Algae at Johnston Lake: Photo by Noelle
“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.” – Carl Jung
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Tag Archives: poetry
End of the Day
Bear Creek Lake: Photo by Noelle
Bear Creek Lake: Photo by Noelle
Bear Creek Lake: Photo by Noelle
And the end of the day was upon me, yet still I waited in the field. So many moments allowed to pass without reverence or awe. What life have I been living, to have slept so long?
Bench to Nowhere
Greenway trail at Nathan Mott Park, Block Island: Photo by Noelle
I was hiking a trail at the Nathan Mott Park while vacationing on Block Island; a small island off the coast of Rhode Island. The trail was well maintained, but heavily wooded. No clear cutting or control burns have ever happened there. Thus, the bramble was thick and dense. Suddenly, I stumbled upon a bench, sitting in the middle of the trail, about half way in. It faced the bramble, with no apparent other view.
I stopped and looked around. It seemed an odd place to have a seat. I thought to continue my journey, but something about how the sun rested upon the seat called to me. I sat down. I was correct there was no other view, but the dense thicket. I decided to give it some time.
Wildlife knows when hikers have hit a trail. Alert calls go out to any who can hear to beware, a human is afoot. If you are lacking a quiet presence when you step into nature, you aren’t likely to have many unusual encounters with wildlife. Sit for a time though, and wood life begins to forget you are there and marches onward.
Deer flies lost interest and continued down the path. Bees returned to the wild rose and thistle. The alarming squawking that had followed me from crow to jay, had subsided and now the wood was filled with bird’s singing their daily stories of berries and dragonflies. Rather than the stir of my own progress I now heard the steady movement of the wind through the trees. The sun came and went as it winked between the branches above. The moment was peaceful without the least bit of silence.
When I was younger I did not understand the power of stillness or the value of doing nothing or going nowhere. That stillness is full and rich, rather than dull and silent, as my youthful mind considered. I don’t know who thought to put the bench in the middle of the trail, but I suspect they were someone like me. Someone who had come to appreciate that sitting in the middle of nowhere, looking at nothing in particular, is likely the best seat there is.
Behind the Storm
Night Storm II: Photo by Noelle
Night storm: Photo by Noelle
The heaven’s are full of light, even in the darkest storms. This is not what confuses us. We struggle to make sense that the heavens are within our heart.
Clarity of Vision
Free Bing Photos
On the soul highway it doesn’t matter if you’re souped up on a Harley or riding a tricycle. Speed is not determined by the vehicle, but rather the clarity in vision of the driver.
A Tinker’s Bench
A cluttered yard in Morrison, Colorado: Photo by Noelle
And the old, gnarled hands worked the metal and stroked the wood. A lifetime of odds and ends cluttering shelves and leaning against walls. Still, the fingers touch with love and affection such humble treasures found long ago.
Stairway to Heaven
Stair hike at Mount Glennon Park: Photo by Noelle
Sorry couldn’t resist the title.
I’d been climbing the stair to the cliff path. The light broke the ridge and poured down the stair. Amazing moment, made more so by the fact I almost didn’t take the evening hike. I’ve been focusing on living more in the now, lately. Taking advantage of what is available in my life. Filling my mind with more nature and less obsessing about the minutiae of daily living. Something about a mountain trail makes me more aware of my good fortune and breaks my egos need to look for what’s missing.
Still, it had been a long day, and I could find a million reasons to veg out at home. This moment was a perfect reward for having stepped out the front door. A little bit of spirit in the mountain weeds.
Salt Flats of San Francisco Bay: Part 1
Salt Flats in San Francisco Bay: Photo by Noelle
Entering the Bay: Photo by Noelle
Pictures will both look best enlarged. This series comes from an arial shoot of the salt flats of San Francisco Bay. Had no idea of their beauty. This is coming into the Bay and the beginning of the drying beds. I have been thinking a lot lately of dimensions. I’d been listening to a scientist presentation on dimensional reality. I’d never given it any thought. It was fascinating to realize how different the world appears to an amoeba and a fly or how there are dimensions beyond the third dimension, that we live in. We have the view of an amoeba to someone else. When I flew over the salt beds it occurred to me I’d driven by these before with my friend, but had never seen them. We walk around all day thinking we see the world, when really we see just a tiny sliver of an infinite whole.
Suitcase
Free Bing Photos
I opened up the suitcase I packed carefully before I left. On the road it had been tossed about and now irritation, which I’d packed next to fear was sticking out the side. That’s always how it happens. You think you’ve got it all together and then life tosses you around, and the next thing you know, melancholy is covered with eczema ointment, whose cap has come undone. Every journey requires a little clean up if it’s a good one. Anxiety has mixed in with anticipation and it’ll take a wet towel to get it all back in order. I’ll confess, I’m like most people. I like happy folded perfectly on top. That way, when I open up, it’s the first thing everybody sees. Sometimes, though, you open with exacerbation or dumb shock and your scrambling to get the wrinkles out and cover that glaring stain of shame. I tuck irritation back in, closer to disappointment than fear, but whatever. I’m not planning on wearing it anywhere if I can help it.
We come into life with a full kit bag. It has the entire emotional scale packed neatly within it. We can pull out any and all of it whenever we choose. We are never free of it, because that suitcase is our free will. It’s just part of the road gear. It’s what we all take with us when we step out onto Earth’s mantle. We meet a lot of people, see different things and experience a traveling circus of life, but no one else decides what we’ll put on. That is our choice. Someone can be holding a black tie hate party, but I get to decide if I’ll show up in my flower child, wild ass, love suit. You feel comfortable in that hat of indignation? That’s cool, no judgment, but I hope you don’t mind if I throw on this baseball cap with foolishness written all over it.
I take out my makeup bag filled with curiosity, intrigue and imagination and leave it in the hotel bathroom. I change into hopeful and dab a little wonderment on my neck and head out to dinner. No telling what I’ll run into, but I’ve packed a full case. I’m ready for any eventuality. Besides, what’s the worse that can happen? I have to pull on blissed out. I always look good in that.
Lonely Haiku
Free Bing Photos: 100 images of solitude
The piece below was written by my Insight Timer friend, Roy Mason in New York. I had been working on a poem related to loneliness that just wasn’t coming together. I sent it to Roy and he flipped it, most lovelingly, on its head and produced this beautiful layered haiku. Far better than my original piece. It is an honor to post it here.
Lonely Haiku
Magazines read twice,
Fridge food contains emptiness;
My heart: comfortless.
Mind wheels are spinning,
Sleep is sought but elusive.
The hours go on…
I ask: who am I?
The deafening loneliness!
Waiting for the light.
Outcast and apart,
I hear the chimes of the clock;
Then tick tock, tick tock.
I, disconsolate,
Endless pacing with worry.
Five O’clock: birds sing.
Meditation Travelogue 
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