448. new year’s eve

with gratitude

looking back on the year 

like an old friend

(Standing at a crossroads: looking back at downtimes and up, laughter and tears, losses and wins, delights and disappointments, fears and faithfulness, sunny days and rain. Without the dark days we could never see the light; darkness gives meaning to light.  The colors and complexities of life, day by day, help us to grow and learn what it is to be human.)

447. red door

old woman

standing at the gate

going inside

 

(Many churches are recognized by their distinctive red doors symbolizing places of sanctuary, safety, and protection.)

446. offering

sipping tea

looking back on things

as the year ends

(Hindsight helps bring things into perspective, offering a broader view of the big picture.)

445. coming and going

2021 leaving

nothing  left in the garden

only these marks

*

emerging

marks on a sheet of paper

2022 rising

(Reflecting on the old year gone by and the prospects for the new year to come.)

444. a few more days

a few more days,

another year passing by….

moment by moment

 

(Everything comes to an end. Doing my best to make the most of each day.)

443. a quiet time

take time out

a quiet time to sit down 

and reflect

(It’s a good practice, now and then, to take time to sit down and reflect on the quiet.)

442. christmas morning

oh, joy

here comes the son—

meow!

 

(Peace to The World!)

441. no snow

fallen leaves

no snow in sight—

christmas eve 

(I remember last winter just about this time and no predictions of snow, I wondered….will we ever see snow around here again. Then not long after Christmas, we had piles of snow here! Hmm.)

440. together

the two of them

piddling and paddling along

all day long

 

(Wintering ducks. I love how they glide in the water with softness and ease, even in the cold. Taking time out to observe them together brings me to a peaceful place. 

Mallard ducks, unlike swans and geese, do not mate for life but come together in Winter for the breeding season, then go their separate ways in Spring.)

439. no....yes

first day of winter 

even the sun looks cold

….freezing my fingers

 

(Yesterday was winter solstice, which is celebrated around the world as the seasonal change into winter. In some traditions this is known as the day of the “death and birth of the sun.” 

Out early, I had an hour and a half to kill waiting for my car to be serviced. The cold had me shivering in temps below freezing, as I walked around hoping for a good picture or two. And then there was the sun.  I pulled off my gloves, pulled out my phone, and tried to focus. My fingers were shaking and begged “no!” but my mind said “yes” and persisted.  The mind is a stubborn fellow😆.)

438. friend or foe?

hanging together

despite their differences—

two fishes

*

green leaves

in the fishbowl, big red

and little silver

(Hannibal is a Siamese Betta, who lunges and attacks his food with great gusto! He’s a top-feeder and a loner. Squirt is a Swordtail Guppy, who pecks and nibbles everywhere along the bowl. He’s a friendly fish who enjoys companionship.  

Most authorities say that betta fish are too aggressive and territorial to be kept in close quarters with fishes. Just goes to show you….you can’t always believe what you read or what you hear.)

437. life on a swing

turn it around

when things get you down

make it no big deal

*

feeling off-center?

it’s okay to wobble

make it no big deal

*

when we were kids

life was no big deal—

turn it around

 

436. into the grey

state by state

going their separate ways

feeling the chill

*

how could it be

falling apart at the seams

these 50 states

*

one by one

the red-white-and-blue

into the grey

 

(What’s going on? Where are we headed? Whatever happened to the United States of America.)

435. the model….

she posed

with a slice of tomato—

little ingrid

 

(Scrolling through old photos, I found this picture of a pastel painting I made some time ago. I painted this picture from a photo of Ingrid, who lived in a little trailer at the edge of the salt marshes just outside of Wildwood. She was sitting on the kitchen table next to a white plate with a slice of red tomato. There’s more to the story but I’ll end it here. 

Isn’t it wonderful where the mind can take you?)

434. breaking free

what a surprise 

taking out this week‘s trash—

a full moon

(Friday is trash day. My habit is to take the trash out early in the morning but for some reason I chose to take it out last night and, again for some reason, looked up at the sky. There she was, the full moon, peeking out from a sky full of clouds. 

I suppose here I might say, it pays to break away from habits from time to time. When you don’t think about and don’t even try,  and just do it, breaking a habit is easy.)

433. like old lovers

fading faintly

nestled inside this leaf….

another leaf

(This time of year with so many leaves under foot covering over tree roots and rocks on the trail, I find myself looking down quite a bit when hiking. I don’t want to trip and fall. The other day, my eye caught sight of something that made me stop for a closer look. It appeared to be fossil of a tiny leaf nestled inside another leaf. The image brought to mind “the secret lives of trees”….and leaves. It charmed me….so I took this picture.)

