Category: Beauty

Proud Elk

 

 

In June of 2019 visiting the Point Reyes coast I came upon a herd of Elk. They were off the road undisturbed by my presence; I was struck by how proud and noble they were, feeling honored to be near them.

 

Elk are the majestic nobleman of the forest; in Native American wisdom when you see the Elk it is time for sacred journey, the inner journey where you leave the old ways behind and find your greater purpose in your life.

 

Maybe It’s Time by Jason Isbell for Bradley Cooper

 

Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
It takes a lot to change your plans
And a train to change your mind
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
Oh, maybe it’s time to let the old ways die

 

Photograph by Diana Dunlap 2019

 

 

Have you ever seen a Foam Beach?

On Martin Luther King day we had a break from the rain, so I decided to venture out to the coast. These photographs are of the surprize that awaited me, a beach covered with foam! It reminded me if the diamond Ice beach in Iceland, but instead if icebergs floating they were giant pieces of foam. This is McClures beach along the coast of northern Marin County. Crystal clear skies after all of the rain, Magical.

 

All photographas by Diana Dunlap 2019

Quiet Time

QUIET TIME

Winter is a quiet time. The leaves now lay over the earth like a blanket covering seeds that were shed. It’s a time to contemplate what to rebuild, renew and rejuvenate.

Mankind has been building civilizations on top of older ones for thousands of years. The Earth continues to support all of our efforts, some withstand better than others. Humans are a creative bunch and we don’t give up easily.

In this image the humble thistle plant stands before an ancient Incan wall, fragile yet strong enough to return over an over again every year. One is man made and the other a product of the earth. We’re in this together.

 

Adversity

Search for the seed of good in every adversity.

Master that principle and you will own a precious

Shield that will guard you well through all the

Darkest valleys you must traverse. Stars may be

Seen from the bottom of the well, when they

Cannot be discerned from the mountaintop. So will

You learn things in adversity that you would never

Have discovered without trouble. There is always a

seed of good. Find it and prosper.

-Og Mandino

When Trees Speak

When Trees speak

A coastal Redwood tree can live up to 2000 years. The average life span is between 500 and 800 years. Knowing this, my respect for longevity is renewed. I look at this tree and imagine what it has seen and heard over the centuries of its life, so far.

The symbol of trees crosses all continents and cultures. Native American culture refers to trees as the Standing People. A tree connects the physical realm to the realm of spirit. The redwood is the grandmother tree spirit.

Does this redwood tree speak to you?

 

TIME

Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can’t buy more hours. Scientists can’t invent new minutes. And you can’t save time to spend it on another day; Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you have wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.

Denis Waitley

Feeling Down? Look Up!

Feeling Down? Look up!

 

We live in an exciting, outrageous and very noisy time. Pessimism sometimes takes over, but in the end optimism gives us hope. #May hope be with you.

Try this when you need a boost, look up! The sky is filled with wonder everyday.

So start looking up, note what you see and how it makes you feel.

Feel free to comment on that, let me know how it changes you.

Miracles

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to be either on water or in thin air, but to walk on the earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, curious eyes of a child-our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

Photo collage by Diana Dunlap 2018

 

Baby Blue

 

Baby Blue

 

This morning I woke up with this Dylan song in my head. It seems related to our latest evacuation experience. In the middle of the night, just before midnight Monday, we were ordered by the fire department to evacuate due to a fire threat.

Needless to say this is an unnerving experience to go through.

So we gather the dogs, cats and 1 parrot along with ourselves in our cars and head out to a hotel. The wildfire started in Samuel P. Taylor Park, 5 minutes form home. YIKES!

Residents were allowed back in the next day to the sound of helicopters over head carrying water with retardant, as the fire department continued to fight the fire.

These tireless firemen are our current heroes as they fight multiple fires in the state of California.

The best part of this day was a sprinkler attached to the roof; bring the sound and feel of rain. Very soothin

 

You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun
Crying like a fire in the sun
Look out the saints are comin’ through
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense
Take what you have gathered from coincidence
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home
All your reindeer armies, are all going home
The lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

 

It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

 

Here comes the Sun

Summer has arrived, please take any opportunity to bask in it’s glory. Honor it’s presence. Smile, laugh out loud. This is a source of life and happiness that everyone, every animal and all creatures great and small can enjoy.

