Drops
Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
Langston Hughes
Silver Liquid Drops
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Author Archives: Redzenradish
Then Came The Rain
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Towhee in the Rain
Finally raining in a rain-deprived land.
Peace On Earth
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Peace On Earth
As much as it has almost become a cliche, peace on earth, as a reality, remains elusive, but we have to believe it’s still possible. Big peace takes time, but little moments of peace are always possible–like not getting enraged every time someone cuts you off on the freeway, or someone butts in front of you in a line. I try to remind myself I never know what’s going on in another person’s life that drives their behavior. Yes, I still yell at bad freeway drivers, but I try to reign in my animosity and give other humans the benefit of the doubt. I know I’m grateful for every time someone does that for me. Little moments of peace–we can all create those, and perhaps they will begin to add up, so that rudeness and lack of compassion become the exception and not the norm.
Confession
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Dragon Fruit
Dragon Tongue Beans
Bitter Melons
I buy fruits and vegetables just so I can photograph them. Is there a twelve-step program for this? While many times we’ll eventually eat the subject, we did not eat the melons, or the beans (which do taste like regular string beans), or the dragon fruit (although I like dragon fruit).
It’s difficult to go through a farmer’s market without my camera, and with it, Joe is forced to carry all our purchases. A question I hear more and more when I load up a bag with some unusual (for us) items: “Are we actually going to eat this?” I don’t see this ending anytime soon. I fall in love with organic shapes and textures and the way they hold the light.
My name is Kristina and I am powerless over produce.
Zen and the Art of Golf
Angry Golf
I’m always being told that playing golf (like photography for that matter) requires a certain Zen frame of mind. I’m beginning to understand that, and I’m beginning to allow myself to enjoy the game, in spite of all the slices, shanks, three and four putts, or lost balls. There’s a course near where we live that’s both beautiful and difficult, where going after an out-of-bounds ball might mean rappeling into a canyon or coming face-to-face with a rattlesnake. I’ve had to hit around large bucks and coyotes lounging in cool, grassy areas next to fairways. Once, I witnessed a bobcat trot past me down the cart path toward the clubhouse. And yet…..the game, or how well one plays the game, can get under the skin. More than once, I’ve heard other players’ loud expletives echoing throughout the hills. Sometimes those expletives have been mine. I’ve seen other players throw clubs, but I’ve never seen the results of someone breaking a club over a tree trunk, until recently. Angry golf is not fun, and it’s the furthest one can get from a Zen state of mind. The day I found this broken club was during one of my best games, a game where I was able to stay in that Zen place from the first hole to the eighteenth. So, I keep this image to remind me of the importance of maintaining a certain level of detachment, something useful in other areas of life as well. But on the golf course, I’m reminded of Kevin Spacey’s character in the film American Beauty, who says “It’s hard to stay mad when there’s all this beauty in the world.”
Samhain: Honoring the Dead
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Honoring the Dead
For me, Halloween is no longer about costumes and candy. It’s a chance to honor the dead, all those who have influenced and touched our lives, human and non-human. Every year, my husband and I gather photos and spread them on an altar, light candles, and place family heirlooms or keepsakes along with offerings of food and drink for the departed.
Samhain is a pagan holiday celebrating the Celtic New Year that predates Halloween as we know it. It’s a day meant to honor the ancestors and the cycle of life and death.
Samhain Prayer
This is the night when the gateway between
our world and the spirit world is thinnest.
Tonight is a night to call out those who came before us.
Tonight we honor our ancestors.
Spirits of our ancestors, we call to you,
and we welcome you to join us for this night.
We know you watch over us always,
protecting us and guiding us,
and tonight we thank you.
(common Samhain prayer)
The End of a Season
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Dried
Ah, when to the heart of a man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?
Robert Frost, “Reluctance”
Pods
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Pods
The Santa Ana winds are ravaging the neighborhood, knocking seed pods and small limbs off the jacaranda tree in the front yard.
A Hand Turned Upward
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Open Hand
A hand turned upward holds only a single, transparent question.
Unanswerable, humming like bees, it rises, swarms, departs.
–from Jane Hirschefield’s poem, “A Hand”
And he remembered it no more…..
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And he remembered it no more….
I found this small, leather-bound SwedishPsalmbok in a used bookstore in Ventura, CA. In addition to how lovely it feels in the hand, its leather softened by the hands of another, its delicate weight, the fact that it is written in Swedish was intriguing. How had that book made a journey from Sweden to southern California? Moreover, who is Kris Lind, whose name is embossed in gold on the bottom right corner of the front cover, and how did he or she end up in California? Did his or her effects end up in this bookstore after a death, both book and man to be remembered no more (a line at the edge of the page reads, “Och han minnes den ej mer…” meaning, “And he remembered it no more……”)? Although I can’t read Swedish, I recognized the language on the page as some of my ancestors emigrated from Sweden to live in the northeast region of the U.S., where my maternal grandfather, Bernard Oscar Sandquist, was born. Growing up, I was told I was named for his mother.
Kris Lind may not be related to me in any way, but his or her Psalmbok now lives with me, no longer stripped from memory.
Vila väl, Kris Lind. Inte alla är glömt.
Redzenradish Photography 