beauty

Thankful Thursday: a world worth fighting for

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

It seems everywhere I look, people and planet are suffering because the powerful are making decisions that benefit a select few. Sometimes (okay, frequently) I’m overwhelmed by the feel of this Whack-a-Mole reality in which it’s one awful thing after another being inflicted on us in the name of capitalism and Christofascism. However, nature always brings me back to myself and while this photo is from another year and another season, its beauty centers me today.

View from Eaglesmere Lake Trail. Sept 28, 2021

Today I am grateful for the many, many people putting themselves on the line for a better world. And today I vow to remain in the fight because this planet and all its inhabitants are worth fighting for.

Infinite storm of beauty

/ Tracy Abell / 1 Comment

Uncompahgre National Forest, July 30, 2019.

When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.  ~ John Muir

Tree songs

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Bockman Campground, State Forest State Park. June 12, 2019

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.  ~ John Muir

Sunday Confessional: tree no more

/ Tracy Abell / 3 Comments

For years, a cherry tree flourished in a four feet by four feet space on the patio. It was lovely and we made pie with its fruit. The birds, bees, and we loved it. Then the tree became sick and we had to cut it down. Last summer, one volunteer sunflower grew in that space.

Sunflowers on patio. July 12, 2020.

This year, it’s a literal sunflower forest. I just took my camera out there to finally document the tangle of stalks and blooms. And I smiled the entire time. Here’s a tiny sampling of the happy flowers thriving there.

My confession? Right now I hardly miss our dear old cherry tree.

Understated beauty

/ Tracy Abell / 3 Comments

Mourning Dove. February 14, 2020

A mourning dove’s beauty is an understated one: the colors of its feathers ranging through various shades of gray and drab violet, often with a striking splash of turquoise around the eyes.                                ~ Jonathan Miles

HA! As I looked through my photos and came upon this dove, I thought the same thing. Apparently, this Jonathan fellow and I think alike.

Welcome, beauty

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

My iris haven’t begun blooming yet, so I’m posting this photo from last April in anticipation of the splendor that’s in store for us.

I’m forever grateful to my former neighbor, Tina, for sharing her iris-love with me. She had many different iris in her vast gardens and when I first began digging in the soil, creating my own little patch of beauty, she’d toss iris tubers over the fence. I’m pretty sure this photographed iris is one of those long-ago gifts.

Koi: further proof that orange can be beautiful**

/ Tracy Abell

Writer-friend Sarah and I went to the Botanic Gardens on Sunday. She has a membership plus a special key fob that allowed us in the side gate to the gardens. We walked and talked through the gardens, pausing on the little deck to gaze at the colorful koi. Bonus: the dark one in the lower left of the photo has delightful whiskers, and I highly recommend clicking on the photo to enlarge.

We didn’t feed them (nor have I witnessed anyone feeding them during any of my visits), but that didn’t stop the koi from gathering below the deck and puckering their lips in anticipation.

** My ongoing project to reclaim the color orange, helping me remember that it can be a thing of beauty and not just a hideous spray tan in the White House.

 

A garden had better make room

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

A garden is to be a world unto itself,
it had better make room
for the darker shades of feeling as well as the sunny ones.
~ William Kent

I worked in my garden today and experienced conflicting feelings. Why was I born into this life and society while others were born into regions of the world that are under constant assault? I’m no more exceptional than any of those people facing horrific circumstances. Why is that I can quietly work in my garden while others know only mayhem and violence?

At times, I felt guilty for my easy day outside under the blue sky.

However, I also felt satisfaction knowing my work would help living things thrive and that my efforts were keeping materials from the landfill. I reminded myself that I was creating beauty in the world and that beauty is a legitimate pursuit.

Last spring’s poppy blooms reminding me of the beauty yet to come.

Today, my garden made room for all the feelings.

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There Will Be Beauty

/ Tracy Abell / 9 Comments

                

Lots of friends are posting their goals for 2012
and I'd like to share one, too:

I hope to to see the beauty that's always there waiting for me to notice.


                                                                                  © Tracy Abell 2011