Failure is not the falling down but the staying down. (Mary Pickford)

Arches National Park

"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

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.



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." <-- a="" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulcory/3674359686/" neat="" shot.="" still="" title="Lightning and Pier HDR2 by Paul Cory, on Flickr">
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

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 Photographer Nguyet Vuong

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.

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.