I can't sleep…
I went out before breakfast
to fill the bird feeder.
So far only jays come,
but the word will get around.
~ May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
Notes:
“Michael H. Davies took this photo on the tundra outside Pangnirtung, Nunavut, a community of about 1,400 just a few kilometres south of the Arctic circle. The photo shows local resident Markus Siivola throwing hot tea into the air as he bends backwards. In the –40 C weather, the tea freezes as soon as it’s tossed. Davies, originally from Pontypool, Ont., is a trained painter, photographer and glass blower. He has lived in Pangnirtung for about 10 years with his wife and, now, two young children.”
Source: CBC News – Nunavut tea toss photo at – 40 C proves internet gold
It’s that time again for year end awards for blogging and productivity tools:
Am I missing any apps / tools that you find are indispensable?
Notes:
Whirring notes of a varied thrush soak in through the walls of sleep. Gradually ascending toward consciousness, I struggle to remember where we are, then realize what shore these songs ring out across. As the sky pales toward sunrise, I awaken to a world of dreams.
More varied thrushes join the first, until the woods and thickets chime like a chorus of bells. Other birds blend into the medley: fox sparrow, robin, hermit thrush, winter wren, ruby-crowned kinglet, Townsend’s warbler. Their sounds are trapped and magnified in the forest, made rich and deep in the saturated air – ribbons and lacework of song, shadows and flickers of song, splinters and shards of song, and the whispered secrets of unfamiliar song.
The cove fills up with bird voices, until even the noise of surf fades to irrelevance. And what of the songs beyond this patch of shore? If we hiked down the beach or back through the woods, we would hear the same chorus, repeated endlessly, permeating the air with sweet, mingled phrases. I wonder how many thousands of birds are singing at this moment on the island alone? How many millions along the north Pacific shore? And how many billions in the curved shadow of dawn that lies along the continent’s western flank? Throughout this vast expanse the land breathes with song and pours an anthem of morning into the sky. In the flow of a summer sunrise, the living continent sings.
~ Richard Nelson, The Island Within
Inspired by Albert Einstein’s quote: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Notes:
It is interesting to observe that what (Georgia) O’Keeffe wanted to achieve was achieved from the start, and has hardly changed— the reducing of a landscape, a flower, or whatever to essence, the isolation of a powerful image which she then enlarges. Sometimes the effect is merely pictorial, and becomes banal and even sentimental (the famous skull with roses), but at her best a very few lines and blocks of color carry an explosive and mystical power. These are paintings that expand the mind, and I imagine living with one very happily.
~ May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
Source: The Red List: Georgia O’Keeffe, Red Canna, 1924