I saw my first pumpkins of the season today in my beloved Blue Ridge mountains. And they made me very very happy!
Category: Beauty in the Everyday (page 2 of 9)
I was up early this morning and went for a walk in the woods. It was breezy. Last night it rained and the air this morning was so clean. The forest smelt of earth. The sun was dappling my path, the birds were singing and every time the wind blew the raindrops pitter-pattered down. It was magical. What a wonderful way to start a day.
I sat down yesterday afternoon to catch up on a bit of blog reading that I had saved and I watched this. I was mesmerised. Created by Thomas Blanchard, using a mixture of paint, milk, oil and liquid soap. I was completely entranced. I felt that I was watching a cosmic explosion, a carnival of candy colours, a film showing biological matter in all it’s minutea. It is a metamorphosis of colours and shapes. I found it to be almost meditative. Enjoy!
Memories of Paintings from Thomas Blanchard on Vimeo.
{Found via: This is Colossal}
I stood on the train platform yesterday heading into London and I heard rustling coming from the wooded embankment opposite me. I scanned the trees and noticed two then four little legs slowly come down the hill. Then I saw more little furry stick like legs. It was a group of muntjacs foraging.
I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. They hadn’t. They were either on their phone, on their iPad, reading, talking to someone or staring at the clock on the platform and wishing for the train to appear. No one else had taken them in.
They stepped gingerly, yet gracefully down the hill, stopping here and there to sniff or munch. They were hidden pretty well by the canopy of leaves. But I knew what I was looking for. I treasure these interactions with nature. They are a gift.
{P.S. The image above is not of a muntjac, they are much smaller animals. I just liked this image and that someone in 1963, saw a deer in their yard and ran to get their camera. // Image found HERE}
We had quite a storm last night. I listened to the rain hitting the windows like a snare drum being tapped, tapped, tapped. I stared at the ceiling and could see the reflection of the collected droplets as the headlights from a car flashed across our room.
This morning, it was grey when I left. There was a chill in the air and the rain had turned to a drizzle, slowly soaking you through.
The wind yesterday had beaten and whipped off the the camellias from many of the bushes near school. As I walked in, it was like parading down a carpet of petals. This one blossom remained, perfectly intact and beautiful on the wet ground.
I know that my posting has been a bit sporadic as of late. My computer is dying a slow and very painful death. The screen begins to flash as if its possessed and the keyboard has now decided to stop working among other things, so Mr. Michie is very kindly sharing his macbook with me in the meantime.
In attempting to get caught up with my blog reading list this morning, I saw this post on Colossal. I was mesmerised. More than ever before, the art of creating something by hand should be valued. In Japan, Yasuo Okazaki carries on the tradition of handcrafting Kokeshi Dolls that was taught to him by his father. Beautiful.