22 Wednesday Aug 2018
Posted in Photography
There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul. Victor Hugo
On the Beach
From the water
27 Wednesday Sep 2017
Posted in Photography
“It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a shot rang out! A door slammed. The maid screamed. Suddenly, a pirate ship appeared on the horizon! While millions of people were starving, the king lived in luxury.
Meanwhile, on a small farm in Kansas, a boy was growing up.”
― Charles M. Schulz, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, Snoopy
To see more Layered Photos, click here.
15 Tuesday Aug 2017
Posted in Photography
Be thou the … evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray. – Lord Byron
“If the sky could dream, it would dream of dragons. -Ilona Andrews, Fate’s Edge
To see more photos of the Elements, click here.
11 Monday Jul 2016
Posted in Photography
It seems I’ve been looking up lately. Just last week I posted photos of fireworks on Canada Day and a series of stormy clouds. The week before that, I participated in the DP Challenge, Clouds. This weekend, I amired the way the sun streamed from the clouds after the rainbow.
What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing
And what do we think we might see
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers, and me
– The Rainbow Connection
To see more Look Up photos, click here.
06 Wednesday Jul 2016
Posted in Photography
[T]he beauty of rain is a thing often missed, I think, even by those who do keep, as they pass through this world, a keen eye for the Creator’s thoughts, embodied in beauty about them…. ~John Richard Vernon, “The Beauty of Rain,” 1863
It is beautiful when it rains far away in the distance, the bright sun shining on the mound on which you stand, and only a few guerilla drops heralding the approach of the shower towards you. ~John Richard Vernon, “The Beauty of Rain,” 1863
The crisp drenching rustle from the dry foliage of the perceptibly grateful trees… the little plants, in speechless ecstasy, receiving cupful after cupful into the outspread leaves, that silently empty their gracious load, time after time, into the still expecting roots, and open their hands still for more.
~John Richard Vernon, “The Beauty of Rain,” 1863
[Rain] is beautiful when it comes hurried and passionate, fleeing from the storm wind, hurled, like a volley of small musketry, against your streaming panes…. It is beautiful in the Midsummer, when it comes in light, soft showers, or, more in earnest, accompanied with thunder-music, straight and heavy;
when, as the poet says-“Rolling as in sleep,
Low thunders bring the mellow rain.”~John Richard Vernon, “The Beauty of Rain,” 1863; Tennyson, “The Talking Oak.”
But the true lover of rain…. has a deep inner enjoyment of the rain, as rain, and his sense of its beauty drinks it in as thirstily as does the drinking earth. It refreshes and cools his heart and brain; he longs to go forth into the fields, to feel its steady stream, to scent its fragrance; to stand under some heavy-foliaged chestnut-tree, and hear the rushing music on the crowded leaves.
~John Richard Vernon, “The Beauty of Rain,” 1863
Happy Wednesday!
30 Thursday Jun 2016
Posted in Faith
Tags
Some days I love my job… while other days I feel like I’m in the “cubicle of purgatory” or at the epicentre of a circus. As mentioned countless times before, I am a church lady office administrator so I work in the “family business” with the usual list of suspects characters to contend with – some are lovely and loving, while others openly parade crazy. But I love them all.
So, on any given day, the clouds can gather threateningly all around me, competing with the sun. It is on those days that I must decide how I will approach the gathering storm. Will I rain hail and brimstone down on others, or will I extend grace instead?
I can’t control the clouds, but I can choose to watch for the light behind them.
***
This post is in response to the Daily Posts’ one-word prompt: Clouds. To see more prompted posts, click here.
12 Wednesday Aug 2015
Posted in Photography
Back to work yesterday after a week off. The parking lot is being torn up in preparation for paving, so I had an enjoyable walk in through the stones, sand and soggy grass in my heels. Heading back to the car at the end of the day, I turned around to discover that while the sun was shining on me, it wasn’t going to be shining for long!
“But it is in storms that God does His finest work, for it is in storms that God has our keenest attention.” – Max Lucado
11 Monday Aug 2014
Posted in Photography
“Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy – your work becomes a dance with light and the weather. It takes you to a place within yourself.” – Annie Leibovitz
For more Textured Photos, click here.
04 Monday Nov 2013
Posted in Photography
It seems like I’m posting the weekly photo challenge on Monday mornings but it’s not because I’m lazy…well, it’s partly because I’m lazy. It’s also because I’ve been cleaning and doing laundry, (still) painting my kitchen, and just generally trying to survive living!
This week’s challenge was “Eerie” – “a photo doesn’t have to be blatantly macabre to be eerie…but it can have a mysterious, otherworldly vibe — the viewer wonders what lurks in the shadows. Something eerie has a story to tell”.
I took this photo during a summer storm, one hot night in July (from the safety of the front door). It had been one of those oppressively steamy days, the breeze barely a whisper. But as the afternoon shadows grew longer, a hot wind began to blow, swirling the dust and grit. Dark rolling clouds of black upon black rolled in and thunder rumbled in the distance. As night fell and the thick black clouds started to thin out along the horizon, the sun made a final effort to be seen, making the very sky appear like it was on fire. It was eerie…
For more dramatic and amazingly eerie photos, click here!
22 Monday Jul 2013
Posted in Family, Photography
Tags
“Heck.” Jim sniffed north, Jim sniffed south. “Where’s that storm?” […]Will let the wind ruffle and refit his clothes, his skin, his hair. Then he said faintly, “It’ll be here. By morning.” –Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes
In our case…it was Friday night. All week long, we had been experiencing a heat wave. A “heat wave” is defined as three or more consecutive days with temperatures above 32C. With the humidity, it felt more like 40+! It was an intense few days, the kind that when you walk outside, the heat seems to suck the air from your lungs. When you move your body, there is no sensation on the fine hairs on your arms. Some guy on the news baked pre-packaged frozen chocolate chip cookies in his car. I wonder if they were edible…
When there’s intense heat and high humidity, and then a cold front moves in, there are thunderstorms. I’m not going to explain what causes thunderstorms, but if you’re interested, click here. I already know hot + cold=ka-boom!
Thursday, we saw a lot of cumulonimbus clouds roll by. They’re the big ones that can bring torrential rain, straight line winds, and flash flooding. It rained briefly for us, but the sun kept on shining so once it floated past, we went swimming.
Friday was a different story. It was hot and a strong, unrelenting wind blew all afternoon. We knew “something wicked this way comes”. It arrived right around suppertime, just as we were heading out the door.
By the time we got to the restaurant, it still hadn’t rained but the wind was so strong that as we raced to the door, small bits of gravel power-washed our legs and filled our shoes. It rained eventually – sideways – and then it was mostly gone. Part of the town had lost power but we were okay.
I got a call from Big Guy around 8:30 p.m. His city had been hit hard – he would be working all night to clear trees from the hydro wires. Just the kind of news a mother wants to hear. We sat on the couch and watched the lightning over the corn field. Tall black clouds rolled by quickly along the horizon…and then the setting sun tried to peek out one last time. It created this eerie glow across the whole sky.
I received a text around 11:30 p.m.: “One down…29 to go”. Sunday afternoon he posted on Facebook that he had worked for 12 hours, crews were still going, and would likely be going day and night for several more days. The clean-up in my home town continued into Sunday afternoon. Little Guy and I stopped by my Grandmother’s house to drag downed branches to the curb…in our Sunday clothes. Something wicked came and thankfully, it didn’t remain!
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Marian Beaman
"Whatever you are not changing, you are choosing." —Laurie Buchanan
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