Photo-a-day: 365 April/May/June

Day 55: Knot Eye

People often say that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves.
-Salma Hayek

I can look at the knot in a piece of wood until it frightens me.
-William Blake

Day 56: My cameras, taking selfies of their lenses...

Infinite reflection.

"Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution."
-Ansel Adams

Day 57:
I am always amazed at the beauty that can be found in nature. The intricacy of the designs - tiny veins that shoot nutrients all across the organism, all working together in harmony.

Day 58:
Today, I will let The Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator speak for my work:

Critical Response to the Art Product (CRAP):
With regard to the issue of content, the sublime beauty of the sexy fish spatially undermines the inherent overspecificity.

Hmmm.... Ok. I can totally see that. The sexy fish aspect has always intrigued me.

Day 59: The Iris Fairy

Born in the purple, born to joy and pleasance,
Thou dost not toil nor spin,
But makest glad and radiant with thy presence
The meadow and the lin.
The burnished dragon-fly is thine attendant,
And tilts against the field,
And down the listed sunbeam rides resplendent
With steel-blue mail and shield.
Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest,
Who, armed with golden rod
And winged with the celestial azure, bearest
The message of some God.
Thou art the Muse, who far from crowded citiesHauntest the sylvan streams,
Playing on pipes of reed the artless ditties
That come to us as dreams.
-Excerpts from Flower-de-Luce, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Iris fairy, in honor of the irises blooming in the yard. I felt the excerpts from the poem meaningful not only in regards to the color of the iris I chose to use in the fauxto, but also the reference to the dragonfly, as the fairie wings are of a dragonfly photo from last summer.

Day 60:
A terrible accident at lunch today. Unfortunately, despite thoughts otherwise, the police vroom-vroom just did not fit inna yellow co-vette... Causing this unfortunate wreck, with the sheriff car sitting wedged on the door of the co-vette. Terrible! Plus, the co-vette doesn't wind up OR light up...

Day 61:
"That night, I had a dream. I drifted off thinking about happiness, birth and new life, But now I was haunted by a vision of... He was horrible. The lone biker of apocalypse. A man with all the powers of Hell at his command. He could turn turn the day into night and lay to waste everything in his path. He was especially hard on little things-the helpless and the gentle creatures. He left a scorched earth in his wake befouling even the sweet desert breeze that whipped across his brow. I didn't know where he came from or why. I didn't know if he was dream or vision. But I feared that I myself had unleashed him."
H.I. - Raising Arizona

Day 62: Forgotten Yellow Orange

All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.
-Elias Canetti

Day 63: Constellation Wood Duck

"If constellations had been named in the 20th century, I suppose we would see bicycles."
-Prof Carl Sagan

These beautiful wood ducks were hanging out together at the Japanese Gardens today - tried out some different filters on the image, and this reminded me of the night sky with constellations drawn upon it...

Day 64:
"I think that one's art is a growth inside one. I do not think one can explain growth. It is silent and subtle. One does not keep digging up a plant to see how it grows."
-Emily Carr

Day 65: Shadow Roots

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Day 66: Broken Wings and Ghost Ants

we came in this world together
legs wrapped around each other
my cheek against my sister's
we were born like tangled vine

we lived along the river
where the black clouds never lingered
the sunlight spread like honey
in my sister's tiny hands

but while picking sour apples
in the wild waving grasses
sister stumbled in the briar
and was bitten by a snake

every creature casts a shadow
under the sun's golden finger
but when the sun sinks past the waving grass
some shadows are dragged along

alone, I took to drinking
bottles of cheap whiskey
and staggering through the back woods
killing snakes with a sharpened stick

but still I heard her laughing
in those wild waving grasses
still her tiny hands went splashing
at the river's sparkling shore

so I took my rusty gas can
and an old iron shovel
I set the woods to burning
and choked the river up with stones

every creature casts a shadow
under the sun's golden finger
but when the sun sinks past the waving grass
some shadows are dragged along

"My Sister's Tiny Hands", The Handsome Family

Day 67:
Rising up from the decay and destruction, a thing of power and light.
-Extinction Lotus

Day 68:
In the early morning hour,
just before dawn, lover and beloved awake
and take a drink of water.

She asks, Do you love me or yourself more?
Really, tell me the absolute truth.

He says, There is nothing left of me.
I am like a ruby held up to the sunrise.
Is it still a stone, or a world
made of redness? It has no resistance
to sunlight. The ruby and the sunrise are one.
Be courageous and discipline yourself.

Work. Keep digging your well.
Don't think about getting off from work.
Submit to a daily practice.
Your loyalty to that is a ring on the door.

Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who's there.

~ Rumi

Day 69:
All this starting and stopping business is exhausting! The anticipation! I figured I would post some energy tunnel shots just for good measure, to document the last two days (and today!)

Day 70

Day 71: Scatter Garden

I was born of the desert
kept below 'til the wind called my name.
Sprang up through the cracked earth
emerged onto the arid plain.
-From 'Song of the Desert Children', Extinction Lotus

Today we planted the warm weather scatter garden - corn, squash, tomatoes, various flowers, and whatever other seeds we had left over. The cool weather garden is already doing great - harvesting baby greens for salad is awesome!
Can't wait to see what becomes of the wild plots of land newly seeded!

Day 72: Vintage Rose

Day 73: What ye have been ye still shall be, When we are dust the dust among, O yellow flowers!
-Austin Dobson

The little irises are blooming in the pond! We've had the same beautiful purples come back again, but this is the first time I've seen the yellows

Day 74: Feather and Vine

“Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.”

Day 75: The city in the leaf of the Bodhi tree

“Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are, and are reasonably clear. More precious, though, are the unpublished maps we make ourselves, of our city, our place, our daily world, our life; those maps of our private world we use every day; here I was happy, in that place I left my coat behind after a party, that is where I met my love; I cried there once, I was heartsore; but felt better round the corner once I saw the hills of Fife across the Forth, things of that sort, our personal memories, that make the private tapestry of our lives.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Love Over Scotland

Day 76: Fledgeling Robin

If in a shimmering room the babies came,
Drawn close by dreams of fledgling wing,
It was because night nursed them in its fold.
-Wallace Stevens

Day 77: First Bloom
The lilies in the pond have begun to send up their stalks of flowers. This one opened today.

If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?
-Khalil Gibran

Day 78:

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh

Day 79: Ok, I know I've missed, like, a WHOLE bunch of days... getting back to it, friends

The many faces of Bodhi

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.
-William Shakespeare

Day 80: I think every birthday celebration should have a power outage causing the house to be lit by candles and ghost stories to be told...

Day 81:
Triceratops had one short horn,
and two as long as spears,
it dwelled near scores of carnosaurs,
and yet it had no fears.

Triceratops was dangerous,
impervious and strong,
the predators that challenged it
did not last very long.

Triceratops fought valiantly,
and vanquished every foe,
so why it ever disappeared,
nobody seems to know.
- Jack Prelutsky