TRIUMPH OF SPIRIT IN LOVE, NATURE & ART

Spirituality

Nature’s Prayers


P1020783

Still yourself

and fold your hands

P1130722_edited-1

humbly

P1130669_edited-1

stand in awe

P1130633_edited-1

radiate His light

P1020418

with eyes upwards

P1130717_edited-1

towards

P1130686_edited-1

the telephone

WP_20140518_005_edited-2

to the sky

P1130569_edited-1

and comtemplate

Wolfe.7

the glory that is He


Starlight, Starbright


P1120997_edited-3
Starlight through the skylight
Moonlight just above the roof
Fireflies flickering flames
Random to our eyes
In a dizzying mercurial display
Flitting to the tune
Of trilling frogs
And the flutter of batwings
I see goblins in the windows
Alone would be terrified
With you here beatified
By the beauty of the silence
Punctuated by the frogs
Spotlighted by the moon
And the sparkling stars
Whose dust makes up
These rented bodies we carry
While inside heartbeats
Tick away our lives
To the beat of a flashing firefly
Or a flickering star.


Chi flows, Wind Blows


P1130031_edited-3

Wind blows

through tree tops

bird song

wafts in breeze

flying

dead branches

fine perches

dragonfly on leg

don’t move

admire

just be

like tree

see chi

in air

spark-like

specks

tiny lights

Chi flows

wind blows


The Cycle of Life


Youth unfolding


537

in the bright sunlight

498

 blossoming in shade

Dahlias '09, frog, salamander, view 031

‘tainted’ by age

P1010567

becoming fragile

P1010393

the delicacy of death

P1010624

From an old Dahlia series, attempting  to show the robust beauty of new life as it grows older,  finally reaching the unsung beauty of death.


Unsung Hero


Quite a bit of a moral upgrade from the ads in the West!


Starburst


 

“Dear ones, the light of God is moving through me this day… I am in His sea of Light, in that eternal land.  Wherever I am, in this life or beyond, I am always roaming in that eternity.  I want you to come there also, for you are my brothers an sisters and I cannot bear to see you left in delusion.” 

Paramahansa Yogananda


Bolt of Blue


Violet mood

 blue grace

soothes the beast


Humble Lily


 

After the crash

from

mania

to

depression…

humility

shame

gratitude

grace


Beyond the Stars


WP_20140514_008_edited-1

Sitting in the sun, acclimating to the gentle June heat, swatting away an annoysome fly who keeps returning over and over, I know this swatting is definitely wrong—a stirring of the killer instinct. I remember naturalist artist and writer and turtle man, David M. Carroll, keeping his hand steady, while being bitten by hordes of mosquitoes,  so as not to scare away the turtles as he paints them . Clearly he is a superior soul in his patient endurance of being bitten and as his, almost spiritual, beautifully poetic, writings and drawings reveal. I remember, too, the words of Pema Chodron, Buddhist teacher and nun, who teaches and preaches practicing compassion on little things, learning not to “bite the hook” of anger.

So I let the fly alight on my ankle and he seemingly happily stays on my leg and does not bite. I begin to try to image feeling kinship with this fly who likes my leg, fighting the idea that he is laying eggs in my skin. Pema Chodron has clearly inspired a city girl, afeared of bugs, to make friends with a fly as I watch the universe of insects beneath my feet. A Daddy Long legs crawls on my camera bag, hitches a ride to our bed when I go inside the house. I bring him back to his home outside.

This compassion things feels right, start small and grow big. As if to reinforce this point a butterfly lands on my chest when I return to my contemplation spot in our back yard. But all is not sweetness and light. Later the same fly (I swear it is) who landed on my leg now activates karma for my earlier murderous impulses towards him. He lands on my toe and bites me. A cautionary tale against getting too carried away with being virtuous. Still worse, later as I walk in the coolness of early evening, a bug lands on my arm and attempts a vigorous bite.   In an instant, a reflexive smack smooches him dead.

So it would seem I have to start even smaller with my acts of compassion. How much smaller can one start? I wonder with daunting discouragement about the many, many more lives I will have to live to learn lessons of compassion and no anger. I contemplate the prospect of how many, many more films I will have to view in this movie house of Maya we call life. When, oh when, will I learn all my lessons? When, oh, when, will the sun set for good for me on this circle of life so I can exit the orbit and rest beyond the stars??


Fascinating Facade


DSCN3351_edited-2

 Fell in love with the ornamentation

RSCN3365_edited-1

A  closer look…

RSCN3378_edited-1

Drama…

RSCN3376_edited-1

And TWO “third eyes”!!