SHINE

 

Does the sun ask itself,” Am I good? Am I worthwhile?

Is there enough of me?” No, it burns and shines.

Does the sun ask itself, “What does the moon think of me?”

“How does mars feel about me?” No, it burns, it shines.

Does the sun ask itself, “am I as big as suns in other galaxies?”

No, it burns, it shines.

 

Andrea Dworkin

Painting by Diana Dunlap

The act of Creation by Pele

Pele: Who is Hawaii’s volcanic fire goddess?

Hannah Wiley, USA Today Published 10:40 a.m. ET May 10, 2018

 

Sometimes referred to as Madame Pele, or Tutu – grandmother – Pele is hailed as the powerful force behind Kilauea’s decades-long eruptions. 

The volcano has been in a constant, on-off state of eruption since 1983, although this eruption is a more severe case.  

“She is very dynamic, sometimes very angry. Quick to anger and quick to forgive. But she’s a force to be reckoned with,” explained Kame’eleihiwa.

 

“We must treat the landscape and others on the landscape as if our lives depend on one another-people, forest, trees, fresh water,” she said. “The Pele reminds us that as short as our human life is we must be good stewards.”

She also said people in her community “come to pray, make offerings, watch in silence, or just come to be in the presence of creation because Pele is a visually dramatic phenomenon.”

As a hula performer, Kealiʻikanakaʻoleohaililani honors the memory of the property and lives lost through the years of Pele’s volcanic rage by sharing family stories, and through hula’s traditional songs, chants and dances. 

‘This is Pele’s place’

Sometimes, Kame’eleihiwa said, Pele needs to cleanse the land. It’s the akua’s way of reminding the people how the island must be treated, and that she feels the desecration of the land. 

“This is Pele’s place,” Kame’eleihiwa said. “And we as descendants of akua and descendants of the land need to live in harmony with the elements and the land. Humans are not the most important things on the earth, the elements are.” 

At the end of the day, Pele will take what is rightfully hers. 

“As long as Pele is erupting, we say she is dancing,” said Kame’eleihiwa, who referenced the sudden uptick in earthquakes as Pele in labor. “She is giving birth to land.”

Photograph by Diana Dunlap taken in hawaii from a boat next to the eruption 2013

 

Of Horses and Rainbows

In the end it is Beauty that will save us. So we must keep something of Beauty in our hearts. We can refer to that Beauty when life becomes difficult or in thanks when it is joyous.

Horses are symbolic of freedom and strength, and Rainbows are symbols of Beauty.

Upon seeing a rainbow, no matter if it is just a part of one or a full-blown double rainbow, it stops us in our tracks and we have no choice but to admire it. The rainbow is illusive, disappearing as quickly as it appeared. So keep that in your heart.

When I see a horse I want to give it a hug for being so magnificent and beautiful.

 

Horse sense is something a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.

W.C. Fields

Photo collage by Diana Dunlap 2018

Fire from Ice

 

Standing on the Hverfjall crater that was formed 2500 years ago

I am reminded that there was and is currently fire under this island

called Iceland

The crater has a memory of it etched in its form softened by time

We are still living in an Ice age, albeit without mammoths running about

We still have Ice caps on both poles and elephants are the distant cousins of the Mammoths

What stands out as I look out over the crater is that time is a relative situation, depending on how and who is measuring it

The planet Earth is full of myriad wonders and beauty that we have the privilege of enjoying and witnessing the changes that are occurring

 

 

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, denial into acceptance, chaos to order, and confusion to clarity.

It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

 

Melody Beattie

Photo collage by Diana Dunlap 2017

The Golden Guardian

At such a towering cliff overlooking a vast landscape

I am acutely aware of how insignificant I am

All of my worries fade

As I walk it seems that the land is moving instead of me

Then looking through to another side of life

I am aware of the guardian for this mountain

Then I feel ease and protection

 

 

When you walk to the edge of all the light you have

And take that first step into the darkness of the unknown,

You must believe that one of two things will happen:

There will be something solid for you to stand upon,

Or, you will be taught how to fly.

