Almost fourteen years ago, April 17, 2004, I was doing one of the things I always liked best…bicycling on the Katy Trail, the very best bike trail in mid-America, right here in Missouri. And suddenly, in the middle of a beautiful ride, I had a heart attack. I am fine now, probably healthier than I was before that day…

But I am changed. I wake up each and every morning and instantly feel a smile crawl across my face…it is a new day, and I have another chance to make the most of all I have been given. I never understood how precious that is until I almost lost it.

Shortly after my illness I woke up each morning and rushed out to see the sun rise. I created a small portfolio of 30 sunrise pictures that I named “A Month of Sunrise”. I even took a picture on the days the sun could not be seen. I knew it was there in the eastern sky…right where that brighter spot was. It started as just a trigger to get me going, to wake up my day to what it could be, but by the end of the month it was so much more.

I noticed things I had never noticed before. I learned to look at the whole sky. There were so many colors behind me that I had never before turned to see. I saw people up and about, starting their day just as I was starting mine. I realized that for each of them, there were things they were thinking about…some good things and some bad things, some things that filled them with joy, some things that terrified them. For each of us, we were facing a new day…and it would be whatever we would make of it. I learned to listen as well as to look. I heard birds I had never noticed before. I heard wind blowing through the trees, across the field, behind the buildings. I smelled the dew, and the freshness of a new day. I saw critters waking up and starting their daily routine. I understood better than ever before that the world is a lot of us, doing a lot of things, living a lot of different realities.

I no longer take any day for granted, and I still run out to see the sun rise every chance I get. Sometimes, when I am visiting them, or they are visiting me, my children come with me. They, too, have learned to welcome a new beginning each day.

My favorite sunrise picture is one I took at one of our favorite places along the Mississippi River, Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary. It was shortly after my husband had recovered from a significant illness, and the bright sunshine was the beginning of a truly good day…an almost perfect day…

Falling in love with the sunrise, led me to begin to notice the sunset. The morning sunrise got me going, the sunset gave me time to reflect on how I had done with this one more day I had been given…so many one more days! One of my favorite sunsets was on a trip we made to southern Missouri, on a small lake…

The sunrise gets me going, lights my way…the sunset makes me grateful, and helps me to sleep each night…after I run out to catch the moon in whatever phase it is in!

In response to the Weekly Photo Challenge, Rise/Set

I go to my favorite place to be quiet, to be thoughtful, to reflect, to be renewed, and to escape all those things that would steal away all the goodness that is my life. I go to the woods…

in the spring to see the earth wake up after its long slumber…

I go to the woods in the summer when the whole world is alive…

I go to the woods in the autumn when it is alive with the vibrant colors of its last dance before the cold winds blow…

and I go to the woods in the winter, as it rests, and so must I…

Just me and my camera…in my favorite place!

In response to the Weekly Photo Challenge My Favorite Place

in the woodland…

on the prairie…

at the ocean…

in the mountains…

But if today I cannot be those places, I want to be right here…

In response to the Weekly Photo Challenge

I love to go out each night and look at the moon. Sometimes I take a photo, sometimes I note its place in the sky, many times I just look and wonder.

On January 31, the sight of the full moon should be something truly spectacular. It is the second full moon of January, called a blue moon. It is also a super moon, the last one we will see in 2018, and we will also see a lunar eclipse as the moon moves across the shadow of the Earth. Now I just have to hope it is a clear night.

As I think about January 31, I think of the many pictures I have taken of the moon, and its many moods…my variations on a theme

In response to the Weekly Photo Challenge, Variations on a Theme

There is a very special stillness I have always felt in a snowy woods…

And,

There is a special, still silence that has always warmed my heart, as I have watched my children, one by one, walk out and about in this great big world.

In response to the Weelky Photo Challenge, Silence.

Just before Christmas I was “window” shopping at an antique store in St. Charles, Missouri with my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter.

The moment I saw this weathered old Adirondack chair…well, I had to have it. So much for just looking! My husband just looked at me when we went back to the store to purchase the chair…but he is a saint, he said very little…and took out his checkbook.

No one will ever sit in it, but treasures of the seasons will rest on it all year long. Right now it is sitting on our front porch as light snow gently falls in this mid-January.

When summer comes I will put it out on our patio where it will share the sunshine and moonlight, the rain and the wind, with flowers and summer greens.

I love lichen, and this old chair, sitting out in a field in Tennessee had a perfect surface on which lichen could grow as it lay in the elements for a very long time. The woman who saved it from the fire heap told me that the color of the lichen turns a vibrant, almost luminous, green when it gets wet. I can hardly wait! But for right now, I love how it looks right on my porch, in the snow, sharing space with the greens of winter.

In response to the Weekly Photo Challenge

Though I live in the very middle the nation, I absolutely love the sea. And when I visit the sea, as when I visit any place else, I collect things. I collect anything I can get home in the car, or more often nowadays, on a plane, or a train.

As I collect items on the shore and in the sea, I am always drawn to appreciate the power of the sea. I am amazed at how it is able to work on the rock and shells to create, over time, their hard, sharp edges into round, smooth surfaces.

I have found many moon snail shells on the shoreline, and in the sea. They are incredible and intricate. Nature never ceases to make me feel humble…

Sand dollars are special sea creatures everyone loves to find, and finding one still in one piece is very special. Look at the smaller sand dollar…it has been worn down by the movement of the sea, becoming rounded, its imprint much lighter. Notice the small piece of driftwood behind the sand dollars. It, too, has been rounded by the sea…

I have been to the Atlantic coast many times, but this summer we had the opportunity to travel to the Pacific coast of Oregon…and it is amazing. We found many pieces of basalt on the edge of the sea. Many of them had holes bored into them, perfectly round holes. What could have done that, i wondered. Time to do some research. The perfectly bored holes are made by a bivalve mollusc called a piddock or angel wing. We found many basalt stones rounded by the sea with rounded piddock bored burrows.

The sea is beautiful, it has amazing power, and its action on everything around it helps make nature a most exciting and aesthetic place to find oneself!

In response to the Weekly Photo Challenge

Early in the morning, I look out my window as I read while enjoying my first cup of coffee. The glow of the morning sun is a welcome sight, and a look into the possibilities of a new day…

Some mornings bring fog, sometimes dense fog. But at some point that sun rising in the east cuts through, and gives a very special glow to the morning…

As I walk through the woods at a nearby nature trail, the glow of the sun is bright. But as it filters through the treetops, I can almost look right at it..

The glow of the full moon has always thrilled me, but sometimes that glow has to struggle to get through the cloud cover of a stormy night…

And then the next evening, when all the clouds have passed, the not quite full moon shines through with an almost magical glow…

Sky glow!

In response to the Weekly Photo Challenge

There is a structure in nature…a structure that promises constancy and reliability. In a world that seems without structure at times, nature gives the sense that everything will be alright.

It is why I often run away to the woods, to the sea, to the prairie…

The bee in the picture above is an insect. Insects are varied in their shapes and sizes, their habits and their habitats, but all reliably have six legs and three body parts. That is their structure. And the buttonbush blossom from which this Tiger Swallowtail butterfly, an insect, drinks the nectar has a constancy of structure all its own. Each buttonbush blossom will always look the same, it cannot be confused with any other flower.

These damselflies are insects also. They have their own recognizable structure, different from that of the butterfly or the bee.

Structure gives nature a sense of order, and order gives life a sense of peace.

This post is in response to the Weekly Photo Challenge