24 Sunday Mar 2019
Posted in Nature, Photography
Tags
After so much rain this year on the central coast of California, the hillsides around our home are green and lush. The wildflowers are beginning to pop out in our neighborhood and the cherry trees are in full bloom. Here are just a few quick photos from a recent walk to our mailbox.
04 Monday Mar 2019
Edvard Munch
The sun does not shine on us
but in us.
The rivers flow not past,
but through us,
thrilling, tingling,
vibrating every fiber and cell
of the substance of our bodies,
making them glide and sing.
Wassily Kandinsky
The trees wave
Gertrude Fiske
and the flowers bloom
in our bodies as well as our souls,
Joaquin Sorolla
and every bird song,
wind song,
Edward Robert Hughes
and tremendous storm song
Edward Dulac
of the rocks in the heart of
the mountains
JMW Turner
is our song,
our very own,
Joaquin Sorolla
and sings our love.
–John Muir
07 Monday Jan 2019
Posted in Art, Blogging, Culture, Photography, Writing
Tags
art, Blogging, blogs, inspiration, Nature, photography, quotations
I love discovering new blogs that inspire me and want to share three, among many, that I discovered this past year.
I turn to this one often, for the captivating images as well as the inspiring quotations. Two I enjoyed most recently were by John Muir, the first enticing us to saunter reverently rather than “hike” when we are out among nature. He tells us how the word “saunter” comes from pilgrims who are traveling through France ‘A la sainte terre’, or ‘To the Holy Land.’ Another reminds us that we are kin to everything
When we try to pick out anything by itself,
we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
One fancies a heart like our own must be beating in every crystal and cell,
and we feel like stopping to speak to the plants and animals
as friendly fellow mountaineers.
Recently I featured another post I loved in Seeing the Self in What We Love.
Then there was Wild Elegance, which speaks to why I named this blog Living on the Edge of the Wild. John O’Donohue from The Invisible Embrace, Beauty writes:
When we acknowledge the wild beauty of God, we begin to glimpse the potential holiness of our neglected wildness. As humans, citizens and believers, we have become domesticated beyond belief. We have fallen out of rhythm with our natural wildness. What we now call ‘being wild’ is often misshapen, destructive and violent. The natural wildness as the fluency of the soul at one with beauty is foreign to us.
The call of the wild is a call to the elemental levels of the soul, the places of intuition, kinship, swiftness, fluency and the consolation of the lonesome that is not lonely. Our fear of our own wildness derives in part from our fear of the formless; but the wild is not the formless – it holds immense refinement and, indeed, clarity. The wild has a profound simplicity that carries none of the false burdens of brokenness or self-conflict; it flows naturally as one, elegant and seamless.
Beauty invites us towards profound elegance of soul. It reminds us that we are heirs to elegance and nobility of spirit and encourages us to awaken the divinity within us. We are no longer trapped in mental frames of self-reduction or self-denunciation.
Instead, we feel the desire to celebrate, to give ourselves over to the dance of joy and delight. The overwhelming beauty which is God pervades the texture of our soul, transforming all smallness, limitation and self-division. The mystics speak of the excitement of such unity. This is how Marguerite Porete describes it:
‘Such a Soul, says Love swims in the sea of joy, that is in the sea of delights, flowing and running out of the Divinity. And so she feels no joy, for she is joy itself. She swims and flows in Joy… for she dwells in Joy and Joy dwells in her.’
For a stroll through art history and a survey of some of the major and minor artists through the ages, I love to visit this site, which always inspires and enlightens.
The painting that headlines this post is from his site by a lesser known artist, or at least new to me, Maria Fortuny’s painting of Portici Beach in Spain.
The best of his 2018 paintings and articles can be found at this link. It’s a two-parter, so don’t miss this one as well.
For a preview of what he’ll be covering this your, make sure you check out this link.
This blog satisfies my longing for travel, art, photography, soulful writing, and that fearsome urge to trust oneself in exploring the unknown. Here a young woman tells about uprooting herself to move to a new city, Istanbul, which she explores through photography and storytelling.
In her favorite posts of 2018 you can taste some of the many flavors she has to offer: joyful wisdom, finding home, writing about place, Istanbul street art, and more.
I also loved her interview with photographer John Wreford. She’s a wonderful photographer herself, and I think that’s how I met her, at a cemetery in Prague.
But where I fell in love with her blog was when I read Home is Where the Heart Is, where she converses with a stranger she meets in a medieval courtyard and writes:
We talked about how everything at its core is fluid and he talked to me about the Tao Te Ching.
And suddenly we had left the party and were slowly meandering down the road of a deep conversation. And by deep, I mean that reality started to lose its edges as we both came to an agreement on certain points other than what is conventionally accepted.
