Just Another Manic Monday

It's been a stress-filled past few days. The beauty of the outdoors called today. Was able to answer. Feel refreshed now. Good night all. Life is good.

Sunlight glistening

Tao Wisdom~ May your unclenched heart and your freedom from the need for others approval sustain you

Bluejay feather?

MoonRise Over Trees

SunSet Over Trees

It's been a rough day, but you wouldn't know it just looking at the pictures. That's the beauty/irony of photography. It suggests one thing to the mind, but a completely different thing can be going on.

Potpourri

Some days you just can't make it to the river~the world and all its competing priorities win out.  But you can be there in spirit. 

Seems like you just get on the river and soon enough the sun sets and it's time to get off it.  What a way to end the day.

Damselfly as a helicopter attempting a landing on the 'O' pad. 

Dam take-out...why can't people just eat at home?~! 

The Saco River and Tai Chi

Got to kayak the Saco River before Tai Chi class tonight.  

Portage site (West Buxton Bridge)

Another View: W. Buxton Bridge from the Saco River

                                             

What is it about rocks, water and rivers' edge? Is it that even the hardest substance (rock) over time and circumstance, yields to and is changed by the softest (water)?

Roots. They never lose their fascination.

Another type of underwater grass.  

Here's a bird with a camouflage coloring, who blended splendidly with the riverscape. 
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The YinYang of Rivers
The Saco River is strong, fast, and energetic. It is tranquil, peaceful and calm. Significant currents; high and low water levels; often-changing conditions. Magnificent. For many years up until last year I lived within a fraction of a mile from it, kayaking it countless times~never finding it overly familiar. Tonight was like visiting an old friend.  
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Tai Chi At Moderation Center

Are you curious about Tai Chi? There is an ongoing practice right here in Buxton, at the Moderation Center Bldg on the Buxton side of the W. Buxton bridge (same building as the Dance Studio is in) All are welcome to come check it out. Visit a class to observe and after, ask questions.  Come on a Monday or Thursday evening 6:30pm. Walk through this door and up the stairs and to the right. You will be welcomed!

Sign of Things To Come

WARNING: This blog entry may cause undue stress to some viewers. 

Why?  Because on 7/22/12 these shots were taken of leaf color changing.  This is always a sign of what is to come. This is a premature hint of fall, in the same way that ads for 'BACK TO SCHOOL' are; the latter infiltrating the airways of late.  

 Of course it doesn't seem fair. It's only JULY after all.  Leaf change is a fall thing, not a summer thing, right?  (don't be over-concerned. I saw red/yellow/gold leaves in June! albeit, not many) 




This is the stillwater; quiet tree'd; soft skied landscape midsummer. No matter the call of fall, it is still summer and we must live in today, not tomorrow.  Today I am at peace. Who can ask for more?

Flora and Fauna

Fruitful fauna photograph night.  First, I was able to see several turtles sunning themselves in the late afternoon.  They favor felled tree trunks.

 Then I happened upon a baby beaver chomping away at the greenery in the scenery.  He was so busy he didn't notice me before I was able to get this pic of him. Then of course he dove into the river.

 If you enlarge the pic and look closely you'll see an intense pair of eyes peering out at you, the same look I saw gliding by and watching this handsome fox near the water. It's been quite dry after a mostly rainless July. Fauna is thirsty!

 These are rather cool looking puffs of flora.

 Tree roots are fascinating.

 Lotus flowers, so beautiful, grow up out of the mud and muck.

 
These are the things motorboats miss. It takes presence and silence to witness humble beauty.

Cobbosseecontee Lake

Pinch me!  So I can know this life is real because it is so damn perfect some days that you have to wonder if it's a dream. Kayaking on Cobbosseecontee* Lake in Manchester ME. Birdsong. Trees. Turtles. Fish. Sunlight. Rocks. Water. Chipmunks. Bald Eagles. Ospreys. and most wonderful of all, LOONS.
I told my sister "It's so peaceful here. except when I'm talking.'  So I'll shut up and let the pics speak for themselves.  (with little captions you can think of as a whisper)

8 loons on a lake in july

loon pair

balanced perfection

cobbosseecontee lake   maine

ripe for the picking blueberries

another lakeside berry

deceased lake dragonfly. root beer colored wings etched in cloud white. delicately shadowed.

on days like these, can't argue with the motto: the way life should be (cause it already is)

If you've had the honor, pleasure and sheer awe of hearing loon calls on waterways you don't need to have it described to you. If you haven't heard them, there is no way to describe it - words fail abundantly. If you make a bucket list, add this to it in one of the top 5 spots. If you don't keep a bucket list, make a mental note to find a way to stay at a loon-occupied lake in mid-summer and know this:  you will never regret it. It will change your life.  

