Serene- :Loch Affic

It doesn’t get more serene than early morning by the Loch in Glen Affric, in the highlands of Scotland.

My response to the Daily Challenge prompt, but actually it was taken by my husband.  But  I was there!

link to this weeks challenge

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Curvaceous climbs.

Got to love a curve, here are my entries for Rounded – this weeks photo challenge. My favourite place to be walking is here in the Highlands of Scotland. Curves and jagged edges all around.

These are my entries for the weekly photo challenge Rounded, Rounded photo challenge link

A tree cemetery

I love trees, they shape my thoughts and feelings and connect me to the wonder of a living universe.  So when we came across this bizarre scene in Glengarry , West Highlands, Scotland, we took a double take.  It had a very eerie atmosphere, creating a possible backdrop for a Dr Who episode. Should I let them know?

Prompt: Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge, unusual

 

Please do not reuse photographs on my site. If you are interested in purchasing images, I sell via print on demand sites , so please contact me.

 

Seeing double

Autumn light

This could be seen as cliche, but that won’t stop me! Sharing a view of Scotland in all its glory. You get to see this sort of view everywhere you turn when you explore the lochs and the highlands of Scotland.

You can find lots of Scotland on my blog – but that’s not all there is – I hope you browse a few selections and enjoy my meanderings. Always pleased to meet you!

 

The Daily Post Challenge

weekly photo challenge – Earth

 

Morning

I went out on an April morning
All alone, for my heart was high,
I was a child of the shining meadow,
I was a sister of the sky.

There in the windy flood of morning
Longing lifted its weight from me,
Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering,
Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.                          Sarah Teasdale

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/earth-2017/

My spirit home is Scotland where I return again and again.

Blissland

“Knee-deep in the cosmic overwhelm, I’m stricken by the ricochet wonder of it all: the plain everythingness of everything, in cahoots with the everythingness of everything else.”

from ‘Diffraction’ by Carl Sagan

 

 

Picture is mine taken on a walk at Kinlochleven , Scotland last week.  I am going to be seeing more of this view!

 

 

Shinrin-yoku

I was entranced to discover there is a word for the feeling of well being I share with millions of you – Shinrin-yoku, a Japanese term that means “forest bathing”. The idea being that spending time in the forest and natural areas is good preventative medicine, lowering stress. Allelochemic substances ‘phytonicides’help slow the growth of fungi and bacteria. When humans are exposed to them, these chemicals are scientifically proven to lower blood pressure, relieve stress and boost the growth of white blood cells.  garlic, onion, pine, tea tree and oak are all examples of plants emitting phytonicides.

When we walk in Scotland, we spend most of our time simply being in the landscape, enjoying the feeling of well-being that we both find there. I take lots of photographs there and these inform much of what I do when I am creating both illustration and the handmade books. I go back to those photographs time and again, both to recreate the feeling of creativity, and to inspire new designs.  Just browsing through my back catalogue  provokes a feeling of joy, remembered tranquillity and when I am in a slump of not knowing how to move forward, I take a step back and invariably come across something to make the spark reignite.

Today I rediscovered these woods, and immediately I am reminded of the wonderful treatise by Herman Hesse on the sanctuary of trees. I breathed a sigh of recognition when I first read his words – they are beautiful – I can only urge you to find a copy.

You can find the essay online here ; Herman Hesse Wandering

In the meantime, don’t forget to get some time in to shinrin-yoku

 

That freedom

 

With That Moon Language

 

Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.”

Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect. Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying, with that sweet moon language, What every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

 

 

-Hafiz

The Pantomime Part 1

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.

It was a small part of the pantomime.

From Wallace Stevens  ’13 ways of looking at a blackbird’

With an eye made quiet

The conscious mind hungers for success and prestige. The unconscious mind hungers for those moments of transcendence, when the skull line disappears and we are lost in a challenge or a task — when a craftsman feels lost in his craft, when a naturalist feels at one with nature, when a believer feels at one with God’s love. That is what the unconscious mind hungers for. And many of us feel it in love when lovers feel fused. – David Brooks

This passage from David Brook’s excellent book came to mind this morning, as I lose myself in the playfulness of adjusting photographs mainly captured by my husband , and turning them into images with digital tools.  I hope to enhance the power of the image by using a variety of techniques, but most probably the best image is the one that is left alone.  It really doesn’t matter, because what I am getting from the process is something Brooks terms as limerence.  And I have sought it all my life. I am full of gladness that I have the privilege of time to use pursuing it. I was a young teen probably when I first became conscious of those moments of transcendence – it may have been earlier but my memory of my young childhood is barely apparent. What I do remember is making my way through a local park, violin in hand on the way to my lesson when I suddenly became aware of the smallest area of grass at my feet, and the overwhelming feeling of delightedness and joy.  It felt as though I had been in touch with magic, and for some time , years , I assumed it to be quasi religious.  That moment made me connect to a universe in a way that I wanted to do again and again.  What I didn’t know then was that those moments can’t be sought, they are of their own time, outside of any control by me. There have been others, but few and too far between – but the upshot of me feeling that moment was that it informed me about my choices, and it informs me still.

And that is why I love the opportunity to practice my craft – I only wish I could create the same peacefulness and abandon in the kitchen, but sadly not.

If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal — that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.
Henry David Thoreau in Walden