Halloween Words

A Few Pictures to Brighten the Day

I haven't posted many pictures here in a while. I've been too busy doing nothing and then being too serious too often. Been slacking some on my writing and posting here. So, to keep it light as we head into Mardi Gras weekend, here are some pictures from the last couple weeks.

Cormorants on Bridge Pier, Mobile Five Rivers Delta

Dancing Heron #1- On the Beach

Dancing Heron #2- Mobile Five Rivers Delta

An Amazing Sunset- On the Beach

A Big Log With Teeth- Here's Looking at You

Less Serious Stuff

This blog has been wandering around the "Serious" stuff too long without any real break for fun. I order to get back to some semblance of normal while I continue my attempts at figuring out the new world, here are two videos I put together in the last two weeks.

First was an assignment for the local snowbird camera club on color. I chose green. Since I am not usually one to stick with just the facts, I put it into a 90 second video. Enjoy.





For the second one, I had been walking on the beach and noticed one of the feathered fisherfolk watching the one fisherwoman. The feathered fisher knew when she caught one and paid close attention as it was the habit of the fisherwoman to throw them back. I didn't have time to get the iPhone set for a video so I just shot a bunch of stills and put them together.

Hearing the Changes

I heard the surf shift the other afternoon. I was sitting on the balcony overlooking the beach. I was meditating, practicing some mindfulness, with the surf as the background mantra. The surf had been loud and heavy for the past 24 hours. Even now it was loud, still a roar, the water constantly flowing like a perpetual motion machine. The wind had been a little calmer most of the afternoon. I was thinking how complete silence is not necessary for meditation when the power of moving water is behind us.

Suddenly I became aware that it was quieter; the breakers weren’t sounding as loud or as constant; the roar was more distant, a murmur. My first thought was that I had just gotten used to the sound and I’m focusing elsewhere, though still mindful. Or maybe I was heading into the near sleep neverland.

My wife sneezed and it was at it’s normal sound level. I pondered for a brief second and I realized what was happening. I had just heard the surf calm down. I had heard a transition from one state to another. I had heard the color of the sound of the surf change.

I opened my eyes and looked out at the water. The waves had gotten smaller, the breakers hardly making any noise. It had happened within minutes. As I wrote my thoughts down ten or so minutes later the sound continued to decrease. I checked the beach warning flag and it remained calm. I thought maybe I heard a wind shift but that isn’t what occurred. Or was it?

Over the past few weeks I have been paying a little more attention to the water, wind and weather. I have been seeing how winds from one direction can turn the Gulf into a sheet of glass as it pushes the waves back out to deeper water. Or, like the previous 48 hours, a strong south to southeast wind picks up water and moves it for miles, if not hundreds of miles before crashing ashore. It opened me up to being more aware when today I could hear the changes.

That kind of mindfulness is important to life, I realize. It can mean being aware of a friend’s feelings, the emotion in a situation, the right time to keep quiet. It can help us know when and where we may be getting a direction from a Higher Power. Jazz musicians train to hear chord and key changes so they can be better improvisers.

On the balcony the other day I experienced the wonder of being aware- mindful- of changes. By the time I went inside, it was still calm. There is a slight breeze and it is still from the south. A front will be moving in overnight and that no doubt played into the change I heard. The waves remained but were not as commanding as they had been with the flag barely moving and the palms just rustling silently.

An amazing world we live in.

Valentine from the Beach

Out for a walk and I came across this heart on the beach. I knew it had to be there for Valentine's Day. So I took the picture, did some manipulating with GIMP and I get a Valentine's Day greeting.

May this be a day of love for all of you!

At Sunset

I am going to be experimenting more with panoramas on my iPhone since I just did something brave and out of the ordinary- I learned how to do it by Googling it on You Tube, which I think is our 21st Century equivalent of the owner's manual.

Therefore: Two beach panoramas. 

First, when standing close to the water's edge

you get this fun U-shaped bay right in front of me.

And since it is sunset I present a really long shadow. 

It is, naturally, on the far left.

This one's not a panorama. (Duh.)

But it was almost a full moon so I managed to get 

that between the trees. The moon is actually

in the picture above, up to the right of my shadow.

If you click on any of the pictures a larger version will show up.

The Thought That Came to Mind

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Perspective

Clearwater Beach, FL

April 22, 2006

To myself I am only a child on the beach,
while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me.
-Isaac Newton

Shadows Are But Shadows

“Fear has a large shadow, but he himself is small.”
Ruth Gendler

No Two Are Alike

No, I do not have enough sunset pictures. I am still working on it.