See. Listen. Be spellbound.

*Cobbosseecontee means "the place of many sturgeon" 

Sturgeon, per the dictionary, are large, ancient, bony-plated fish. They're edible. I don't know if they remain plentiful. I certainly saw none, and my fishermen brother-in-law and nephew didn't either, during the week they camped there. Will have to find out more about them.

MidSummer

July 16th already?! Summer half over.  There was more activity on the river than any other evening thus far. A young couple in a canoe; a younger couple in kayaks (he talked about Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. she had a dark red flower patterned tattoo on her right arm) and then further upstream two mid-aged guys fishing in a canoe. Three boys were jumping off a stump and swimming on the river's edge. 
(It's strange; I never feel alone when I'm alone on the river. I only feel alone when I encounter several others.)
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Thrilled to get this shot of a grey heron, as I've seen him often but have been unable to capture him (susan sontag talked of how war-like photographic terms are... aim, shot, capture, shoot, etc.) in a picture until now.  It had been perched in a high tree branch and took flight as I floated near. Water birds are gracefully beautiful and regal.

 Does this picture look as hot, humid and still as it actually was tonight?  The sounds:  birds, toads

 Two more of my favorite kayak visitors. So lacy and light looking.

 A Tao passage.

 Johann put it another way, 'Don't Cling.' Clinging; attachment; inability to let go; non-acceptance of what is: these all cause suffering. 
Conversely, acknowledging and accepting the impermanence of all that is leads to freedom from attachment; which opens the possibility of living in a state of peace. 


Cool stuff. 


Happy mid-summer's night's dreams all. 

Tao Wisdom

Posting excerpts from The Tao, as a reminder of its profundity in relation to everything, including, of course, river excursions. Spiritual enrichment in simple words.

65 
When they think they know the answers,
people are difficult to guide. 
When they know that they don't know,
people can find their own way.  

(Be) content with an ordinary life.  (which is, in effect, extraordinary) 

Could You Catch A Turtle?

It's always a blast to share kayaking with someone else...
Especially someone super-cool like my nephew Derek

 Ah youth..

'I see turtles....'

...easy...just a little bit closer....

Gotcha

Turtle looking resigned to his fate...but in real life he was anything but...he squirmed and clawed and finally hissed. Yes, that's right, he was really hissed off. 

Following those traumatic moments of being held by a human hand, the turtle was released to the familiar watery playground of his existence, and Derek to his land-based one.

...Summer...and the livin' is ea-e-zy...

NOTE: While on the river my nephew commented, "I didn't know lilypads had stems." 
He'd probably only seen pictures of them or seen them from a distance.  They do look like they're just floating on the surface, unattached. A closer look reveals attachment. There's something to be said for a slow pace at times. 

Beaver, Deer, Turtles and Damselflies

Okay, so late night as I was cruisin' by this tree which fell in the river two weeks ago I saw one of the beavers munching on it. So I got a pic of his meal tonight. This is what he was eating (note the underwater branch which he's also been munching) 
The beavers have been quite active lately; a number of young ones have started their own dwellings down the river yet close by the parents. 

 Rescued (intervened in the fate of) this little lady from the water tonight. I don't know if they sometimes get wet and stuck on the water or if they are dying and land in the water.  All I do know is their life expectancy is brief.

 You can just make out that brown spot mid-picture- a deer- who  watched me curiously, and I, him.  He didn't startle and run off, but walked quietly away. If I had a more powerful camera/lens I could have captured him perfectly. (Note the 'NO HUNTING' sign posted on a nearby tree)

 Turtle Between The Lilypads