Difficulty in Life

"The difficulty in life is the choice."
~ George Moore

So much cloud cover; too much for the sun...Waiting for the promise, just a glimpse...My heart soars, with that plane climbing the sky...Oh, magnificent sun, soak my frame with powerful light.

Day of the Sun

Happy Earth Day.

"The day of the sun is like the day of a king.
It is a promenade in the morning,
a sitting on the throne at noon,
a pageant in the evening."
~ Wallace Stevens

Red sun this morning! What a beautiful, wonderful world we live in. Gorgeous sunrise.

♫ Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell

Breathed Gentleness and Care

"It has been women
who have breathed
gentleness and care
into the hard progress of mankind."
~ Queen Elizabeth II

Fog settling in valley...Ridge, just enough clouds. Ssssh... don't want to jinx it, anticipate spectacular sunrise. Grabbing shoes...Waiting on the sun... :) http://twitpic.com/1h93xd... Cloud show. Swirling, settling, moving. Sensual...Now light... red tinges clouds, gold stains skyline. Clean.

♫ I Run For Life, Melissa Etheridge

Stand Firm

"`Onipa`a.
Stand firm."
~ Queen Lili`uokalani

Gray clouds, with only slivers of light. Not giving up yet...Got it!

♫ Flying With Angels

Cremated, not Embalmed

"Disappointments should be cremated,
not embalmed."
~ Henry S. Haskings

Can see clearly for miles--catch-your-breath clarity toward Asheville.

Bigger, Better, Wiser

"A man dies daily,
only to be reborn in the morning,
bigger, better, wiser."
~ Emmett Fox

Chill in the air. Cloudless sky, golden... We are all golden... My heart is full of aloha.

You Made It Better

"Your legacy should be that you made it better
than it was when you got it."
~ Lee Iacocca

Pink is seeping across gray skyline. Dots of clouds. The show begins...

Where did all these clouds come from. Is my sunrise compromised? Allow me to bark along w/noisy dog in valley below.

Move along, heavy clouds, you're blocking my view...

Actually, these clouds are remarkable, fanciful against blue red sky. Pisgah Forest has filled in green, almost overnight... My sun, swallowed by clouds. Still so much beauty, color, and light. Life, a daily celebration.

Surcease For Pain

"Laughter is the tonic, relief,
and the surcease for pain."
~ Charlie Chaplin

Eye of the Camera

"What the human eye observes casually and incuriously,
the eye of the camera... notes with relentless fidelity."
~ Berenice Abbott

Buried in fog. Amazing how quickly it's engulfed the ridge and valley. Stark, breathtaking, and relentless. No sunrise today... I am wrong. The sun is right there. Can I capture it through the fog?

For You

"I climbed across the mountaintops
Traveled across the ocean blue
I crossed over lines and I broke all the rules
Baby, I broke them all for you."
~ Brandi Carlile, ♫ The Story

True Mystery

Happy Birthday, Mikioi

"The true mystery of the world is the visible,
not the invisible."
~ Oscar Wilde

Call It Wonder

"Don’t call it uncertainty—call it Wonder."
~ Osho

Blessings, every where I look...Perhaps, every sunrise has my heart whispering, "Shine, shine."

Conscience

"All a man can betray is his conscience."
~ Joseph Conrad

Sliver of a moon, hanging multi-colored clouds, visibility, crystal blue sky: Spectacular sunrise.

All You've Got

"Don't compromise yourself.
You are all you've got."
~ Betty Ford

Why do I allow myself to question myself and be influenced by the opinions of others? Why would I compromise my beliefs in that way? I keep my heart open to ideas that I do not share or understand. It seems fair. I always learn.

I will not be marginalized. You are not my kin or friend if you try to extinguish my light.

In the quiet moments of dawn, I listen to my heart and everything becomes clear: I matter. My opinions and feelings matter. 

I walk in beauty and silence and appreciate what I create.

True Friendship

Happy Birthday, Harumi!