02/15/2011

02/16/2011

 

 Sunset at the beach is a particularly magnetic and mystical time. People gather and stare. Awe-struck.

02/17/011

I decided I wanted to take a bunch of my sunset pictures from Gulf Shores, AL, 

since February 2011 and put them in a gallery.

 

02/18/2011

02/23/011

They are all taken about the same time before sunset from just about the same location. I picked one from each day that was at about the right time.

01/28/2012

I was amazed at how different they are, even when they are the same.

02/06/2012

02/14/2012

02/19/2013

Nope. No two are alike, not just because there are different elements in the picture, 

but the sky and the sun itself looks different.

02/20/2013

Nature Deficit

It's not listed as a medically recognized disorder, but I know I have it. Richard Louv in a 2005 book about children not having enough time in nature came up with the phrase, Nature Deficit Disorder. According to Wikipedia:

[H]uman beings, especially children, are spending less time outdoors resulting in a wide range of behavioral problems....

Louv claims that causes for the phenomenon include parental fears, restricted access to natural areas, and the lure of the screen.

Louv argues that sensationalist media coverage and paranoid parents have literally "scared children straight out of the woods and fields," while promoting a litigious culture of fear that favors "safe" regimented sports over imaginative play.

In recognizing these trends, some people argue that humans have an instinctive liking for nature—the biophilia hypothesis—and take steps to spend more time outdoors, for example in outdoor education, or by sending young children to forest kindergartens or forest schools.

Louv has a book now, The Nature Principle, that says the same is true for adults as much as for children.

I agree. Wholeheartedly.

Last week several people at work asked me either
Are you feeling okay?

or

Is anything wrong? You don't seem yourself.

No, it's not seasonal affective disorder. It's not about the amount of sunshine available in my life; it's the amount of nature time that I'm not able to get at this time of the year. Add to the cold (frigid at times) the fact that we haven't had the snow to be able to get out on my snowshoes and you have my low energy and lack of pizazz in my life, actions and affect.

It isn't about exercise, either, since I still get a lot of that. I've done over 70 miles on the stationary bike this month- and i haven't even been pushing it.

The treatment is obvious. Get outside. Bundle up and move my body to the great, wide outdoors. Which in Minnesota is easier said than done, of course. In a few weeks I will be able to get out and get my winter quota of beach and gulf water, sun, and sand. I will be refreshed. Until then, well, I am whining to all of you about it. That's a start. Talking always helps.

Then I can look at pictures like this one:

That gets me thinking about the summer ahead when outdoors is easier.

Or this picture:

Which reminds me of how wonderful the world around me is, even in winter.

And one more:

That tells me that an outdoor baseball stadium is still the way to watch the game.. 

and opening day is only 9 weeks away.

Works in Progress

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will.

--Hamlet

Into the Sunset

Surfer at Sunset

Gulf Shores, AL

02/06/2012

Multi Colors in the Haze

Clearwater Beach, FL

June 29, 2008

Beauty in a Bird

Passagrille, FL

June 29, 2008

Sunset to End Recuperation

The last night in Gulf Shores before heading home at the end of my recuperation may have been the best sunset of the whole 4 weeks. I did another of the HDR pictures, merged on Corel Paint Shop Pro X4 and came up with this not completely realistic view. But it does capture the beauty!

Alabama Birds

In my taking-it-easy recuperation time the other day I managed to finally get a video from last years trip to Alabama - Gulf Shores, to be exact. I put together some of the bird videos and then added the music. Just for fun with no goal in mind other than to remind me of the Gulf of Mexico and the wonderful flow of the tides.

Wildlife Behaving Well

Wildlife along the Gulf coast can be downright hospitable. This Great Blue Heron was just as willing as can be to let me take pictures on two different occasions. First, he just kept right on eating at his favorite buffet-place. He let me get to within 30 feet and just kept one eye on me and the other on the stream.

Then a few days later on another bike ride I see him just sitting there on the bank. Again, I got to within 30 feet and he just kept sitting. I swear he was posing.

Meanwhile, overhead, the Osprey on the way to the nearby nest just swooped by as nice as could be.

On another bike ride through the woods this friendly armadillo just kept on eating, ignoring each biker that pedaled by or, like me, who stopped to take a picture. He wasn't in the least bit concerned.

But perhaps the most willing wild animal to have a picture taken was this fine specimen of a sand turtle. Funny, I went back the next day and he was gone.

Supper Time for the Birds

As the tide comes in, so does the food.....

Look Alikes...

Snow (Whitewater State Park)

Not Snow (Gulf Shores, AL)

....But that's as far as it goes