Just Stuff...

*Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.*

Ralph Waldo Emerson



*Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes.
Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly.
Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end.
What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind.
Every moment is a golden one for him [or her] who has the vision to recognize it as such.*

Henry Miller




*Every action of our lives touches some chord that will vibrate in eternity.*

Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Beautiful Creatures...

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries;
I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.
For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills,
And April's in the west wind, and daffodils.

(The West Wind-John Masefield).





Twilight.
Red in the West.
Dimness.
A glow on the wood.
The teams plod home to rest.
The wild duck come to glean.
O souls not understood,
What a wild cry in the pool;
What things have the farm ducks seen
That they cry so--huddle and cry?
Only the soul that goes.
Eager. Eager. Flying.
Over the globe of the moon,
Over the wood that glows.
Wings linked.
Necks a-strain,
A rush and a wild crying.
A cry of the long pain
In the reeds of a steel lagoon,
In a land that no man knows.

(The Wild Duck-John Masefield).

What is this creature, Music, save the Art,

The Rhythm that the planets journey by?

The living Sun-Ray entering the heart,

Touching the Life with that which cannot die?

(Where does the Uttered Music Go?-John Masefield).

Just some photos from backpacking around the East Coast of Australia...and some of the wonderful poetry of John Edward Masefield, an English Poet and Writer: 01/06/1878-12/05/1967.

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

(Sea Fever- John Masefield.)

Out beyond the sunset, could I but find the way,

Is a sleepy blue laguna which widens to a bay,

And there's the Blessed City -- so the sailors say --

The Golden City of St. Mary.

(The Golden City of St. Mary-John Masefield).

Room at the top...

"Don't look now, but there's one too many in this room, and i think it's you.."

(Groucho Marx)

Our crested pigeons......one camps at the base of the tree while one little one and a parent camp up the top..

Under the Sea...

Experimenting a bit here, have downsized all my photos to try and load better with dial up internet, they load much quicker.

Scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef, near Port Douglas, Magnetic Island and the Whitsundays ..

Butterflies....

About a month ago I was privileged enough to make my way, (via this train), to Kuranda, near Cairns, Far North Queensland.

I went to this butterfly sanctuary:

http://www.australianbutterflies.com/

I had dearly hoped to get some pictures of this, the Ulysses butterfly, but they are tricky little things to photo...they fly around quite a lot, nervous and agile, then, when they do land, the underside of their wings isn't the beautiful blue at all....there is an art and touch of luck to the photo of the elusive Ulysses....oh well...

To get to the rainforest you can either rail or skyrail..I went up rail and skyrailed back.

"But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:

And now from having ridden out desire

They lie closed over in the wind and cling

Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire."

~Robert Frost, "Blue-Butterfly Day"

"Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life. And everyone deserves a little sunshine."

~Jeffrey Glassberg

"With the rose the butterfly's deep in love,

A thousand times hovering round;

But round himself, all tender like gold,

The sun's sweet ray is hovering found."

~Heinrich Heine, "New Spring"

"I've watched you now a full half-hour;

Self-poised upon that yellow flower

And, little Butterfly!

Indeed I know not if you sleep or feed.

How motionless! - not frozen seas

More motionless! and then

What joy awaits you, when the breeze

Hath found you out among the trees,

And calls you forth again!"

~William Wordsworth, "To a Butterfly"

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty."

~Maya Angelou