(from "Thin Places" by Steve Wheeler)

This photo was taken exactly 11 years ago - one of my first aurora images captured here in southern Norway.

"How the Light Comes" by Jan Richardson

I cannot tell you
how the light comes.
What I know
is that it is more ancient
than imagining.

That it travels
across an astounding expanse
to reach us.

That it loves
searching out what is hidden,
what is lost,
what is forgotten
or in peril
or in pain.

That it has a fondness
for the body,
for finding its way
toward flesh,
for tracing the edges
of form,
for shining forth
through the eye,
the hand,
the heart.

I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will.
That it works its way
into the deepest dark
that enfolds you,
though it may seem
long ages in coming
or arrive in a shape you did not foresee.

And so
may we this day
turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces
to let it find us.
May we bend our bodies
to follow the arc it makes.
May we open
and open more
and open still
to the blessed light
that comes.

"Aimer, ce n'est pas se regarder l'un l'autre, c'est regarder ensemble dans la même direction."

Antoine de Saint Exupéry
 

Remember the days of mass tourism?

Henry David Thoreau
 

Find out what you already know and you will see the way to fly.” 
― Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingstone Seagull

Rumi
 

Appledore Quay

No, not a volcano, but sunset-lit pink cloud hanging over a distant mountain. Pretty, anyway.

Mont Blanc range

There is always that edge of doubt.
Trust it, that’s where the new things come from.
If you can’t live with it, get out,
Because when it’s gone, you’re on automatic,
Repeating something you’ve learned.
Let your prayer be:
Save me from that tempting certainty that
Leads me back from the edge,
That dark edge where the first light breaks.

by Albert Huffstickler

If you don't know the kind of person I am

and I don't know the kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood

storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,

but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider—

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

William Stafford

                            "Questions before Dark" by Jeanne Lohmann 

                            Day ends, and before sleep
                                     when the sky dies down, consider
                                     your altered state: has this day
                                     changed you? Are the corners
                                     sharper or rounded off? Did you
                                     live with death? Make decisions
                                     that quieted? Find one clear word
                                     that fit? At the sun's midpoint
                                     did you notice a pitch of absence,
                                     bewilderment that invites
                                     the possible? What did you learn
                                     from things you dropped and picked up
                                     and dropped again? Did you set a straw
                                     parallel to the river, let the flow
                                     carry you downstream?

"Is there anybody in there?"

Graham Greene

And if you look closely, you'll see a little figure standing on the rocks above the waterfall, just for scale ........

The "tricky lady" is back in town!  It's been quite a number of years since I took a northern lights photo from this location .........

New Kings Building, University of Aberdeen

One of the doors of Exeter Cathedral in the sunset.

This is the mighty glacier that feeds the River Rhone.  The meltwater tumbles off the side of the mountain and flows more than 800km through Switzerland and France before emptying itself into the Mediterranean.

An archive shot of the Kelpies horse head sculpture in Falkirk. Just couldn't resist framing the shot with the sun positioned so!

A beautifully restored Automobile Association telephone box at Cambus O'May - they don't make them like this anymore! But there's no telephone in it now .......

River Findhorn

Best café window view ever? Taken from the Pavilion in Thurso, Scotland.

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."

John Gillespie Magee