August:Thirty One

let me be your one true light

and if you'd like a true heart

take time to show you're mine

and I'll be a blue moon in the dark

while you sleep you'll see me there

clouds race across the sky

close your eyes and don't ask why

and I'll be a blue moon in your eyes

morning comes and sleeping's done

birds sing outside

if demons come while you're sleeping

I'll be a blue moon in the sky

let me be your one light

and if you'd like a true heart

take the time to show you're mine

and I'll be a blue moon in the dark

~Big Star

August:Thirty

"I'm nobody. Who are you? Are you nobody, too? 

Then there's a pair of us - don't tell! 

They'll banish us, you know?"

                                ~ Emily Dickinson

August:Twenty Nine

He and I

when words run dry,

he does not try,

nor do I.

we are on par.

he just is

I just am

and we just are.

                                          ~Lang Leav

August:Twenty Eight

Often times it's not about finding the silver lining, 
it's about being willing to see it. 

August:Twenty Seven

"Summer's lease hath all too short a date"

           ~William Shakespeare

August:Twenty Six

"Dreams pass into the reality of action. 
From the actions stems the dream again; 
and this interdependence produces the highest form of living."

                                                     ~Anais Nin

August:Twenty Five

"There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe, do and mostly live"

~ the Dali Lama

The day before I saw this quote, a friend of mine had said "If you live in the past, you are depressed. If you live in the future, you are anxious. If you live in the present, you are happy" - I went to bed that night and this kept playing over and over in my mind.  How true! I know this, and I try diligently to live in the present, though I don't always succeed.  As someone who has recently been diagnosed with depression AND anxiety, I understand how extremely important it is to live in the present, though I suppose I never really knew the physical impact of dwelling on the past, or trying to predict the future.

August:Twenty Four

“Night, in which everything was lost, went reaching out, beyond stars and sun. Stars and sun, a few bright grains, went spiraling round for terror, and holding each other in embrace, there in a darkness that outpassed them all, and left them tiny and daunted. So much, and himself, infinitesimal, at the core of nothingness, and yet not nothing.” 

~D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

August:Twenty Three

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom 

fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.” 

                                        ~Marcus Aurelius

August:Twenty Two

‎"There is no great genius without some touch of madness." 

                                                                         ~Seneca

First day back in the classroom, arranging, cleaning and prepping for next week.  So many things are going to be different this year; I am prepared to face the changes with a positive attitude, and a touch of madness.

August:Twenty One

"The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude."
                                          ~Friedrich Nietzsche

There are so many things in this life that I do not understand,   

and yet I know that I am not meant to understand.

I can only use the gifts this life has given me to give to others, by simply letting them take up residence in my heart.

August:Twenty

sound is a wave, like a wave on the ocean

moon plays the ocean like a violin

pushing and pulling from shore to shore

if I were the night sky

here's my lullaby

lullaby to leave by

if I were the night

what if we hadn't been born at the same time?
what if you're seventy five and I were nine?

would I come visit you?

bring you cookies in an old folks home?

would you be there alone?

and when the late summer lightning

fires off in your arms

will I remember to breathe?

no, I never will, no

and the fire could convince you that I mean you no harm

just wanna show you how not to need

what if we hadn't been each other at the same time?

would you tell me all the stories

from when you were young and in your prime?

would I rock you to sleep?

would you tell me all the secrets you don't need to keep?

would I still miss you?

oh, would you then

have been mine?

sound is a wave, like a wave on the ocean

moon plays the ocean like a violin

pushing and pulling from shore to shore

biggest melody you never heard before

 ~Andrew Bird, Night Sky

August:Nineteen

"I will hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning"
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

August:Eighteen

"time was not passing...it was turning in a circle"

~Gabriel Garcìa Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

August:Seventeen

“What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”

                                                                                                                     ~Jack Kerouac, On the Road

August:Sixteen

“How beautiful is forgetting! 

What relief it would be for the world to lose some of its contents.”

~Jonathan Safran Foer, Tree of Codes

August:Fifteen

"We love the things we love for what they are"

                                              ~Robert Frost

August:Fourteen

"We can't get outside the aura. We're part of the aura. We're here, we're now."

                                                                  ~Don DeLillo, White Noise

I have abandoned soul searching this summer, the act of trying to figure out my place in the world; my world.  I knew the answer all along, it isn't that I have a "place", I am the world, and... it is me. 

Everything beautiful and everything ugly that encompasses the space around me, is also me, I have no control over this, it is the balance of nature, of the universe.  

I am here, I am now.

August:Thirteen

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” 

                             ~Leonardo DaVinci

Recently I picked up a cute red Sabre camera at one of my most favorite junque shops.  I rewound a roll of 120 film (by hand) onto the 620 spools, that this camera uses.  I ran a test roll through one evening, while on a walk in the local nature preserve.  The camera box kept slipping open, and at one point, I dropped it and it came apart all together, exposing the film.  I finished the roll anyway and delivered it to the local color lab to be processed.  

When I picked up the film today, I was surprised to see there were some shots worth taking a look at.  This was the one that made me gasp! Working with film, we all know if you are lucky enough to get even one shot that works, it is rare.  

I will learn the intricacies of this camera, since most of the shots were way out of focus.  I will also be taping the perimeter of the camera, to prevent it's coming apart.  

I am so delighted with the simplicity of this camera, even though I had to reroll the film, scan the negative and then clean it up in photoshop...it's was all worth it in the end.

A bonus from the same roll.  This may have been a double exposure, I'm not quite certain.

August:Twelve

“The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to having an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”

                                                                          ~ Jon Krakauer,  Into the Wild

August:Eleven

“The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all.”

                                                                                          ~ Cormac McCarthy, The Road

August:Ten

“Curiouser and curiouser.” 
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

August:Nine

when I'm old

will you live with me

in a shack

at the edge of the sea?

August:Eight

"we will be remembered more for what we destroy than what we create"

                                                        ~ Chuck Palahniuk, Little Monsters

A postcard to the future.

August:Seven

"all children alarm their parents, if only because you are forever 

expecting to encounter yourself"

                                                                              ~ Gore Vidal

August:Six

"One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple"

                                                                           ~ Jack Kerouac

August:Five

"We should meet in another life, we should meet in air, me and you"

                                                                                ~ Sylvia Plath

August:Four

Where are the beggars when I need to look good?

I sure don't want my life as a stroller

and I wouldn't put my life in the hands of a stranger

The Stroller  by Jaill

August:Three

“A lake is a landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.” 
― Henry David Thoreau

August:Two

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted"

                                                                                                            ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

August Break:One

"We do survive. And Then We Thrive." 

                                                        ~ Susannah Conway

Today is the first day of August Break!  This will be the third year I have participated. I always find it as an inspiration to consistently blog, while others are inspired to take a sort of break, posting photos and keeping it simple; there are no rules.

I thought the best way to begin the month would be with a photo of two books I just finished reading, by the creator of the August Break, Susannah Conway.  My ordering and reading the book "this i know" was initially unrelated to preparing for the August Break.  This is a book about grief and finding your way out, with time.  While I have not experienced the level of grief expressed in this book, and my heart goes out to Susannah, I had suffered a loss several months ago...a loss of myself, I guess you could say.

I'm not usually one for "self-help" books, but upon opening this book, I realized it was much more than that.  In this book I found that it was common and perfectly okay to feel broken, but also okay to feel whole again.  

What comes to my mind, and has been said so many times...time heals.  It is so difficult to believe at your lowest point, but it is true.  

I have been drowning myself in painting, writing, nature, trips, friends, and looking inward as much as outward...honing in on the big picture, as well as the details.

Here's to August!  It's warmth, it's beauty, as well as it's ability to rejuvenate and help us transition into the next season.