Diana Dunlap
Artist & Photographer
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
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
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
Revisiting the beauty of Icelandic landscapes in black and white.
All photographs taken by Diana Dunlap in Iceland 2017
On a journey down the shore of Limantour spit in the Pooint Reyes National Seashore we spotted an unusual site. Once on January 30,2018 then again on February 5, 2018. The what of this is that it’s a very large engine. Where or when it arrived isn’t documented. How did it get here, I assume it washed up from a wreck years ago. Moving with the rise and fall of the tides. It does beg ones imagination to wonder.
Photography by Diana Dunlap 2018
CHANGE FOR THE YEAR OF 2018
A new year has arrived! Time to change things that we’ve wanted to change. We make resolutions, cast prayers to the wind, and reflect on what happened in the previous year. Fire works explode all over the globe heralding the change from one year to the next.
PEACE, LOVE AND HAPPINESS for ALL!
Open hearts, yes, open hearts all around.
Step out of your comfort zones and explore being crazy, absolutely bonkers in fact.
No time like NOW!
Roll with it, the ride is part of the fun, not just the goal achieved.
Increase the amount of time that you give to LAUGHTER.
Becoming
You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often
to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or have been carefully kept.
Generally by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and
Your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things
Don’t matter at all, because when you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.
words from the Velveteen Rabbit
Photo collage by Diana Dunlap 2018, from McClures beach, California
A Gaelic Blessing
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow wind work these words
Of love around you,
an invisible cloak to mind your life
Inspiration for this photo collage from photos around Iceleand at Sunrise.
Photo collage by Diana Dunlap 2017
Antiphony
When walking the beach there is a choir of two, the incoming wave and the withdrawing wave.
Antiphony is a musical term for call response type of music, usually associated with Gregorian chanting and classical style.
The effect is both peaceful and uplifting, which may explain why walking on the beach is something most humans are drawn to.
BY THE SEA
Once upon a time a lone hawk hitched a ride on a Chinese wooden horse
They went out to the coast to watch the Zebras vacationing there
It was a fine site to see on a sunny summer day
Some days are just for FUN
MAGIC
“And above all watch with glittering eyes 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
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
The most striking thing that hit me while I was visiting Tanzania was the vast landscape. You see layers on the horizon as you look out, and of course you are looking to spot wildlife. Wildebeast and zebra are grazing in the lushness of the Ngorongoro crater, along with hippos in the lake. The sunsets framed with the silhouette of acacia trees is stunning. There is always the presence of Mt Kilimanjaro, even though not always visible. This vast and protected land is home to the grand and unusual wild life that is the pulse of Tanzania.