New Life, Old Love


 

 

Tree skeletons

acquire accoutrements

each passing day

pale green regalia

not the deep green

of Summer when the

change in color

is so gradual

as to be imperceptible

nor the fleeting riot

of color of Fall

no, in Spring,

ephemeral  evanescent

slight light green

appears by the moment

right before my slow eyes

as I discern

shadows in the woods

a flash of white tail

deer fleet of foot

fly through the brush

dancing to the deep trill

of the wood frogs and

the echoing, haunted cries

of pileated woodpeckers

in the sudden density

of the fast-growing woods

inside the booming forest

whilst where I sit

at the edge of wood

bumble bees hum

and magically lift off

the teaming ground

and fly to the sky

where birds sing to mates

sweet songs of desire

in a crescendo of new life

as you have sung to me

for nearly thirty years

in an ever-changing

ever-growing love

whilst a breeze caresses

a newborn leaf

that tingles to its touch

as I thrill so very much

to the searching clasp

of your hand in mine

(As yet another killer, this time on the campus of Santa Barbara, California,  is identified as possibly having Asperger’s syndrome, I, as a Bipolar Aspie, offer this poem written to my Aspie husband for May 14, 2014, on the occasion of our 25th wedding anniversary, to show that not all people with Asperger’s reach for a gun and are violent.)


Symphonic Days, Tympanic Nights


Trees have fully blossomed

the clouds are fluffy white

a glory day

Trees were starkly bare

the beginning of the same week

the night pregnant with frog


Where Earth Meets Sky


P1130025_edited-2

Oh Light,

so dazzled am I

by your majesty

so inebriated

by your heady spirits

I cannot tell

where earth meets

the realm of Your Infinity.


The Vibrations of Life


P1130213_edited-1

Pulsating life

flows through

tree branches

vibrating

to the song

of a red-winged blackbird

singing to the moon

as a cloud

stands by

in the approach

of twilight


Verticalia


WP_20140427_002_edited-1

Naked trees reach

upwards toward the sky

in pursuit of our Creator

WP_20140427_026_edited-1

Trees dressed in flowers

 turn our eyes skyward

to gaze at cottony clouds

WP_20140427_006_edited-1

Church towers

carry our sight

to the bright blue heavens

WP_20140428_012_edited-1

as we stand

gazing

in unparalleled awe.


Resurrection


P1130245_edited-1

“From winter’s tomb of lifeless blossoms, thou, O Christ, art resurrected in new buds of roses, marigolds, bluebells, jasmine, and worldful varieties of flowers.  Ever-mutating, multicolored flowers of lifetrons growing in the gardens of the astral land are fragrant thrones of thy Presence” ~  Paramahansa Yogananda

Hallelujah!  He is risen.


Good Friday Prayer


In death, decay

P1130300_edited-1

blurred tears

P1130285_edited-1

yet the promise of new life

P1130340_edited-1


The Hum of Life


P1130204_edited-2
The reverberations of love

jump across time and space

to another receptive heart

*

The reverberations of suffering

resound around the earth

picked up by open souls in prayer

*

The reverberations of Aum

most sacred of sounds

pulses through our minds in meditation

*

Love brings the possibility of loss

Suffering brings a totality of pain

Aum brings the reality of God within


March Sunrise to Sunset


A tribute to my beloved brother, Tony, who loved this song.


Denizens of the Deep


DSCN2952_edited-1

The marsh is melting

and

all the turtles in their hibernacula

deep down under the melting ice

will soon emerge

and the marsh will sing

the chorus of the Spring Peeper

and the salamanders will emerge

with the urge to murge

and joy and the life force

will fill the air

and lift the fog

enveloping my soul.

DSCN2951_edited-1


Tom Attwater Is Dying. His Daughter Might Die, Too. The Letter He Left For Her Is Unforgettable.


To see a video of Tom reading this letter, click on:

Tom Attwater, Dying of Cancer, Reads the Letter he Wrote to His Daughter Kelli


Video

A Tribute to Paramahansa Yogananda


I wish this were my tribute to Yogananda but it is not.  Perhaps you will know of him in his”Autobiography of a Yogi”which is world famous.  That is where I first found him.  But he has written many other books and lectures.  In other posts, I have written much about how psychiatric meds for my Bipolar Disorder have destroyed my closeness to God.  Only in Yogananda’s writings have I been able to feel God– to go back to communion with God.  Interestingly enough, my husband’s best friend is a monk in Self-Realization Fellowship which Yogananda founded to bring Kriya Yoga out of India to the West.  Yogananda came to me recently when I was sick and brought me joy in my despair and rekindled my dedication to learning Kriya Yoga. Yogananda is an avatar, a man of God.  I hope these images pay him homage and inspire!