 

431. time out

 

away from the fray

a corner of one’s own

will do just fine

430. transformation

ghost of itself

on a wheel turning around

and round

 

(Life goes on and on, always transforming itself.)

429. sanctuary

weary….

looking for a place to stay

just one night

 

(The sign read, Sanctuary….and I thought to myself, ahh, yes.  Sometimes, just one night away will do.)

428. somewhere in the middle

munching, rustling—

it’s a beautiful thing

being born a deer

*

the two of us

looking up….looking down

seeing eye to eye

(High above, from a 30-foot stone wall, I looked down as he munched the spare autumn leaves then slowly settled down. He glanced around, then looked up at me a while. A little distance and some time can go a long way to reaching a safe middle ground.)

427. time standing still

sight seeing:

a bazillion blinks of the eye,

 stopping time

 

(Mindful of the moment. Whoever said meditation is boring! Every moment holds its own eternity. Zoom in on it.)

426. why

end of autumn

pushing up against the cold

oak leaves fading

*

“here we are 

in the amber of the moment

there is no why”

 

The first verse is mine, the second by Kurt Vonnegut.

(The other day while walking outside, something caught my eye—it may have been the rosey color behind the black iron fence. Pausing in the moment, something said take the picture. So I pulled out my camera and took two quick shots, though I didn’t know why. I’m learning more and more to listen and not question that soft, still inner voice.)

425. steps

step….step….step

a walking meditation

red….yellow….blue

 

424. street art

stopping traffic

everyone having their say

what’s art anyway?

(In abstract class yesterday, we were sharing thoughts about art and Karl posed a question wondering whether or not his own work was “art.” This thought echoed in my mind and led me to wonder….what is art anyway, and how many forms of art are there? Then I remembered a picture I’d taken just the other day outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Zooming in on this one brought me to a halt. Isn’t it great, people are people, I suppose, and they create endless ways to have their say.) 

In 2018, the Museum of Culture and Environment hosted an exhibition of street stickers from around the world. Here’s a link to a news item.

 https://www.cwu.edu/international-political-and-social-street-stickers-subject-next-cwu-exhibit

423. paying homage to

the good old days:

penny candy….penny stamps,

my father’s hands

 

(My father was a traveler….he collected stamps and saved them in a book to keep alive the memories of his journeys. As a young girl, I had a stamp collection too, even though I never traveled far away from home….I simply liked looking at pictures of far away places. I suppose it satisfied the gypsy in my soul.)

422. looking up

keep moving forward 

no matter what happens—

and keep looking up

 

(When things get you down, keep looking up. Things look different in the morning.)

421. best seats in town

sitting tight

watching the moon on the rise

the village pigeons

 

(Used to be you had to go to the seashore to see seagulls; now they’re in the cities. And pigeons could only be found in cities and now they’ve arrived in towns and villages. Just goes to show you that birds, just like people, have their own way of branching out. I suppose life is all about moving on and out.)

420. shopping for Christmas

even in the thrift store

news of big business & finance

creeps in

(Santa in street clothes and a tie with the Wall Street Journal tucked in his arm.  What’s the message here?  Sigh….)

419. standing tall

unwilling to yield

to those icy prophecies—

summer’s last rose 

(There’s nothing cute about this long-stemmed rose.)

 

418. on the fence….

pssst…

hey Ricky, i’m feeling stuck

writer’s block!

*

just chill…

happens to me all the time—

hang in there

*

thanks, pal😘

(I had the darndest time coming up with a post today. Thank god for Ricky. It pays to know where to go when you’re feeling on the fence!)

417. feeling

every leaf

has its own form and feeling

just like us

(To understand life, just look at nature—the Tao)

 

416. bear sighting in Ambler!

hey, look—

a bear up in the tree

for real!

(Now that is a picture I said to myself….so I drove around the block again just to take it.  Just goes to show you, you never know what you’ll find in the neighborhood. Good thing this bear was just hanging!)

Bears can run as fast as a racehorse, uphill and down….and they climb trees, too, for real.  https://pestpointers.com/can-bears-climb-trees-13-stunning-facts-about-bears/

 

415. on the path

ancient tree

no longer anxious to bloom—

becoming a buddha

*

ancient tree

are you still enjoying yourself,

my friend

(At the end of the day I sometimes ask myself:  What surprised you today?  What made you laugh today?  What did you discover?  And what did you enjoy?)

