Tag: mystery

Running. With Man on Wire.

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spider-web-close-up-kim-westcott

This body is 6’1″ and yet it always seems to hit me head-high. On the chin. Wraps around my forehead. Straps across the eyes, like strings of celophane plastered on the corneas. And on a bad day, at the end of a long morning run when I’m heaving, it hits me full on the mouth like strands of cotton candy, without the sweet and the color. Here, the scene would be a middle aged man who’s lost his marbles, arms waving maniacally and spitting like a machine gun.

Yet, it’s so fine. A fraction of the electrical wires slung between the poles overhead. Thinner than the monofilament fishing line I would cast in the eddies of the Kootenay river. And thinner yet, than the fiber optic cable laid across the Atlantic.

Yet on this road, this morning, this path less travelled, it was apparent that overnight he was working. At 5:15 a.m., it hit me across both eyes. A single strand. Not on the forehead. Not on the chest. Not on the knees. Not even on the neck. Not one eye, square across both eyes, as if he had a plum bob, measured me up and said: to get him, it has to be right here. 5’x” off the ground, and assume a bit of up and down motion because he’s running.

The single web line was strung across a two lane highway, to a tree on the other side. Across a two-lane highway!

How? Now that is the question(s). Continue reading “Running. With Man on Wire.” →

Lightly child, lightly.

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light, hand, mitch-cullin

To pass from the inner light to the light of the sun was not the work of the senses. A click sufficed, a slight change in point of view, like turning one’s head a hundredth part of the circle. It was enough in the end to believe. The rest came by itself.

Notes:

  • Photo:  Mitch Cullin (Temple City, California | 2011)
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

 

Lightly child, lightly.

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eric-rose-light-portrait-sun

I stop and close my eyes in order to feel rather than see. I allow the bright sunlight to shine on my face, warming it just enough to make my skin tingle. Then I start to listen. I detect the faint chirping of cardinals outside, barely audible above the clamor of hungry children and cats underfoot. The wind chimes hanging from the redbud tree in front of the house ring out from a gust of wind. They were a wedding gift, one that always touches a tender spot deep within me. It’s as if each note of the pentatonic scale connects with an invisible chamber of my heart, bringing me back to center. Then I start to hear new sounds. They are my own inner whispers, reminding me of what I want in this life. When I open my eyes, the present comes rushing back at me. I’m acutely aware of the sights, sounds, and scents swirling about at that moment yet I don’t feel defeated by them anymore. I was only gone a few seconds, but that brief amount of time gave me just enough pause to view my surroundings from a slightly different perspective. This time, I’m able to detect a blessing behind each of the messes.

~Jennifer DeVille Catalano

Notes:

  • Photo: Eric Rose. Quote: Thank you Make Believe Boutique
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

 

Lightly child, lightly.

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nature-birds-mist

It is the sense of mystery that […] drives the true scientist. […]

If he has not experienced, at least a few times in his life, this cold shudder down his spine, this confrontation with an immense, invisible face whose breath moves him to tears, he is not a scientist.

The blacker the night, the brighter the light.

~ Erwin Chargaff, a Pioneering biochemist in his book titled: Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature

Notes:

  • Photo – Your Eyes Blaze Out. Quote: Brain Pickings
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

 

It’s been a long day

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release

You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers.
You will have to live them out – perhaps a little at a time.’
And how long is that going to take?’
I don’t know. As long as you live, perhaps.’
That could be a long time.’
I will tell you a further mystery,’ he said. ‘It may take longer.”

~ Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow: A Novel

Notes: