Saying goodbye to 2015

Soon it will be a new year, 2016.  2015 has been filled with ups and downs, happy and sad, beginnings and endings, just as life should be.  Life never leaves me bored! 

For the last couple of years I have chosen a word to be my guide for the year, mostly in my photography, but carried over into my daily living.  In 2014, the word was Accomplish, setting out to achieve some goals that I wanted to achieve;  in 2016 the word was Balance, doing projects I wanted to do while not neglecting the things I HAD to do.     I feel like I did the best I could with both of those words.

In 2016, I have chosen "Moments".  I want to live life so that I am aware and connected to all the moments that happen every day, be they small tiny things like noticing a spider web or great big celebrations.  Taking the time to sit and ponder,  slowing down to enjoy instead of jumping to the next thing.  

I like being on the move, floating around like these birds,  but I like being still also.  I spend more time taking photos of moments than I do just being in the moment. I want to slow and change this process; to take more time, have less photos.  This is the challenge.   In order to help me to be slower and  more aware, I have a list of twelve words, one for each month,  that will be used for prompts for my photography and any writing that goes with it.   The words are:

   Begin, Play, Promise, Nurture, Trust, Flow, Stumble, Share, Harvest, Reflect, Deepen, and Dream.  

Beginning January 2016, I hope to see a significant change in the way I record the moments of my life.  One way to stick with this is to be consistent with my blog posting.  I will use this blog to record a moment each week.  That is my goal, something to accomplish, balancing the time, photographing the moments with intention.  I can't wait to begin this journey.

Prayers

Thinking of all the sad, tragic things that happen in our world.

Why is there so much hate?

How do we go about teaching love to those who don't feel it?

Just pray to whoever hears your words of hope.

Do you bow your head when you pray 

or do you look up into the blue space?

Take your choice, prayers fly,

from all directions.

Mary Oliver,  Felicity

Thanksgiving Day 2015 November 26

  November 26
    
Thankful for the time spent with family

 and this life I live.

"To be truly free one must take on the basic conditions 

as they are - painful, impermanent, open, imperfect - 

and then be grateful for impermanence 

and the freedom it grants us. 

For in a fixed universe there would be no freedom. 

With that freedom we improve the campsite,

 teach children, oust tyrants. 

The world is nature, and in the long run inevitably wild, 

because the wild, 

as the process and essence of nature, 

is also an ordering of impermanence." 

~Gary Snyder

Thanksgiving November 24

                                                      November 24

                     Thanksgiving is about food and eating food.
                        Thankful to have recipes handed down
                       and being able to prepare them for my family.

               
                                

Thanksgiving November 23

                                                                      November 23

It is getting very close to Thanksgiving Day, a special day to give thanks for our home, food to eat and people in our lives.  But for me this is every day, thankful for just being alive for another day; to enjoy life, to be happy in what I have and where I am. 

                         
 It does not take much to make me happy..I even like acorns that will make you twist your ankle if you walk on them.  They fall from the oaks all over the yard along with their friends, the oak leaves.  This year, the oak leaves were not even pretty, just a dull brown that was so blah.  The acorns have multiplied by the thousands even after they hit the ground..I know this as every day I go out and count them..there are 1,749,652 and that is not counting all the ones that are broke in half.  And because the ground is so wet, they are sprouting those little tails that will make more oaks trees.  I keep telling them we have enough and I will be raking until next spring but they just don't listen.  So I will just sing to them as I rake..and stumble if I step on them the wrong way.   They are beautiful!  I am thankful I have oak trees to share my world.

Thanksgiving November 22

                                          November 22

                                     Grateful for my home
                                     Yard and woods and porches too!
                                     

                         

                                     Happiness lives here!

Thanksgiving November 21

                                                       November 21

              Thankful for happy, laughing children at play!

Thanksgiving November 20

                                                                  November 20

                           
                                 A book, 
                                      a magazine or
                                          anything with stories!

                             Thankful for the joy of reading!

                   

 

Thanksgiving November 18 and 19

                                                          November 18 and 19
   
                            Thankful for beautiful butterflies!

Ladybugs

 Dragonflies!

Grasshoppers..

Spiders...

And Bees!

Thanksgiving November 17

                                                       November 17

                                Thankful for my friends,
                                Memories made with love
                                   Looking at happiness.

                                                  

Thanksgiving November 16

                                                              November 16

                          Thankful for the beauty of poetry!

Thanksgiving Day Prayer 

For the wide sky and the blessed sun,

 For the salt sea and the running water, 

For the everlasting hills And the never-resting winds, 

For trees and the common grass underfoot. 

We thank you for our senses 

By which we hear the songs of birds, 

And see the splendor of the summer fields,

 And taste of the autumn fruits, 

And rejoice in the feel of the snow, 

And smell the breath of the spring. 

Grant us a heart wide open to all this beauty. 

Walter Rauschenbusch 

Thanksgiving November 15

November 15

Thankful for the gift of rainbows!

Thanksgiving November 14

November 14

Thankful to see fog...

 through the window of rain

Or rising from the water.

Thanksgiving November 13

                                                            November 13

                           Thankful to see the sky at sunset

Thanksgiving November 12

November 12

Thankful for knowing the past

and what has come before.