"There is nothing on this earth more to be prized
than true friendship."
~ St. Thomas Aquinas

Light blue sky ablaze with orange clouds. Birds chattering. Mountains are sweeping mounds of lavender-gray...Gold against blue. Green leaves filling branches. World awakes with color, sounds.Crow streams black against horizon. We wait for the sun...

♫ Maunaleo, Keali'i Reichel

Most Important Things

Happy Birthday, Uncle Joe!

"The most important things
are the hardest things to say.
They are the things you get ashamed of,
because words diminish them
words shrink things that seemed limitless
when they were in your head
to no more than living size
when they’re brought out."
~ Stephen King

Eternity’s Sunrise

"He who kisses the Joy as it flies. Lives in Eternity’s sunrise."
~ William Blake

I am discovering this wonderful way to start the day... Watching the Space Shuttle Discovery launch while waiting for the sun to rise. Can life be more glorious?

Divine Surprise

"The story of Easter is the story
of God's wonderful window of divine surprise."
~ Carl Knudsen

Sun Show

"Won't you stay? We'll put on the day.
There's a sun show every second..."
~ Joni Mitchell

Chelsea Morning, Joni Mitchell

Predawn

"There's nothing that I Love more than predawn.
I'm with the dogs, I make coffee,
and there's no one up."
~ Dustin Hoffman

Promise of Resurrection

Good Friday

"The promise of...resurrection...
in every leaf in springtime."
~ Martin Luther

My Circle Just

"Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun."
~ John Donne

In Us

"The sun shines not on us, but in us."

~ John Muir

The clouds, the sky are spectacular this morning after rain. Stunning pastel shades of lavendar, pink, blue... Wisps of fog in valley... clouds moving quickly across sky. Ridge ablaze. Here comes the sun...

Beautiful Day

"It's a beautiful day.
Don't let it get away."
~U2

Golden sky--blazing sun crests ridge in quiet magnificence: Joy!
U2, Beautiful Day

Lump in the Throat

"A poem begins with a lump in the throat."
~ Robert Frost

Well, that was quite exhilarating... & Life Affirming.

Appropriately enough, an acoustic version of a song that starts my MP3 player each time: Dave Matthews, #41

Be Good

"I demand that the world be good,
and lo, it obeys."
~ Helen Keller

Golden promise of light, just before gray clouds sucked sun away...

My Mind

"My mind is the key that sets me free."
~ Harry Houdini

Sky is bright red fire w/smears of clouds, just along ridge. Catching my breath. Gray-blue Asheville mountains against sky awash in red, turning golden... Beauty, power, mystery... Toward Mt. Pisgah, cloudless blue sky.

Walked off deck, around yard & garden. Every sunrise photo, a keeper. Ahh, choices...

Light

"Light is the shadow of God."
~ Thomas Browne

Looking...

"Stop thinking and start looking."
~ Thomas Merton

Sun bathes ice on branches... snow, light, brilliance.

Turbulent Pleasure

"Every personal consideration that
we allow costs us heavenly state.
We sell the thrones of angels
for a short and turbulent pleasure."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

No sunrise, just turbulent clouds in a myriad of colors... and strips of clean, gold red light.

Point of Power

"The point of power is the freedom to cultivate roses."
~ Erica Jong

Oh, God, look at the sky!

More?

"Is there more? More than Love and Death?
Then tell me its name!"
~ Emily Dickinson

Spring Comes

"When Spring comes the grass grows by itself."
~ Tao Te Ching

Good Bonfire

"When you do something,
you should burn yourself completely,
like good bonfire,
leaving no trace of yourself. "
~ Shunryn Suzuki

Breath of Flowers

"In my nostrils still lives the breath of flowers
that perished twenty years ago."
~ Mark Twain

Sunrise checklist: Netbook, check; camera, check; mp3 player, check; coffee, check; jacket, check; shoes... damn, I still need my shoes...