I admitted to him that I had lived in so many places that I no longer could relate to home being somewhere outside myself. That secretly I was building my home within – letting go of the stuff of this world and instead focusing on the things that I can take with me when I die – the wisdom and knowledge of the world that may (or may not) serve me in the next life.
You see, I don’t believe that we die because what is there to die into? Everything is alive and remains alive in one form or another.
And something tells me that I have lived many lives because from time to time I remember something unusual. I will have a dream that will take me to another place so real that I must have been there before.
I hope you will fall in love with these blogs I discovered this past year as I have. And, please, share some of the favorites sites you’ve discovered with me too in the comments below.
19 Monday Nov 2018
Tags
art, artists, beauty, Gerard Manley Hopkins, inspiration, music, Nature, Paintings, Pied Beauty, poetry
Wassily Kandinsky, Waterfall II
Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
What is it about “dappled” things that so dazzles us?
I ran across this poem, a favorite of mine, not long ago, and was reminded once again of how much nature inspires and excites us. Painters as well as poets have been praising that pied beauty through their artwork down the ages.
Vincent Van Gogh
John Singer Sargeant
John Singer Sargeant
John Singer Sargeant
John Singer Sargeant
Gertrude Fiske
Anne Redpath
Rick Stevens, Immersed
Gustav Klimt
11 Sunday Nov 2018
Posted in Art, My Artwork, Nature, Poetry
Tags
art, California, inspiration, Nature, oil pastel, painting, watercolor
I’ve long loved the way the rolling hills along the coast of California fold together and overlap, the sensuality of that “hot rise and cool dip.” I’ve tried to capture a bit of that fascination in some of my poetry: Hot Hills in Summer Heat, and Playing with Light, loving the way the light falls upon those folds so that “the hills unwind, one at a time, to dance before us all.”
Lately I’ve been trying to capture some of that in a few paintings, some inspired by the work of other artists and some from my own photographs. I’m not wholly satisfied with any of them, but something of what I’m trying to capture comes through.
This first is watercolor and oil pastel, and even a brush of soft chalk pastel in the sea and highlighting the closest hill. This was inspired by a Dale Laitinen painting of the coastline along Highway 1 near our home called.
The one above and below were inspired by a local and much-loved artist Erin Hanson who works mostly in oil. My painting above is again oil pastel and watercolor on Arches cold press paper, which has much more texture than the smoother hot press Fabriano paper used in the other oil pastel paintings in this post. 
This one was also inspired by Hanson which I painted some time ago in acrylic. I’ve only created three works in acrylic so far, but for some reason I feel intimidated by it. I’m not sure why. The three I painted out came out well enough. Of course, none of these inspired by other artists come even close to the quality of the original works. But I learn so much each time I try.
This one and the one below are from my own photographs taken of the hillsides on my walks around our neighborhood. They come closer to those “folding hills” I wrote about earlier, “the hot rise and cool dip” in my poems. Both are oil pastel and watercolor on hot press paper.
In this last one I wanted to see what the hills would look like stripped down and closer. I’m not sure which version I like best. The mattings help a lot to set off the works. Someday I will learn to photograph my paintings better. That might help too (smile.)
Thank you for bearing with me as I try to learn this craft and share my efforts. It’s a fascinating pastime.
[Note: I created this post before the latest round of fires set these hills ablaze north and south of where we live. My heart goes out to all who have lost their lives and homes, and seen their communities destroyed, including the wildlife that inhabits these hills and forests.]
18 Thursday Oct 2018
Posted in Art, Nature, Poetry, Spirituality
Tags
art, Blogging, David Whyte, Earth, Gertrude Fiske, inspiration, Nature, poem, poetry, spirituality
Gertrude Fiske, American Impressionist
All My Body Calls
All my body calls
for something in this sleeping
earth
we call the spirit.
But how
from lifted arms
where stars run through fingers
and the night is like sand
do I breathe a fragrance of its wisdom
do I call its name
or listen to the drops
that trickle down to earth
and hear
life being given
not only through the moving hands of the forest
but through the hand that reaches in
the dark unmoving regions of the chest
and uncovers slowly
the enormous
indistinct
shape of the ocean.
by David Whyte
Fallen in Love
That day I saw beneath dark clouds
the passing light over the water
and I heard the voice of the world speak out,
I knew then, as I had before
life is no passing memory of what has been
nor the remaining pages in a great book
waiting to be read.
It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far off things
seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years
of secret conversing
speaking out loud in the clear air.
It is Moses in the desert
fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
as if to enter heaven
and finding himself astonished,
opened at last,
fallen in love with solid ground.
by David Whyte
What struck me in the poems and the painting is that “something in this sleeping earth” that we are only half-awake to, what Whyte calls “spirit.” I see that spirit clearly in the painting by Friske, the two women immersed in the forest, in that yellow-green light, in those parting branches, those “moving hands.”
