Shapes

Curves. layers. light.

The Shanty

Monster and the Dead

My Monster with the Dead

@ Head-to-Head

Area 101

July 11th, 2009

Baby Gramps @ the Mateel

It was really nice to see Baby Gramps again.


oh yeah...

and the Yard Dogs Road Show too!

Clematis bloom

Looking down on 6 feet of Clematis in full bloom.

Discoball and Petunias

and Calibrachoa.

It's starting to feel like summer.

tree

taken in Del Norte County

In case you had any doubt

Capitalism kills...

the glow of springtime poppies

No longer a tulip virgin

My first attempt at growing tulips wasn't exactly flawless, but they pulled it off in the end. Now I'm looking forward to the Ranunculus...

New Moon tonight

It's amazing the things you can see into darkness

vast herds of Turkeys

They scare me a little - the fog creates a horror movie type scene.

I heard that Benjamin Franklin wanted to make the Turkey the official American bird. I wonder if that's true or just folk lore? It seems to go with his Quaker sensibilities.

snow topped

Don't be fooled - winter isn't far away

A storm is a brewin'

Getting lost on the coast

From outside Petrolia...

Movement over water

Sunrise

A Winter Garden like no other

With special thanks to the Tin Can Luminary

pink sky

at least there is something lovely about mornings...

abandoned in the alley

My former roommate, Patrick, and I found a pot with dead sticks poking out of a pile of trash in the alleyway. Patrick looked at the tag identifying this seemingly dead plant, and recognized it as a keeper - something worth nurturing back to health. He had an eye for ornamental plants, whereas my inclination is for an eatable garden.















Since that dreary winter day, the plant has sprung back to life. Patrick is on his way back to upstate New York to be with his family while he undergoes chemotherapy through the next year. He's the same age as me - let's say, not-yet-30. He is a solider of fire and reminds me of Shiva like that - and he is waging war with his body.

Who is handsome, who is an axe to the tree of the universe,
To the One with a terrifying face.
-Liṅga Purāṇa I.32.3-

When I met Patrick he was preparing to go back to South Dakota for his annual conservation work in starting controlled fires. There was a spark in his eye that told me he thrived on the exhilaration of it all. He loved land and nature by burning it, pushing it to it's breaking point before it turned on you. So he knows what he's about to do to his body with chemotherapy.

Every flower from this plant is the color of hope and the green of the leaves are strength and love that will see him through.
This is a picture of survival - the plant left for death in the alleyway and the man who saw hope.