“Enlightenment is when a wave realizes it is the ocean.”
It’s always a good idea to start out a new week with a positive message from Thich Nhat Hanh, even if I’m not 100% sure I know what it means.
I’ll have to cogitate on it because the nuance is a bit elusive right now, like I think I get it, but it’s just out of reach, which is annoying.
With news of ships blown up during an illegal faux war to manipulate financial markets, a deranged fraud of a prez, skyrocketing prices, future uncertainty, there’s sanity in the simplicity of a flower that persists against all odds.
When I first noticed it, I tried to gently pry up this volunteer zinnia from between the crack in my driveway to plant in a better location, but I would have destroyed it, so there was nothing else to do but leave it where it grew. The roots are strong, much more so than I thought.
I’ve watered it, watching and waiting, and it just bloomed, one single, brave flower.
My plan is to wait until the flower dies and forms seeds so I’ll continue to plant resilience, grit, tenacity, and determination.
I think there’s a lesson here, somewhere…
At the end of the day, there is nothing but love.
Such an amazing wave pic from Carlsbad. I can’t take credit for the photo, but I have the photographer’s permission to use it.
Here’s how he did it: he was swimming, not sitting on a board; simply in the right place at the right time to reveal a little love.
If you look really hard, you can see another, smaller, heart.
Do you see it?
As someone who loves shiny, glittery things, I always wondered if there was a specific term to describe the sun’s sparkles on the ocean, and I discovered that there is, and it’s adorable!
The proper technical and descriptive term for sun sparkles on water is sun glitter or sun glint.
This phenomenon occurs when sunlight reflects off wind-rippled water waves, creating a shifting, bright path of individual glints known as a “glitter pattern”.
I love to be at the beach on a hot summery day, taking pictures of sun glitter.
I really wish you could close your eyes and inhale the fragrance of these freesias. Our weather’s been hot here in SoCal and all the flowers bloomed at the same time.
Isn’t that vase adorable? I found it at a thrift shop and it’s one of my favorite things.
This is another post in my continual quest to NOT allow current events to cause mental and emotional distress. I don’t actively ignore the news; instead, I’m trying to manage my visceral reactivity, if that makes sense.
I didn’t get good pics of March’s full blood moon, but look who I discovered on the deck this morning! He didn’t look too perky so I put him near a flower and hope he rallies…
The White-lined Sphinx Moth, Hyles lineata, is a common “hawk moth” (Family Sphingidae) and gigantic at almost four inches! I’ve seen them around here on very rare occasions but have mistaken them for hummingbirds because they’re so big.
Hummingbird moths are excellent, beneficial pollinators, especially for night-blooming flowers, helping gardens and ecosystems thrive, though their caterpillar stage might munch on host plants like tomatoes, a minor trade-off for their adult benefits. They are harmless to humans, mimic hummingbirds, and are crucial for plant reproduction, making them a positive addition to any pollinator-friendly yard.
Hummingbird moth symbolism often centers on luck, transformation, peace, prosperity, and longevity, appearing as a messenger for change or a sign to look closer at life’s illusions, blending butterfly themes (change) with hummingbird traits (joy, flexibility) as they are mimics of hummingbirds and symbolize a spiritual connection to nature’s deeper messages and joyful living.
Or is it the other way around?
I’ve been trying to capture this photo for a few days and my patience and persistence finally paid off. I think she’s searching for a suitable nesting site, or maybe she really thinks this hummingbird wind chime is a cousin, I dunno…
I had to snap the pic through the screen door so I wouldn’t scare her off, but I’m completely happy with the result. It’s these little joyful moments that make life worth living, don’t you agree?
I discovered a poem written by D.H. Lawrence about hummingbirds:
Humming-bird
I can imagine, in some otherworld
Primeval-dumb, far back
In that most awful stillness, that only gasped and hummed,
Humming-birds raced down the avenues.
Before anything had a soul,
While life was a heave of Matter, half inanimate,
This little bit chipped off in brilliance
And went whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems.
I believe there were no flowers, then
In the world where the humming-bird flashed ahead of creation.
I believe he pierced the slow vegetable veins with his long beak.
Probably he was big
As mosses, and little lizards, they say, were once big.
Probably he was a jabbing, terrifying monster.
We look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time,
Luckily for us.
Here’s the most recent photo I took while I was out and about enjoying this beautiful sunshiny Southern California morning.
What is it? Is it a contrail or a chemtrail? Whatever it is, it totally ruined the absolute totality of the blue sky.
What was the last photo YOU took?
At times, the southwest desert seems like an otherworldly place…stark, beautiful, sort of scary.
“When I am silent, I fall into the place where everything is music.” — Rumi
Whew, it’s definitely time for a Rumi quote to bring down sky high BP.
Today is Martin Luther King Day and that petty psychopathic orange POS removed MLK Day and Juneteenth from the list of fee-free days for our national parks and replaced them with days like Flag Day (his birthday).
My governor, California’s Governor Newsom, countered by making over 200 California State Parks free on MLK Day.
Enjoy this silent and stark tree from Mt. San Jacinto near Palm Springs, California.
Silence is healing.
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 