Santa Fe Door #2

Painted, photographed, plastic, or real…doesn’t matter. Flowers are cool!!!!!!

I like this arrangement, don’t you think?

Santa Fe Door #1

Santa Fe Door #1, originally uploaded by carlmc.

I’m not a great analyst, I’m much more intuitive. I go with what my gut tells me. So, for our recent road trip I knew I would take lots of photos of the mountains, but other than that I didn’t have a plan or an agenda. I knew something would move me, would speak to me and a theme would develop. So, it did and this is the first of those photos. I took lots of photos of the doors & windows of Santa Fe. Some are homes, some are businesses, most are from the many galleries we visited. I’m not sure why these stuck with me, but they did and so here they are.

The other theme also came from Santa Fe and I’ll start posting those as I process them. They take more work than the doors.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” – Albert Einstein

Sunset through the clouds

sunset through the clouds, originally uploaded by carlmc.

I took this one the other day as the sun set on the Ilium Valley below Telluride. Didn’t turn out like I wanted, but it’s still a cool display of the light on the mesa, the canyon walls, and the mountain peak. Took this from high up on one of the ski runs of Telluride Mountain, and being in such bad shape it took the wind out of my sails. The kids followed me up the hill, it was fun to watch them play with the rocks.

Lollipop

Today’s photo is mainly for the grandparents and family, but we could all enjoy the poem that follows…

The Lollipop Castle gleamed in the sun.
The morning just started and so had the fun.
Strawberry cloudbursts covered the sky
As chocolate rabbits saluted,
waving, with bunnie ears high. Then the swans on the lake
began their sweet glide
their smooth graceful beauty,
they just couldn’t hide.

And awakening the lakes
in their midnight blue dress
they were the keepers of peace and no less.
So, happy this hour of dawn and delight.
Merry the music of guardians bright.
Loving the moment of fantasy true,
watching the cloudbursts way up in the blue.

The Lollipop Castle and
its sleeping children
rose from their slumber,
opened eyes, then –
ran freely into wonderland’s street,
and into the Garden of Wishing on feet
that ran all the faster for all dreams came true
that felt all the freer for beauty came too!

God watched His children
and tinted the ground,
in sunbeams and magic
and the beauty they found.
And He and His angels were busy all day
Watching His children, their garden, their way.

As the carousel stood turning,
whirling round and around.
It’s music box twirling,
it’s pure magic sound,
Filling it’s listeners with it’s great joy,
their laughter, till truly it be
the perfect found poem of believers who see –
That goodness and dreaming can certainly do
A lot for our kingdoms
and these children who knew,
the loveliest thoughts can come from within
And they be the ponies of hope there within.

So, prancing ponies strut up and down
keeping your heads high, know not a frown.
For you hold the cup of kindness and good
You hold our children you horses, of wood,
And they be tomorrow of now, any land
They be the promise of love in all lands.

April 10, 1970
By Linda A. Copp ©

Aspen Trees Await the Oncoming of Night

Aspen Trees Await The Oncoming of Night

I took this photo last night as the Gondola quietly rushed through the trees bringing us back to town. Tonight is our last night here in Telluride and I feel a little melancholy coming on, I don’t want to leave yet. This place makes me feel so alive. When we left here 11 years ago, it was a bittersweet goodbye. We didn’t get to leave on our own terms and it was a tough time for us, but it was also the beginning of the next phase of our lives (ie. kids) and all the beauty that comes with having a family. It’s been great to share this town with our kids and we want to do more of it in the future, and we will because places like this provide a different perspective on what it means to live. It’s more vibrant, it’s more basic, it’s just more…

So, tonight I feel a little like those trees knowing that the sun has set and the night is soon upon us…

Click here for a full size version of the aspen trees.

Whirling Dervish

Whirling Dervish, originally uploaded by carlmc.

Whirling Dervish (wurl-ing dur-vish) n. 1. A mystical
dancer who stands between the material and cosmic
worlds. His dance is part of a sacred ceremony
in which the dervish rotates in a precise rhythm.
He represents the earth revolving on its axis while
orbiting the sun. The purpose of the ritual whirling
is for the dervish to empty himself of all distracting
thoughts, placing him in trance; released from
his body he conquers dizziness.

Just for fun, I loaded ally in the merry-go-round and played with shutter speed to get this fishbowl effect.

Wilson Peak Telluride Colorado

I took this photo yesterday as we made our way towards Telluride, CO. Each time we make this trek along this road my soul is uplifted, but more now than ever. It’s been 9 years since we’ve been here and when we came up the hill from Ridgway it was spectacular. Here is a link to a better resolution image of the one above. Enjoy

Landing on the Moon, Walter Cronkite, No More Heroes

I took this picture during our recent visit to the Kennedy Space Center, and I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that a bunch of chain-smoking flight engineers landed a tin can on the moon using this equipment. My iPhone has more computing power than this entire room…

My camera was too high-tech for this pic, so I had to mess with it to get it lookin’ old school. But, my point is not about technology, it’s about what technology has done to us, to our heroes, to our collective memory and to our future.

