Summer Days

Today I revisited some of my old photos. Doing so was a little bit like walking down memory lane. I decided to show you some old summer images from my early days of photography along with the composite photo above which was one of the first composites I made.

Summer Days

And I thought I would share some of my favorite quotes and poems in between images.

“It sounds so simplistic, that there’s this one thing that is the cure for all unhappiness. But when you go deep inside yourself and you find what is truest for you, that is the source of your peace, your joy, your happiness, your direction in life. When you move away from what you deeply know to be true and you split from your integrity—so now you’re not one thing, but two: the thing you believe and the thing you think you should do—that happiness can’t come through. And all that’s necessary to heal that is to find your own truth and begin to live in harmony with it. And all the psychological suffering goes away.”

   — Martha Beck, The Way of Integrity

The places we are seen and heard are holy places.

   — Rachel Naomi Remen

Bird Feeder

Approaching seventy, she learns to live,

at last. She realizes she has not

accomplished half of what she struggled for,

that she surrendered too many battles

and seldom celebrated those she won.

Approaching seventy, she learns to live

without ambition: a calm lake face, not

a train bound for success and glory. For

the first time, she relaxes her hands on the

controls, leans back to watch the coming end.

Asked, she’d tell you her life is made out of

the things she didn’t do, as much as the

things she did do. Did she sing a love song?

Approaching seventy, she learns to live

without wanting much more than the light in

the catbird window seat where, watching the

voracious fist-sized tweets, she hums along.

   — Marilyn Nelson

Walk slowly

It only takes a reminder to breathe,

a moment to be still, and just like that,

something in me settles, softens, makes

space for imperfection. The harsh voice

of judgment drops to a whisper and I

remember again that life isn’t a relay

race; that we will all cross the finish

line; that waking up to life is what we

were born for. As many times as I

forget, catch myself charging forward

without even knowing where I’m going,

that many times I can make the choice

to stop, to breathe, and be, and walk

slowly into the mystery.

   — Danna Faulds

The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.

― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

There is a river that runs through time and the universe, vast and inexplicable, a flow of spirit that is at the heart of existence, and every molecule of our being is a part of it. And what is God but the whole of that river?

   — William Kent Krueger, This Tender Land

May you walk in beauty.