Lots of clouds, but the sun, like love, won't be supressed. Light shines through every sky opening so rays illuminate the horizon. Gorgeous.

My camera's not doing this justice. I've got rays, God's light for sure, breaking through thick clouds.

Secret is Patience

"Adopt the pace of Nature; her secret is patience."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Clear toward Asheville... Great white Clouds churning & rising like smoke... but think it's too gray here for a sunrise. :(

Red cardinal, perched on nearby bare branch, waits for sun to rise through sky of cold clouds. Scarlett on gray...

And just when you're ready to give up... the sun breaks through...

Don't ever give up.

In the Dusk

"People live for the dream in their hearts. And I have yet to know anyone who has not some secret dream, some hope, however dim, some storied wall to look at in the dusk, some painted window leading to the soul."
~ Zane Grey

Rainy morning and dry afternoon... Sunset... we wait (and hope) for tomorrow's sunrise...

Outside Himself

"A person starts to live
when he can live outside himself."
~ Albert Einstein

Today is my baby brother's birthday... and Albert Einstein's birthday... Perched on this lanai, I'm on top of the world...Every sunrise glows promise, that no matter what, today will be better...

Barefoot, humming, reaching upward, outward, together with sky, clouds, light...Celebrate! Celebrate! Rattle dem bones. Smile and let the sun kiss your face.

Our spirit is stronger than steel...Light, like an angel, tickles the dark places. Erases pain...Why not believe that today will be the best day ever?

Golden Eternity

"Remember the golden eternity is yourself."
~ Jack Kerouac

Fog in valley, but ridge is golden orange... Well, that's pretty extraordinary. Fills my chest with love.

Play With Your Pain

"In order to laugh, you must be able
to play with your pain."
~ Annette Goodheart

Wall Between Two Gardens

"Sadness is but a wall between two gardens."
~ Kahlil Gibran

Oh, the sky is smeared orange this morning...Sometimes you need a new perspective, so I walked around the backyard for different vantage of sunrise...Looks like the bare branch from this tree is holding up the sun.

(Better understand sun's analemma, thanks to info sent by @jensaylor. Thank you!)

Genius of Women

"The special genius of women I believe
to be electrical in movement,
intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency."
~ Margaret Fuller

Oh, what magic 24K gold of a sun, cracking above the dense purple clouds... Quick change master. Now the sun's light blazes orange, glowing, promising the fulfillment of every dream, every possibility.

Into the Masterpiece

"You lose your grip,
and then you slip
Into the Masterpiece."

~ Leonard Cohen

Sitting between Asheville and Mt. Pisgah. Clear, startling visibility, freezing, sitting cross-legged. Waiting, with REM in ears, for the sun... Golden ridge. Clouds are white smears against baby blue. Snow cold. Half Moon to my right, a saucer. Need more coffee...

There... it...comes... Glorious gold...

Fingers frozen on netbook, Got Jackson Browne strumming Cohen in my ears & sun a fireball, rising. Wake up! Wake up! 1,000 Kisses deep.

Back inside. Can't feel my fingers or nose. THAT was spectacular. Please wait for photo. Wish you all were with me on ridge to see first hand.

Couldn't choose.

Singular Act

"Excellence is not a singular act, but a habit.
You are what you repeatedly do."
~ Shaquille O'Neal

Thousand Mysteries

"The thousand mysteries around us
would not trouble but interest us,
if only we had cheerful, happy hearts."
~ Friedrich W. Nietzsche

Light Gets In

"There is a crack in everything;
that's how the light gets in."
~ Leonard Cohen

It would be so nice if sun could break through that small gap in thick clouds and add colors to the beautiful white valley.

(Quote via @tinyquote. Music: Nina Simone - Here Comes The Sun via @joanne_cooper )

Pillar of the World

"The pillar of the world is hope."
~ Nigerian Proverb

Gray, everywhere I look, except toward Asheville, where the sky glows with orange hope.