dreams

Artistic Vision

Stanley

I’ve had a lifelong desire to be an artist. I have fulfilled that dream in many ways. However, attempts to paint in oils were…shall we say…not very successful. Now thanks to digital editing algorithms and digital image capture, I can at least pretend I’ve found a way to create the paintings I’ve always wanted to.

This little video is a presentation of faux paintings digitally created from my own photographs, made to appear like the paintings I wish I could paint, if I could actually paint. Continue reading →

Soon…

Stanley

Soon the sun will rise above those trees at the top of the hollow, sending bright life giving light down to dry the dew in the meadow along the creek.

Soon the sunlight will pass through these trees around the meadow turning into angel’s fingers dancing across the flowers, touching every dew drenched petal and leaf and transforming a common green field into a magic carpet of sparkling rhinestones.

Everywhere hang garlands seemingly tossed casually like discarded diamond necklaces draped between the stems of the taller plants.

You can see this, and feel this too, if you know where to stand and look.

I can show you, but only if you come here early in the morning to the place I call Happy Hollow.

Astaak at Abbecombec

Stanley

Today’s vocabulary words:

Awakening – coming into existence or awareness.
Requiescence – a state of rest or repose; peace, quiet.

Astaak is the native name for the point on which I built my home. It means “the sun comes out.” It overlooks Abbecombec, which is the native word for a wide curving bay and also the name of the village below my home along whose beaches I stroll almost daily. Continue reading →

Atmosphere

Stanley

I’ve never studied yoga or meditation, but I believe I read somewhere that in order to achieve inner peace one must create the right atmosphere. I think perhaps I’ve managed to do that by finding my special Aerie on Astaak and spending a lot of time walking along the beaches and marshes below. Continue reading →

Surf to live. Live to surf.

Stanley

Old man who can’t surf anymore has bleak, almost hopeless message about depression.

(the keyword is ‘almost’)

I’ve been battling severe depression all my life.

I don’t know how I’ve made it this far. I’m going to be 65 in a few weeks.

I’m currently so depressed I haven’t gotten out of the house in weeks or done any of the things I normally love to do this time of year. Continue reading →

Desperado

Stanley

I’m coming to this post via a sort of backwards completion process. Only the reverse of that. LOL.

Backwards completion is the method of visualizing your end point or goal and then figuring out how to get there. I did the opposite to come to the insight I hope to share in this post and this video compilation of images. One step in front of the other until I realized where I was. Continue reading →

Being Here

Stanley

While walking with George, my too excited puppy, this morning as we crossed the creek, the big blue heron who often visits early to fish in the various ponds on the property and who was hiding unobserved behind the new spring leaves on the bushes along the water, suddenly lifted off and took off elegantly and gracefully into the sky. That is always a good omen and an exhilarating moment.

As I walk in the morning like that, I often regress deeply into childlike wonder and awareness. The words that escaped my lips at that moment were “Look, there goes Billy the Blue” and the big bird was christened after one of my dearest friends, a pilot who also shares those skies. Continue reading →

A Special Morning

Stanley

Daddy awoke just after dawn. Slipping quietly out of their bed so as not to disturb his precious beloved, he dressed and made his way downstairs. George, their happy mutt still slept as well on his bed downstairs, thankfully. Had he noticed the usual sounds of daddy getting dressed for the day he’d have been running up and down the stairs making a hell of a racket. Daddy clipped on his leash and whispered, “come on buddy lets go for a walk.”

Down the steps of the deck they went, up the gravel road to the barn as fingers of light from the rising sun danced around them. Turning into the barnyard, he grabbed a pair of rusted old clippers from the fence post where he’d absently left them a few days earlier. Continue reading →