Just a few days ago I posted some photos showing the gritty side of winter. Which is mostly what anyone living or working in an urban environment experiences. But sometimes quite by surprise, winter will show you a bit of breathtaking beauty. This morning I walked over to the local post office to mail my tax forms. My usual February ritual. The last few days have been a bit warmer by day, but still below freezing at night. So all the snow melts just enough to freeze up and slicken most every walking surface by sunrise. I slipped and barely caught myself several times today, cursing all the more this dreaded winter season.

But just before I got home, I saw something on the sidewalk that struck me as a work of art. At first I thought that it was man-made, given that my town is brimming with artsy people who would somehow figure out how to etch a fancy pattern in the sidewalk just for the sake of it. But no, on closer look, whatever I saw was clearly made of ice on flat piece of slate.

So I went inside and got my camera and went back to find this impromptu bit of natural ice sculpture, half expecting that I wouldn’t find it as it was just an illusion that would quickly melt away. Sort of like that line in the Pink Floyd song, “I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now . . .” But no, surprisingly enough it was there in plain sight, just begging for a photo shoot. No one else was in the area, so I got down on my knees and took some shots.

Next is a detailed close-up shot, to help share my wonderment  »  continue reading …

 

Another Christmas season is underway; the decorations and shopping rituals start so early these days! And at the same time, the shadows grow long and the days grow short as another autumn turns to winter.

This is just a pic to keep us all humble, a pic in synch with the real spirit of the season. To everything there is a season . . . and a truly joyful season will yet return. But for now, as joyful non-religious, quasi-Christmas music fills the land, it’s mostly a season of denial.

 
Ah, Halloween, that secular celebration of impermanence. People in my town do up their lawns will all sorts of cheery things like mock tombstones and skeletons. It’s mostly for the kids of course, a celebration of “spookiness”; a reflection on the return of early darkness, sunset shadows, long nights and cold weather. That the decorations relate to human decay and death is irrelevant to them; they are young, and they are going to survive every winter and live forever. At worst, they might need to ponder the possibility of tooth impermanence from all the trick-or-treat candy.

For us adults, however, especially those like me pushing past the 60 marker, it’s not a game anymore. Impermanence is staring us in the face. The Buddha said that “all conditioned things are impermanent — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering”. So, the Buddha with all his wisdom could walk the streets of my town in late October with perfect equanimity; the skeletons, spiders and black cats wouldn’t bother him in the least. (And who knows, with his yellow monk robes and begging bowl as a “costume”, someone might give him some Halloween candy!) For the rest of us . . . oh well, just keep whistling past the mock graveyards. And Happy Halloween!