People, myself included, sometimes think of winter as white and grey. But his image of a sunrise a couple of days ago reminds us that there is color in this season. Sometimes that color comes from nature, but sometimes it comes from the people around us! Enjoy the colorful views around you today.
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This a photo I took last summer and it is a clue as to what I have been doing this winter. I have been continuing to write the saga of a Celtic America that is called ""The Chronicles of Eirgalon" The first novel in this fantasy series was published in December and can be found in both digital and print versions on Amazon. The second book of the Chronicles was tentatively titled "The Land of the Sunset Lakes" but the working title in my mind has shifted to "The Search for the Loon's Necklace." If you haven't had a chance to read the first novel, I invite you to sit down and enjoy a good story, and then in a few months be ready for the second one!
http://www.amazon.com/Joel-Kreger/e/B00E0NBXR2/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1 Today dawned with overcast skies and looks to be a grey day. So, I share a picture of yesterday's sunrise. It is important to "live in the moment" and relish with appreciation each day of life that is given to us. Today, I'm going to "live in the moment" by celebrating the beauty that surrounds me - even though it may be shrouded with a cloak of grey today.
Photographs freeze the moment, but if you allow yourself to enter them they become alive. The skies and waters are not actually frozen, but come alive as the seconds tick by and the light changes around and within them. The view is like a living tapestry. There is so much life revealed here. The plants hold the seeds of the coming season, just waiting to spring forth. If you look carefully, just to the right of the exact center of the image you will see an otter perched on the edge of the ice. It's movements were frozen for just a second as it watched me only twenty yards away. Unfreeze your photographs and see the life.
Have you ever felt like this image of this Rattlesnake Master plant? It is filled with a dichotomy of opposites: sharp in focus yet blurry, black and white, soft and sharp, frosted and not, simple yet complex.
Today might be a day to recognize the opposites within you and to reflect on what that means for the way you live and deal with others. It is an easy, yet difficult endeavor. Jaws of a serpent? Beak of a raptor? What do you see?
It is actually a photo of an icicle turned on its side., but isn't it wonderful to see what our imaginations can make of it! Let your imagination loose today! Six months ago this Black-Eyed Susan delighted my eye as I walked the prairie labyrinth. Now in the frosted throes of mid-winter it still gives me pleasure to see it.
What are the things in your life that delight you throughout the changing seasons? I have to admit when I saw this sight this morning my first emotion was dismay and my first thought was less than generous. How could anyone put that ice fishing shack there and spoil my perfect view!!?? Since then I have mellowed a bit. First, I doubt they will leave it there because the water is only a couple of feet deep there and they won't catch many fish, and second because while the view is indeed beautiful, it is not something that I possess. It is something that is a gift to me when I am able to partake of it.
It is hard to let go of that feeling of possession for that often seems to be what has been nurtured in us. But we have also had nurtured in us the positive feelings of sharing. This morning, I choose to forgo the feelings of possession and to enjoy the feelings of sharing. As the sun comes up today, it is a downright bitter COLD! -17F, with a windchill of -37F. Yet even now beauty, and the promise of life holds forth. Through the blowing and drifing snow, these summer flowers hold their seeds - ready to cast them to the ground with the spring thaw to sprout forth with new life. The promise of the future can sometimes warm our hearts during bitter times.
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AuthorJoel Kreger is a writer who grew up in Minnesota, spent many years of his life in Iowa and Wisconsin, and now lives in Minnesota. His life experience includes careers of serving 17 years as a Lutheran parish pastor, working 18 years as a public school teacher, and now writing as a novelist and blogger. Archives
April 2019
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