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

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.

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

Be gentle with yourself.

(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 you learn...

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

We are all mark makers.

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