my japanese name:

My authentic japanese name is 松浦 Matsuura (pine tree coast) 久美子 Kumiko (eternal beautiful child).
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Spring Moves On

4/12/08

4/3/08

4/4/08

4/9/08

It's hard to believe how much has grown, opened up, fallen apart and blown away already. Today seems to be whirlybird day. There are many on the wind, flying away from their home trees, landing far away and in places one wouldn't expect. Daffodils are gone now, tulips are mostly gone, the magnolias have fluttered their petals away. The lilacs are nearly spent.

Blossoms of cherry and apple and have showered the ground beneath them with the "snow of spring" of white and pink that floats down and covers the ground, sidewalk, and roadside curbs. In a short while it all shrivels and blows away and is gone until next year.

First Signs of Spring

taken 2/24/08

3/3/08

3/3/08

3/8/08

3/17/08

3/23/08

The Outermost House

I have been reading a marvelous book, The Outermost House, by Henry Breson. In the late 1920's he lived at the beach on Cape Cod in a tiny house on a dune overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

"The world to-day is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot. In my world of beach and dune these elemental presences lived and had their being and under their arch there moved an incomparable pageant of nature and the year. The fllux and reflux of ocean, the incomings of waves, the gatherings of birds, the pilgrimages of the peoples of the sea, winter and storm, the splendour of autumn and the holiness of spring--all these were part of the great beach. The longer I stayed, the more eager was I to know this coast and to share its mysterious and elemental life; I found myself free to do so, I had no fear of being alone, I had something of a field naturalist's inclination; presently I made up my mind to remain and try living for a year on Eastham Beach."

There are the most beautiful and detailed descriptions of waves rolling up to the beach, how they seem to catch on the sand and fall down, crash in foam, spread out and then retreat.

He speaks about the oil being dumped in the ocean and how it hurts the sea birds, he hopes that this dumping will stop and the pollution end. This was 1926-1927!

"A new danger, moreover, now threatens the birds at sea. an irreducible residue of crude oil, called by refiners "slop," remains in stills after oil distillation, and this is pumped into southbound tankers and emptied far offshore. This wretched pollution floats over large areas, and the birds alight in it and get it on their feathers. They inevitably die. Just how they perish is still something of a question. Some die of cold, for the gluey oil so mats and swabs the thick arctic feathering that creases open through it to the skin above the vitals; others die of hunger as well. Captain George Nickerson of Nauset tells me that he saw an oil-covered eider trying to dive for food off Monomoy, and that the bird was unable to plunge. I am glad to be able to write that the situation is better than it was. Five years ago, the shores of Monomoy peninsula were strewn with hundreds, even thousands, of dead sea fowl, for the tankers pumped out slop as they were passing the shoals--into the very waters, indeed, on which the birds have lived since time began! To-day oil is more the chance fate of the unfortunate individual. But let us hope that all such pollution will presently end."

How sad that it has not, that it has only increased. 100 years from the time this was written is not far off, could anyone have imagined the world as it has become?

He writes:

"Learn to reverence night and to put away the vulgar fear of it, for, with the banishment of night from the experience of man, there vanishes as well a religious emotion, a poetic mood, which gives depth to the adventure of humanity. By day, space is one with the earth and with man--it is his sun that is shining, his clouds that are floating past; at night, space is his no more. When the great earth, abandoning day, rolls up the deeps of the heavens and the universe, a new door opens for the human spirit, and there are few so clownish that some awareness of the mystery of being does not touch them as they gaze. For a moment of night we have a glimpse of ourselves and of our world islanded in its stream of stars--pilgrims of mortality, voyaging between horizons across eternal seas of space and time. Fugitive though the instant be, the spirit of man is, during it, ennobled by a genuine moment of emotional dignity, and poetry makes its own both the human spirit and experience."

Much Weather

Last evening the stormy sky was a lovely thing to see. I tried to get a few pictures, but they couldn't get the full impact of the clouds. In the night there was rain on the roof above my head. Why does the sound give the soul such peace and happiness? As it cleans the air does it clean the heart too?

This morning was windy. As I headed out to work the dark clouds from the rain were being pushed away to reveal brilliant blue sky and white clouds. The intersection of darkness and light gave me a hopeful feeling, I started humming "I'm in for Something Good". Traffic on the Beltway was slow, enabling me to shoot some photos through the windshield, in fact traffic crawled along for most of my commute. I was nearly late, but still humming along when I got there with a bunch of photos in my camera.

Spring Last Year

Just to remind us it will come!

A Walk In The Park

A Sunday afternoon walk in the park of the Park revealed winter still holding tight to the earth. In the darkening sky were birds who seemed to be in a hurry, heading "home for the night". Where do they go to settle down and sleep? How do they all know where to go? At first we saw two geese, Harold commenting that they were very noisy geese. Then the bigger v-shaped flock appeared over the trees, honking and carrying on. Then came unorganized ripples of smaller dark birds, some crows, some I couldn't tell. I heard an occasional "kek-kek" as they hurried across the sky.

A large oak had toppled over, perhaps in the wind, perhaps it just couldn't hold itself up any more. It had a large hollow inside and a huge poison ivy vine growing on it. A crew had come and cut it up, but left large pieces there on the ground. It smelled like mulch. It is a little sad to loose another large tree in the neighborhood, this one had been hanging on a long time on very little wood. I'm often amazed at how long a tree can stand and be completely hollow inside.

Brightness follows Storm

After two days of stormy weather, snow, rain, freezing rain, ice covered trees, ice covered streets, the bright winter sun has returned for St. Valentine's Day. The wind has died down, the cold is retreating. We will have 40 degree weather again. It makes one wonder about global warming, or normal weather cycles. Are we having a warm winter now and then as a part of a larger cycle?

There were two does in the back yard this morning. Very nervous does, their ears twitching about something back in the woods. They kept looking over toward the woods, then stepped carefully back into the brambles, ears twitching and turning, tails flicking. A few more steps, they were nearly invisible. Only a twitch of an ear or a tail revealed them. After a bit, the human world here inside the house went on and I left the window. Later on I looked again but could not pick them out. Had they moved on? The deer world goes on too, they have purpose to their lives, things to do with their day.

Winter Beauty: Ice on My Car

Bringing to Light

I just want to post now and then, some little something I've observed, or managed to photograph, or heard. I wanted a place to put some of the links I've come across that I like. I'm writing in winter, a time most associated with darkness, cold and gray skies. The winter sun here in Maryland is intense and sharp, sometimes it hurts your eyes. Winter seems a perfect time to start something new, to bring it to light. So, from here I go...into the light.