And in the second poem, that sense that there’s nothing to wait for, it’s all out here in the open, “speaking out loud in the clear air,” as solid and humble and astonishing as the ground beneath our bare feet.
In another poem, Whyte writes:
Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.
What are we waiting for? Especially in these trying times.
All times are trying. All lives are trying. We have to grasp, right here, right now, despite all that, what’s waiting half-hidden all around us this very moment.
Many thanks to The Beauty We Love where I found these poems, and to The Uncarved Blog who shared two wondrous poems by Stephen Levine and pointed me toward this site. It’s one of the things I love about blogging, finding these hidden treasures that speak so eloquently to things I feel and cannot say.
30 Sunday Sep 2018
Posted in Art, My Artwork, Nature
Tags
abstract, art, forest, Mixed Media, Nature, oil pastel, painting, Paintings, trees, watercolor
I’ve started painting again, keeping toward the abstract, still experimenting with water-color and oil pastel, letting them show me how well they play together.
I’d been inspired by some of Rick Steven’s paintings, his intense close-ups of trees and barks. I love the colors, the texture, the shapes.
The painting above was my initial attempt. At first it seemed too vertical, too placid, so I began to build up the horizontal elements, the “foliage,” and finally came to the place where it seemed “done.”
Next I wanted to do a close-up of a shapely tree trunk, and again I was dissatisfied. Too vertical, no clear focus. So I began to add areas of “lichen,” I suppose you could call it, at the lower right and upper left. Something to attract the eye and allow it to move up or down the trunk. At some point it too seemed “complete.” This one may be my favorite of the three. I like the richness of the colors, the texture.
I’m not sure where the last one came from. I wanted to add a human element into the natural, something partially hidden, peeking out, more figurative than figure. The blue sprite appeared. But further down the tree trunk another face emerged, unbidden. With that addition, the painting took on a more ominous than playful feel. Not what I had intended at all. I’m not sure I like this one. But it haunts me.
02 Sunday Sep 2018
Posted in Creative Nonfiction, Deep Ecology, music, Nature, Writing
Tags
deep ecology, Francis Weller, humanity, inspiration, Language, music, Nature, quotations, The poetics of place, writing
“I want to see our words jump off the ground, erupt from a sensual earth, musty, humid, gritty. I want to taste words like honey, sweet and dripping with eternity. I want to hear words coming from my mouth and your mouth that are so beautiful that we wince with joy at their departure and arrival. I want to touch words that carry weight and substance, words that have shape and body, curve and tissue. I want to feel what we say as though the words were holy utterances surfacing from a pool where the gods drink. . . . .
My language must be redwood speech, watershed prayers, oak savannah, coupled in an erotic way with fog, heat, wind, rain and hills, sweetgrass and jackrabbits, wild iris and ocean current. My land is my language and only then can my longing for eloquence by granted. Until then I will fumble and fume and ache for a style of speaking that tells you who I am.” – Francis Weller
One of my first blog posts in 2012 featured a speech by Francis Weller that captures so eloquently how the earth, our natural habitat, speaks to us and inspires us to speak. How it shapes our language and the way we express ourselves, not only in literature but in art and music and dance.
You can read his whole speech at his website Wisdom Bridge – Modern Pathways to our Indigenous Soul. The excerpt above, my quote of the week, hopefully will whet your appetite to do so.
As you read his speech, you might want to listen again to how nature inspires and shapes music, here in Max Richter’s reimagining of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, one of my favorite pieces.
17 Sunday Jun 2018
Posted in Creative Nonfiction, Nature, Photography
Lately I’ve been playing with roses, photographing them at different stages in bloom, at different times of day, against varied backgrounds, just to see what I could capture.
I love this first one, the delicate color, the fat soft petals, open, exposed, framing the center. The way the gentle light catches the edges of the petals and swirl in toward the center where the deeper shadows lie.
The eye moves from the edges spiraling ever inward, round and round toward the tight bud. This is where the eye rests, at that center, probing the inner depths, where the spiralling continues past where we can see. 
The spiral is a symbol of infinity, an inward eternal flowing. Water spirals, wind spirals, dancers spiral, galaxies spiral. Thought spirals round and round, ever inward, toward a place past knowing.
This next one stops my heart, I don’t know why.
The color is so tender, the center so closed, the outer petals so utterly open, leaving the center defenceless. There’s a feeling of vulnerability, a careless disclosing, an utterly unstudied becoming.
Here it is again from a different angle. See the way the light flows upward through the petals? It breaks my heart.
And the one below . . . I have no words.
Now we go outside to where I pluck the roses from the only bush that has survived the deer and gophers. It’s a tall, gangly bush that grows outside our bathroom window where we see it every morning, watching the roses burst and bloom from one stage to another.
