Beauty in Buddhist caves

I really like these beautiful photographs of Buddhist caves in Myanmar, Thailand and India, so check them out on Huffington Post!

Snow days, mindfulness of the moment

Hello Atlanta snow days ... I am experiencing this through a lens of mindfulness and appreciation. And, glad to say the appreciation includes Georgia Power coming around on Wednesday and cutting a neighbor's tree down off the wire and restoring our power! Here are some photos that can help us remember our week, including Sophie, Dori and Mac:

One of Atlanta's infamous snow weeks

It turns out that a bit of snow came through on Tuesday with some ice mixed in. At Noon, it came full swing and at the same time all of Atlanta's employers, schools and government workers hit the road. Next came an unbelievable story of cars stuck on highways and side streets for hours - some up to 16 hours. Hundreds of people ended up leaving their cars on the side of the road and walked to the nearest safe place. Here is the story. My family was fine and I was home because I decided to cancel my mid-day plans early that morning! Here is my peaceful place this week during the chaos that occurred nearby. I learned that Mac, Dori and Sophie really do love snow!

Surfboard makes it to Lake Herrington

I was communicating with Lexington friends on Facebook and posted this photo there - it is fun to find a blast from the past like this 1966 photo at the lake, Lake Herrington, near Lexington.

 

 

The Internet I worked on in 1981

This article made me really smile! I worked at the Atlanta Journal and Constitution in 1981 on the Associated Press project putting this newspaper, and others were too [NYT etc.], onto CompuServe so people could read the newspaper over a computer. All my journalist buddies would walk by my office and say "No one will ever read a newspaper over a TV or computer!" Well, I guess they were wrong in spades.

If you click on the link you can watch a video about it back then:

The Internet In 1981 Was Just So Adorable

The Huffington Post  |  By Alexis Kleinman                            

Posted: 01/17/2014 2:27 pm EST  |  Updated: 01/17/2014 3:25 pm EST

"Imagine, if you will, sitting down to your morning coffee and turning on your home computer to read the day's newspaper."

So begins this adorable San Francisco newscast from 1981, chronicling how newspapers are starting to (gasp!) send newspapers over the Internet. Someone is even credited as a "home computer owner."

"Engineers now predict the day will come when we get all our newspapers and magazines by home computer, but that's a few years off," newscaster Steve Newman said.

Apparently it took more than two hours to get the whole newspaper to your computer over the phone. Never complain about your slow Internet again.

 

 

 

Gifting the earth

Opposite the sun

                                               with a warm light
                                          a new day gifts the earth.

 

Here is the moon this morning at the top of the hill behind my house - just starting to wane from a full moon.

Hand-sewing beautiful fabric into purses

 

I decided to look around for purses I made a few years back ... I loved hunting for fabric and sewing by hand. I lined them all and added special touches. I made about 15 of them, and I gave them to friends and family, it was fun. Here is one I still have - a simple purse about 10"x10".

Sixty diamond minutes

A poem I wrote in the 1970s ... about precious time and living in the moment.

Lost:
Somewhere between
Sunrise and sunset
Golden hours with
Sixty diamond minutes

No reward offered
For they are
Gone forever.

Serendipity and "listening to what you can leave out"

I was reading through pages in my blog today and saw that I quoted Miles Davis nearly a decade ago saying, "I always listen to what I can leave out." I see this as a healthy approach to daily living!

Below is a paragraph from The New York Times today that I saw right after I read my blog... what serendipity. Wikipedia says, "Serendipity means a "happy accident" or "pleasant surprise." Specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful while not specifically searching for it. The word has been voted one of the ten English words hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company."

From the Times: "Miles Davis' trumpet solos, whether ruminating on a whispered ballad melody or jabbing against a beat, have been models for generations of jazz musicians. Other trumpeters play faster and higher, but more than in any technical feats Mr. Davis's influence lay in his phrasing and sense of space. "I always listen to what I can leave out," he would say."

Bright moon light

The night black
with bright moon light
touching with soft kindness

Getting back to The Sky Badge Project

I haven't posted in a while and I see there are new ways to manage the blog and I am still figuring out the image choices. I did like reading back through some of my stories and poems. This has inspired me to look again at my creative side and explore! Here is a video from a December 2013 sky - let's see how it looks.