When Walter Cronkite reported this great triumph of man (not just America) landing on the moon 40 years ago on Monday; we as a planet witnessed something larger than ourselves and it drew us closer as humans, but at the same time it ushered in the quickening collapse of our shared humanity. The quickening pace of global communications and transportation over the last 40 years has created such granularity in our relationships that we are rendered incapable of recognizing our commonality.

Last night as I watched some of the remembrances of Mr Cronkite, Larry King gushed about the influence he had on us as a country and that we would never see this again because we have become too distracted by the noise of too many choices. He’s right, but more important than our method of media consumption is our lost focus on anybody or anything of substance. We no longer seem to care about any tough questions, we grasp onto our limited understanding of bigger issues because we’re too busy, too distracted, too self-absorbed to listen and learn about how we can live to not just to survive, but to thrive as humans. For all our advances we seem lost like a small capsule in a large expanse and sometimes I wonder how we’ll ever get where we need to go.

NASA Memorial & Amelia Earhart

NASA Memorial, originally uploaded by carlmc.

I took this photo of the memorial to lost astronauts at Kennedy Space Center. As I was editing this tonight, I remembered the new movie Amelia coming out this year. I hope my daughter is never afraid to chase her dreams.

Courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things.
The soul that knows it not knows no release from little things.
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights, where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.

— Amelia Earhart

Surrendering to your Imperfections

The longer I live and the more encounters I have with other people, the more I realize I don’t know squat. And, the fact that I don’t know much allows me room to ask lots of questions and to make many, many mistakes because I know the graciousness of (most) people prevent them from saying to me, “What are you stupid? Do I have to explain this again you friggin’ idiot?” I have grown up in Austin and have been immersed in this culture of embracing the other, even if he/she is a weirdo from south of the river, or a yuppy from Westlake, or (insert subgroup here)…I knew from a relatively young age this city is different, or at least it used to be more so than it is now. Of course, each subdivision of the culture in Austin has always thought they know what is best for Austin, but in the past we at least were willing to accept the stupidity of our rivals as part of the deal that came with being an Austinite. Sometimes now, I’m not so sure…we seem to have lost our ability to accept the imperfections of others and ourselves and I think the city is in need of addressing this. When I say the city, I mean each of us in our daily relations with each other at home, at work, at Zilker, etc., etc. We seem to be congregating in our little cocooon’s afraid to engage the larger culture of the city in any meaningful way.

I don’t have any answers…just asking questions. It’s not what’s being said that I’m interested in, I’m more interested in what we are saying to each other.

Our little group has been talking a lot lately about how our values are expressed in our practices, and if we’re not careful our practices become so much more important than our values that we forget why we practiced these things in the first place. We all do it, we just don’t know we do it. So, sometimes we’ve gotta step back and listen to the poets and the artists to allow them to help us see another world is possible, another world is at work if we are willing to listen.

Scott Ginsberg is a business man, but he’s more than that…he’s a poet (in a linear kind of business like way). Scott is one of those ‘virtual friends’ I’ve come to know through this internetty thing. He wears a nametag everyday, has for the last 3,179 days and has learned many valuable lessons about people, about himself. I love this guy, and every once it a while he shares a moment of genius that applies to all of us, whether we are business people or not (i am not). He writes for the business market, but I read for the nuggets of wisdom that transcend genre…

Are you feeling a little high on the hog? Do you need a little attitude adjustment? Read the teaser below from Scott’s latest blog post and then the rest of the article and let me know what you think…

About once a month, I get an email from a reader who kindly points out a typo in one of my books.

This, in my opinion, is a victory. Because at least I know somebody’s reading. Other than my mother.

And part of me wishes I’d thought to include those typos intentionally, just for the purpose of measuring readership. But I didn’t. The typos are there (not because I’m savvy), but because I’m imperfect.

Even after writing nine books. Somehow, one or two always manage to squeeze by in each one. Dang it.

But I’m cool with that. Perfection is overrated anyway.

THEREFORE: Exerting your imperfect humanity is a hallmark of approachability.

In the words of U.S. Anderson, author of The Magic in Your Mind:

“When imperfectness enters a man’s soul, he is able to show that he does not live alone in the world, but with millions of others, in whose hearts exists the same animating spirit.”

What about you?
Are you willing to be an Imperfectionist?

If so, consider these practices for implementing a little imperfection into your daily life…

How to Be An Imperfectionist

“Stop trying to convince everyone you encounter that you’re invincible, unbreakable and infallible. Approachable means bustable. Approachable means crackable. Approachable means surrendering to your imperfections.” —Scott Ginsberg (The NameTag Guy)