I cut only the ones that grow below and above where we can see and bring them into our home–orphans, offerings, honored guests, gracious gifts.
This first one is stunning. The contrast between the deep rose and deeper blue. I’m thinking flags flying, sails billowing, kites dancing across the sky.
Hotdogs? Baseball? Blasting trumpets? There’s something heroic, cheering, utterly wholesome and deeply comforting about this photo.
That shade of blue in contrast with bright colors heralds all our summers, all our bright hopes, all our pride and enduring optimism. Endless summer. It lives like a flame in our hearts, in the faces of laughing children, in the roar of jets, in fireworks bursting against a twilit sky.
This deep blue sky is the background for all our hopes and dreams and unites us wherever we live in the world. The whole rounded globe is cupped in this blue.
The next is especially sweet and hopeful. The way the light shines through it conveys a sense of innocence, purity. 
There’s a freshness here. You can almost smell the sweetness.
The following seems more serene, mature, even though it is the same rose against the same sky, but the light is different, There’s an intensity here, a romantic allure. I’m thinking candlelit dinner, silk stockings, love letters strewn on a bed.
The one below is pure happiness. I can only smile and smile.
What more can I say?
The following photos evoke something else. The rose and the clouds seem to drift across the sky, lightly as feathers.
We sense movement here, of passing time, fleeting moments. 
There’s a dreamlike quality with the soft focus, the soft petals, soft as the clouds they float upon.
I’m thinking of a rowboat rocking gently on a pond, fingers trailing in the cool water, eyes gazing at the sky above, clouds gentle as a breeze gazing downward, stroking soft skin.
No we go indoors again.
These roses are shot against a gold wall. I like the way the pink and gold play against each other. The contrasting colors startle each other, but they do not clash. The boldness of the gold deepens the warmth of the rose, releasing its sweet aroma. Can you smell it? 
There’s a tropical feel here. It reminds me of a conch shell I have sitting near my bath, the deep rose at the center of its hollow, the broad lip curling outward turning shades of gold, the whole sculpture a study of pink and gold, of curls and whorls and crowns. The smooth inner lips reflecting the light, the rough and rugged shell absorbing it.
This following was shot out of focus against rippling water. I filtered it to see what would happen.
It’s hardly a rose anymore, hardly water, it’s all melted together, water and rose. 
There’s a surreal quality, what a rose might look like painted by Van Gogh, underwater, floating among the seaweed. A still face just below a rippling surface, holding you with its gaze. Trying to tell you. You strain to hear. What is it? What do you hear?
The next is also filtered, shot against the travertine tile. Romanesque, don’t you think? An old world quality. Ivory and old lace.
There’s a coolness and stillness here, yet the light still brightens.
I’m reminded of ancient statues, the way the light wraps around them, tempering the cool marble with its warmth. The skin of the rounded limbs, the muscled thighs, the bent elbows, broad shoulders, soft and silky to the eye’s touch, the embracing gaze.
Can you feel the cool, soft petals?
The following is one of my favorites.
She’s just past full bloom, just a shade before fading, still buoyant, full faced, gracious in her giving, nothing hidden, nothing withheld.
The sepia tones capture that inner light, the golden glowing, the gracefulness and graciousness.
We know where this ends. But the end is not here, not here at all, not in her, not in this elegant awakening, this gathering awareness, this full-throated opening to all there is.
Here are my lovely ladies, gathered in a crystal vase, growing old together.
See how the petals sag ever-so-slightly?
You want to cup them and hold them up, you want to feather your face against them, you want to say, it’s okay my sweets, I love you still, I love you ever more, I love you just this way.
Never has your beauty been more achingly tender than in its fading, its falling away, it ethereal effervescence.
Your beauty is past knowing, it’s all past knowing.
This post, still one of my personal favorites, was written six years ago. I had only one rose bush then. Now I have at least a dozen. Here’s hoping your summer is blooming as lovely as these.
16 Wednesday May 2018
Posted in Art, My Artwork, Nature, Oak Trees
Tags
art, Nature, painting, trees, watercolor
I haven’t been painting this year as much as last. But I wanted to share a few that will probably find a place on my wall. All of them are a mix of watercolor and oil pastel, which I’ve been playing with a lot lately.
I’ve included two paintings in this post, both proof of my love affair with trees. The one above, Roots and Rocks, is from a nearby creek bed. I love the way the roots of the old oak hug the rocks around it. The reference photo is below.
Paintings always look better when matted.
The second painting, Tangled Limbs, and its reference photo are below.
This is one of the rare paintings which I think looks better the closer you get to it, where you can see the texture and marks better.
You can’t see it in the reference photo, but the light streaming through those limbs was dazzling. I tried to capture a bit of that by dripping on yellow paint from the top.
I’ll have a couple more paintings to share soon.
