New Year Moon tonight!

I confess that I took this photo last year, but it seemed so perfect because tonight, as 2010 arrives, we will also have a rare blue moon.

A blue moon means there are two full moons in one month.

Where the name comes from I have no idea....something to google!

I wish the very best for each one of us for the coming year.

Should everyone actually achieve the very best, then we all win!

Happy New Year!

Beauties of the Season

The first snow has come before Christmas this year.

On the mid-part of the East Coast of the USA that is unusual!

It was a perfect sort of snow. It blanketed the trees and not the streets!

This morning the sun was out again and as I looked from

my window at the tree out front, I saw a ROBIN!!!!

What the heck!

For Thanksgiving Day 2009 - A Poem

Here and Beyond
By Lynne Oakes
Thanksgiving Day 2009

Living on this planet is not an easy matter and so the times that are
Extraordinarily wonderful
Extremely good
Especially precious
Exceptionally beautiful
Ever so succulent
and
Beyond any physical measure

Become all the more extraordinary for the ugly that is out there.

We try to never let any of it touch our children or ourselves, but
Living here in this place it is not yet possible.

It can be done much better than most think to be true, so
Give it all you’ve got to make it
Especially, extremely, extraordinarily, exceptionally fantastic
and
Ever so succulent
carrying it
Beyond any physical measure.

It is a sacred trust, a Sacred Trust to make all Life as sweet as you can~
Your own life and the lives of others that
You touch fully or partly or briefly.

If you had no other purpose than that, it would serve.
It is no small thing –creating the very best experiences in the face of
The daunting challenges of this world.

Basically we come down to the only force worth propelling us beautifully forward:
LOVE.

Reflecting....

While reflections are quite wonderful and interesting in themselves,

what they do is expand that which they reflect, making even more of it.

In this Thanksgiving week, as we are among family and friends,

we will see reflections of each other.

It's not quite the same thing as a photographic reflection,

but if you look closely, I trust you will

see the best thing of all reflected in the faces that surround you:

LOVE.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What I can now see

I couldn't see this tree until earlier this year when my three 80 foot pines were

taken down.

Destruction can make way for new wonders.

This is certainly one of them in my world and I never could see it before those other trees

were gone.

I'm loving the light on the trunk and the changing leaf colors of fall.

Stools in Waiting....

There is an old bar and restaurant that I enjoy going to for their truly excellent food.

The restaurant is upstairs and there is a cut out area where you can

look down to the bar as in this photo.

Every time I go, I think of the many years that lives of people that have interconnected in this

place. It could be as many as 100 because this is a vintage

building in a town that has preserved many of its wonderful old places.

To me, that preservation is about art and life interwoven.....

My mother still speaks to me

Yes, my Mother still speaks to me.

It is from the written page in her own hand.

(Click on the image to enlarge and read it!)

Here she presents herself at the beginning of one of her many sketchbooks.

At at the end, she gives me her customary validation.

I always felt so totally accepted and validated by her.

Now that she is no longer in this earthly plane,

I treasure finding her thoughts and words again.

Remember this when you write everything in an email.

There is nothing like the written word on a piece of paper in your hands.