Recipe for joy

[vaneramos]

Have Rodrigo's Concierto Andaluz playing on the car stereo. Drive through open countryside on a sunny afternoon with the windows down and wind blowing in your hair.



Stop by a row of flowering crabapples and let your children climb in the branches. Inhale the fragrance and catch the glow of light through the blossoms.



That's what we did today on the way home from Starkey Hill Trail.



Thanks to Advil Cold and Sinus tablets my congestion and scratchy throat have receded into the background. This morning we decided to go hiking, and the sky cleared wonderfully for us.

We drove to Starkey Hill Trail, which winds for 4 km (2.5 mi) through steep moraines and maple woods. Marian and Brenna are energetic troopers when they have the chance to explore new territory.



Brenna scouted far ahead, giving Marian and me some time to bond and admire woodland flowers. The forest floor was speckled with white and painted trillium, large-flowered bellwort, spring-beauty and dogtooth violet. The air was full of the songs of warblers and orioles.

Comments

[mylastsigh.livejournal.com]

ah such peace and joy and wonderful photos

[ruralrob.livejournal.com]

Lovely photos!

[missprune.livejournal.com]

The apple blossom photo is magnificent! Meanwhile, here, it's snowing, raining and hailing by turns on the fragile fruit tree flowers...

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Today has been a rare day. It felt magical, and somehow the photos happened to capture what I was feeling.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Bob.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

El, I think it is going to become one of my favourite photos. I wish I could share this fine weather with you.

Re:

[mylastsigh.livejournal.com]

i am very happy for you

[dubious-one.livejournal.com]

really nice shots. really nice. wow.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[wonderboynj.livejournal.com]

Your daughter's are both gorgeous, i can see they get their looks from you ; )

[ubermunkey.livejournal.com]

hey bub, i remember the top two from then. I loved them the first time and i love them a bit more this time after having gotten to (know) you a bit over the past year.

The third looks familiar but I don't recall it like the first two.

At any rate, hats off to magic and love. Be well

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

We weren't reading each other yet when I posted this, but I remember pointing you back to those two photos sometime later. In fact I had only been on LJ one month and hadn't made many of the friends I have now. Checking the longer version of your profile just now, I noticed something interesting: you started your LJ account three days before I did.

Cheers,
Van

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

I remember these, as well. All three are beautiful but the second one has a particularly luminous quality that made me think of the legends of Summerland (the Witch version of the Afterlife).

I love the shimmering green of the top one, and the earthy feel the monochrome gives to the bottom one. Excellent work, and thank you for this toddle down memory lane.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome. I remember now that I posted the top two in a collection of favourite shots at the end of 2003, which would be where many people had seen them before. I think the shadowy darkground makes the brightness of the middle shot all the more poignant, and I can appreciate your invocation of Summerland. I hadn't heard of it before.

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

A lot of the imagery around Summerland comes from very old lore about the Realm of Faery. A very gifted Shaman who does a lot of work with the dead told me that Faery and the Summerland share a lot of overlapping territory.

My own Teacher has hinted that these are two similar ways of approaching the same psychic territory--make of that what you will.