 

414. morning drill

ten-hut!!

and all the butternut squash

stand up!!😁

 

413. making music 🎶

on and on

into worlds of wonder

making music

(Playing the guitar means never being alone with nothing to do—Johnny Marr)

412. pandemonium! 🤣

ducks spilling out

then right away scrambling

to get back in 

(This was one of the funniest Facebook videos. The sites and sounds of a gabbling gaggle of ducks clamoring to get outside—quack quacky quacky quack quacky—and then immediately turning around blustering back in—quacky quacky quack quacky quacky—it must have been super cold! 🥶)

411. brown is brown, and yet….

pretty leaves,

but the thing that caught my eye—

all those brown seeds

*

remembering

he had beautiful eyes,

and they were brown

 (This is Thanksgiving Day,  a time for remembering those we love and hold dear, near and far away.)

410. Issa’s haiku

the bedbugs

scatter as I clean,

parents and child

*

Issa’s haiku

two hundred years ago’

all about bedbugs

(Issa is highly regarded as one of the three or four great masters of Japanese haiku. He is widely loved for his poems, honoring either children or animals, by turns playful or poignant.) 

 

What does this picture have to do with bedbugs? Nothing.  I just like the picture! 🥳

409. time is just flying by

so early

christmas lights up….waiting for 

thanksgiving 

 

(Five days ago, Christmas lights were already up on the street….and we haven’t even had Thanksgiving yet.  No wonder it seems like time is just flying by.)

408. much much more….

outside the city

in the company of trees

the sky does it’s thing

(On the way to visit friends who live out in the country, there is much much more sky to see. My camera gets so excited!  Makes me think about writing a haiku-photo book about the sky.  I’d call it High on Sky!)

407. the truth is….

never too late

 to live a creative life,

and not too old

(The truth is, also, that you need not be a professional actor, artist, singer, dancer. We all have creative ability.  Just move to your own rhythms, follow your inner promptings, do things your own way as you grow a garden, prepare your meals, decorate your home, dress or adorn your body, sing your own song. These are creative acts.  

In a culture that too often values logic over imagination, propriety over spontaneity, practicality over dreaming, creating your own style can feel risky, so we shut down. This brings to mind a poem: And the day came when remaining tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom—Anais Nin)

406. leaves of bamboo

leaves of bamboo

quavering and quivering—

autumn riff

*

leaves of bamboo

clambering up to the trail—

fantasizing bears

*

leaves of bamboo

take me away to the east….

carry me home

(Bamboo, native to China and the Far East, is plentiful in the Wissahickon Woods.  Day after day hiking through the woods, the sights and sounds of bamboo always delight my heart, giving me pause to muse on this and that.  I’m a lucky woman.) 

BTW, the “bears” in my haiku are the Chinese panda bears, who survive mostly by eating 26 to 84 pounds of bamboo leaves every day!!

405. 5 o’clock rush hour

day slowing down 

moon creeping up and up

the train rushing by

 

404. on the way to the woods

gazing down

thru the bare branches….the sky

shivering

(Crossing over the bridge slowing down….then I stop. Peering down into the blue water streaming through the creek, I think to myself, the water must be so cold. I shudder….then feel the shivering.) 

403. always & forever

one day falling

then rising up again

the next day

(Day by day, the sky is always there and the sun always rises. Some things never change.)

402. wistful

who lives there

i wonder….that house

or this one

(Picture of a picture.  I saw this photograph in a museum and was immediately transported to a different time and place…. I didn’t know where and it didn’t matter. There is something about lace curtains and windows that always invites me to linger and roam, satisfying my gypsy soul.)

 

401. in love with color

every autumn 

the sweet wissahickon woods 

goes a little wild

(Among all the beautiful colors in the world, my eye goes immediately to red. Red is the first color of the rainbow, the color of fire and blood, full blooded life. I love the color red, I always have. It’s my favorite…. and maybe your, too? Much has been said and written about color, and especially the color red. Here’s a link.)

https://www.sensationalcolor.com/meaning-of-red/

400. joie de vivre

painted flowers

a room full of dreams come true

one by one

*

the sky never tires

of putting on a good show

neither does he!

*

never a dull moment with Dan!😜

(Soon after retiring 40+ years from a life of earning money for family and home, I asked him one day….what do you see yourself doing now with the rest of your life?  “I want to make art,” was his quick reply.  Day by day now, he is doing just that—building  a life of making art: painting, sculpting, making mosaics, blogging in haiku and photos. Good for you, Dan, I celebrate your joy for living.)

399. say hello to Candy

some dogs are

big & bold, smart & strong—

candy is sweet!

(She was a rescue puppy from Hurricane Maria, the storm that rocked Puerto Rico. Candy, adopted by my bank teller, was one of my early animal portraits. She had mascara eyes!)