an art that is not born out of man's need to open his heart. ~Edvard Munch

River Clark

Body and mind, like man and wife, do not always agree to die together. ~Charles Caleb Colton

Linda Wooliever

A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires. ~Hedy Lamarr

xdorjex

It is not beauty that endears, it's love that makes us see beauty. ~Tolstoy

Danny O'Connor

Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness. ~George Jean Nathan

Jeffrey Richter

Making a decision to have a child--it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone

Alli Jiang

Beauty pleases the eyes only; Sweetness of disposition charms the soul. ~Voltaire

From Burning Man

A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears. ~Gertrude Stein

We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us...

2010-04-23T19:29:00.004-04:00

Paper Mill Bridge, originally uploaded by Patrick_md.

We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.
~Tom Stoppard

Bread feeds the body, indeed, but flowers feed also the soul.

2010-04-20T23:11:00.018-04:00

I love Maryland in the spring. Flowers are everywhere! I love the bursts of color, tall tulips breezing in the wind, trees in full bloom and vibrant splashes across landscapes everywhere. Here are some shots I took today.

If you've never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom. ~Terri Guillemets

Tulip innards

The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life. ~Jean Giraudoux

mid-pollination

You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet. ~Hal Borland

Flower from restaurant tabletop

Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity. ~John Ruskin

Tiny white flowers exploding from bush near front door
(black & white photo)

For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. ~Edward Abbey

Azalea bursting with color

Earth laughs in flowers. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay

Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size. ~Gertrude S. Wister

Bread feeds the body, indeed, but flowers feed also the soul. ~The Koran

Sometimes, when one person is missing...

2010-04-14T18:34:00.003-04:00

Cirrus clouds at sunset
from NOAA's photo library

In memory of my friend Karen...

I find myself struggling to find words. But I cannot. I just don't know how. And so I will attempt to express how much she meant to me through the words of others.

"Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break." ~William Shakespeare

Karen lost a fight with cancer too young and too soon.

A ridiculous thing to say, really. I don't know anyone who'd ever die and I'd think it was NOT too soon, even if they were 90. When you love someone, you want to share your time with them and when you can't... when they're taken away... it aches.

“What shocked me most was that I could no longer touch him - the swiftness of this loss was like falling off a cliff” ~Catherine Bush

The thing that struck me most when I met Karen is how she welcomed me. Some of my coworkers were meeting her for lunch shortly after she left our organization. I never worked directly with her but they invited me along. I was very new and quite shy around this unfamiliar group of people but Karen took one look at me in the restaurant and wrapped her arms around me in a warm hug. She immediately made me feel included. She truly welcomed me.

You know how sometimes you can just meet a person and right away feel so comfortable in their presence? She was that person to me.

When I met her four years ago, she'd already been diagnosed. But the outlook was hopeful and I thought she would be okay. I told myself that someone my age could not actually DIE of cancer.

We stayed in touch as she continued through her treatment. She always told me how much she appreciated my calls.

Even then she made me feel welcome.

I don't know if I ever thanked her for that.

. . .

"Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated." ~Lamartine

French translation, thanks to Mirella McCracken:
"Un seul être vous manque et le monde est depeuple."

. . .

Perfection Wasted

And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market --
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories
packed in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.

John Updike

. . .

“Every human being must find his own way to cope with severe loss, and the only job of a true friend is to facilitate whatever method he chooses” ~Caleb Carr

. . .

"...In a life truly lived, grief and loss accumulate like possessions." Stefan Kanfer

. . .

“I have learned that some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet are those who have suffered a traumatic event or loss. I admire them for their strength, but most especially for their life gratitude - a gift often taken for granted by the average person in society.” ~ Sasha Azevedo

. . .

from In Blackwater Woods, by Mary Oliver

Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.

To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:

to love what is mortal;to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

. . .

Jackson Browne - For A Dancer

Keep a fire burning in your eye
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down
I don't remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must have thought you'd always be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you're nowhere to be found

I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can't sing
I can't help listening
And I can't help feeling stupid standing 'round
Crying as they ease you down
'Cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away
(Right on dancing)
No matter what fate chooses to play
(There's nothing you can do about it anyway)

Just do the steps that you've been shown
By everyone you've ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours
Another's steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you'll do alone

Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound

Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
But you'll never know

quotes on attitude

2010-03-30T15:02:00.000-04:00

Sedona, Arizona at sunset (I took this in August 2009)

Today, I found myself thinking about attitude; the role it plays in our lives and also the effect it has on others. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

Attitudes are contagious. Are yours worth catching? ~Dennis and Wendy Mannering

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. ~Voltaire

Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left. ~Hubert Humphrey

Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day. ~Author Unknown

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts. ~Samuel Johnson

If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm. ~Vince Lombardi

When you feel dog tired at night, it may be because you've growled all day long. ~Author Unknown

I am a little deaf, a little blind, a little impotent, and on top of this are two or three abominable infirmities, but nothing destroys my hope. ~Voltaire

Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb

Surrounded by people who love life, you love it too; surrounded by people who don't, you don't. ~Mignon McLaughlin

Men who never get carried away should be. ~Malcolm Forbes

There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go. ~Frederick Faber

We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon. ~Konrad Adenauer

Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out. ~Art Linkletter

Some days there won't be a song in your heart. Sing anyway. ~Emory Austin

Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day. ~Nicholas Chamfort

I have found that if you love life, life will love you back. ~Arthur Rubinstein

Nothing is interesting if you're not interested. ~Helen MacInness

If fear alters your behavior, you're already defeated.

2010-03-29T22:23:00.000-04:00

"If fear alters your behavior, you're already defeated." Brenda Hammond

I took this photo on a dock in Coupeville, Washington (in the Puget Sound) and turned it into a digital watercolor. The first person who can help me identify this gets a free print: comment here or email me at spleeness@yahoo.com.

a visit to the butterfly exhibit

2010-02-15T16:00:00.000-05:00

Did you know the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History has a live butterfly exhibit? Using the power of Twitter, I headed down there Saturday with some new friends; here's the photo yield from our outing:

The Washington Monument at sunset