flowers

July. Inspire.

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“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero

My view on July is that it’s too hot. It’s barely the first week, and it is already too hot. When will fall be here? However, we still need to get through July (and the rest of the months) as we do all the other days. Be in the present. At least, try to be. The photos I’ve shared on bright, colorful, and motivating. Especially the books. The books are my intentions for July: spiritual journaling (and other writing), continuing to read the daily Scriptures in the voice of the Indigenous Peoples of this land (Turtle Island), and participate in a four week personal retreat with the four female Doctors of the Church: Therese of Lisieux, Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, Hildegard of Bingen. Each has a special meaning for me that I hope to share in the next four weeks as I go through the book.

What are your plans for July?

What inspired you this week?

What is making you determined?

My new spiritual journal. PS I found the lost one. 😦
(c)2023
“Library”
(c)2023
Lilacs.
“Garden”
(c)2023
Flowers.
“Garden”
(c)2023
Pineapple Star.
(c)2023

World Photography Day

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I have always loved taking photos. It took me quite some time to switch from film to digital, and more recently have I forgone using an actual camera for my cell phone. As the online world is more interactive and visual I try to take photos to accompany my writings. I think it adds to the layers of my writing life as well as much of my spiritual life. In looking for photos to include on this day, I did some googling and research into photography. Living in New York, I’m partial to Kodak and the Eastman-Kodak company, not to mention their connection to Paul McCartney and his family.

In reading up on National Photography Day from the National Day website, I was reminded of a postcard that I carried with me for the longest time. It is one of the few pieces of artwork that I recognize immediately and draws me into the black and white mysteries of the art world as well as a bygone past and of course the romanticism of Paris.

The Kiss by Robert Doisneau

Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville, photographed by Robert Doisneau. Fair Use. (c)2022

There is so much going on that it inspired me throughout high school and college in creating characters, writing their stories, and including myself in the background of the photo, perhaps in the lobby of the Hotel de Ville.

A picture is worth a thousand words as the saying goes, and in many cases more than a thousand words in descriptions, feelings, dreams, and spirit. Although not all of them need a caption; the picture is often enough. Here are a few of my own:

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Inspire. November.

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I am grateful for what I am and have. My Thanksgiving is perpetual.


– Henry David Thoreau

November is full of thanks and gratitude. If only, we held onto these sentiments throughout the year, what a wonderful world it would be. I don’t know that I can show gratitude for the difficulties I had in October, but I can offer thanks for the inauspicious start to November. Somewhat quiet and subdued. While we will not see our cousins for Thanksgiving, we will see my brother-in-law and hopefully have a nice get-together later on with my son’s girlfriend and something quiet for my birthday. I am hesitant, but cautiously optimistic.


Sitting in front of the typewriter/keyboard, I am clacking away at the keys, and while I still haven’t taken hold of my Nano projects, I have been jotting things down on all matter of things.


I still have hope to take Thoreau’s words to heart, and be grateful for who I am, for what I have, and remind myself perpetually of all that I have to be thankful for. Every day can be thanksgiving if given the mindfulness to quietly look around and take in the life around me.


The picture below is a reminder that not everything is expected. About once a week, my family goes to The Fresh Market chain. They have what they call a “little big meal”. It feeds a family of four for $25 and usually comes with five or six components. The most recent one was a chicken roll up dinner and surprisingly one of the items was a bouquet of flowers. I thought it strange since they are not edible, but instead they fed something that was missing from me recently. The brought on a quietness, a contemplative series of moments as I trimmed the stems and arranged them in my vase. I smelled each one, adding water and a bit of the powdered food daily. We got them Sunday and they are just as strong, just as beautiful as when I brought them home. They are a welcome addition to my work space. I didn’t know I longed for them until I received them.

(c)2021


Sometimes looking past the expected brings us from the ordinary to the extraordinary.