 

Patrick Overton

 

 Photo Collage by Diana Dunlap 2017

All that Glitters

After the journey through the Misty Arch we land deep within a golden cave

Inside of this gleaming cave is a misty watery presence

With a rainbow reflecting off of it

I will call this the oracle

So one is allowed to ask the oracle a question

An hopefully receive an answer to that question

I only had to stand there and this was the answer to the unspoken question

“My first word of advice is this, say yes. In fact say yes as often as you can. Yes is a beginning, it’s how things grow. Yes leads to new experiences, and thus knowledge and wisdom. Yes is for young people, and an attitude of yes is how you will be able to go forward in these uncertain times.” –Michael Hogan

 Photo collage by Diana Dunlap 2017

Icelandic Waterfalls

Magical Waterfalls of Iceland 

And above all, watch with glittering eye the
Whole world around you because the greatest
Secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely
Places. Those who don’t believe in magic will
Never find it.

–Ronald Dahl

 

This is a view from the back of a waterfall in Iceland. The energy here was crackling with negative ions like something I’ve never dreamed of seeing. Iceland has thousands of waterfall gracing its land. It’s truely a water world in all of its forms; glacial, geothermal, rain, rivers, mist,shoreline waves and Ice.

Water to Gold

Water to Gold

 

 

From ‘Colors’ symbols-history-correlations

By Luciana Boccardi

On the color Black

 

The philosopher’s stone

The Magnum opus of the alchemical process analyses the values of black: the first of the four stages that govern our life, according to alchemy, and one which is linked to earth, night, winter, old age, wisdom, sadness and death.

It is followed by the second stage of white, corresponding to water, dawn, childhood and variable moods.

Yellow is the color of the third stage associated with air: noon, summer and youth.

The Fourth and last is the red stage, connected in alchemy to the element fire: light, autumn, sunset and maturity.

 

The passages from earth to water to air to fire mark the transformations of matter that progressively dematerializes until it reaches the ethereal and luminous consistency of the philosopher’s stone. This cyclical nature is a comforting guarantee that winter will be followed by spring, night by dawn, a symbol of resurrection.

 

Megan McIntyre is photographed at night performing a fire dance with 2 balls of fire.

In the Spirit of Rain and Floods

In the Spirit of Rain and Floods

 

All along the California coast, where I live, we have been experiencing record rains and flooding. In weather terms this is referred to as an atmospheric river. This comes with trees falling, streams turning to torrential rivers, waterfalls appearing out of nowhere and loss of power in our homes.

 

There is always an underlying spiritual message to what we are experiencing in the outer physical world that is important to note, if just for our sanities sake if nothing else. The following quotes seem fitting to this time we are in.

 

The photo collage this week started with a photo of a magical waterfall on a small break from the rain at the Lagunitas near Samuel P Taylor Park. This waterfall is normally not there. A glimpse into another realm.

 

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. 
I am haunted by waters.” 
Norman Maclean, A River Runs through it

 

 

There are two big forces at work, external and internal. We have very little control over external forces such as tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, disasters, illness and pain. What really matters is the internal force. How do I respond to those disasters? Over that I have complete control.

Leo F. Buscaglia

 

 

Flamingo Rose

THE COLOR ROSE

 

Starting with a background of a close up view of a pink rose with dew, I became immersed in the color Rose.

Roses are as comfortable being tended by the angels as well as decorating a passionate valentine card.

The rose is the flower that alchemy likens to the philosopher’s stone; representing carnal and spiritual love.

 

Then pink takes hold of the vision and flamingos are asked to join the picture. All birds are messengers of some kind, so in this case I think they bring some playfulness to love, with multiple shades of pink to red.

 

BEAUTY

“We are all cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is,

Knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”

-Ray Bradbury

 

 

Focus on Beauty

There is so much talk in the media about climate change and all of the damage we, as humans, have brought upon this awe inspiring planet upon which we live. As long as we keep focused on the beauty of this and share that beauty in whatever form we can create, we will keep that beauty alive. Landscapes from around the globe remind us of the natural beauty that we have the privilege to live in and care for. We are in late fall here on the northern California Seashore, experiencing rain and sunshine! What a blessing! This photo was taken on December 1st at Drakes Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore, California.

“WE ARE ALL CUPS, CONSTANTLY AND QUIETLY BEING FILLED. THE TRICK IS, KNOWING HOW TO TIP OURSELVES OVER AND LET THE BEAUTIFUL STUFF OUT.” –Ray Bradbury