Welcome Spring

"Slayer of the winter,art thou here again ?
O welcome, thou that bring'et the summer nigh!"    ~ W.M.Morris

Signs of Spring                            5"X7" watercolor sketchbook page - eakf

Yesterday, March 20, 2011, was officially the first day of Spring :)  ~ one of the 4 temperate seasons,welcomed as the transition from winter to summer, and typically linked to ideas of rebirth, renewal, and re-growth.
At this time of the year, the axis of the earth increases it's tilt toward the sun yielding longer & warmer days triggering the messages of new growth and new life in Earth's flora & fauna. A "Signs of Spring" hike is a great activity right now.
Metaphorically, Spring embodies ideas of fresh starts, new possibilities, and renewed hopes/ dreams as evidenced by the many Spring festivals & celebrations around the world. Creatives respond to the season with beautiful paintings, poetry, photography, prose and on........
I, for one,  have just returned from a wonderful & inspiring Spring break in the Hill Country of Texas, and am eager to incorporate those experiences into my art.

May you, too, gain energy from Spring's beauty and message of renewal !

el Sol

Rise N' Shine                                                  watercolor on 140lb. cold press / eakf

"How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains" - John Muir
This weekend we "sprang ahead" to accomplish DST 2011 (daylight saving time). So what is it about sunlight that has us wanting to "save" it ? The origin of DST stems from a suggestion made by our very own Benjamin Franklin in one of his essays
(An Economical Project -1734 ) ..... and would you believe that energy conservation was the objective !!
 In reality what happens is that we transfer, in effect, an hour's worth of daylight from early morning when only milkmen and roosters are awake to appreciate it, shifting it to then push back sunset (at least as far as our timepieces are concerned), giving the masses more usable daylight.
    Admittedly, loosing an hour of sleep the night we advance our clocks, isn't fun ~ but the benefits of seemingly longer days, especially now that Spring is bringing milder weather and the beauty of all her awakenings, far outshines a few lost 
Z-Z-Z-'s. Personally I embrace the warmth of the sun and the extended time to savor it.


Carpe diem !!!

Making Connections

One of our Red headed Woodpeckers.

"The Earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the Earth. Man did not weave the web of life ~ he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself"   
 inspired by Chief Seattle 1850"s


February is National Wild Bird Feeding Month and the GBBC (Great Backyard Bird Count). The GBBC is a joint project of Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Audubon Society where Citizen Scientists from across the Nation can participate by conducting a watch/count for a specific time frame and reporting the highest numbers of bird species observed in that time. Data is then submitted to the Cornell Lab database for use in comparison studies of bird populations over time. This year the GBBC was from Fri. Feb.18-Mon. Feb, 21. The connections I experience with Nature during the GBBC are much deeper than the more casual watching that I do year round in our backyard habitat, perhaps because of the intensity of the watching necessary for this project. The binoculars are up the entire watch time and you tend to "look" in more places/ spaces than usual, so as to not miss a thing. Consequently you observe SO much more. We participated last year as well and so we now have begun our own "database". We enjoyed our usual cast of characters, including our resident species and our Winter visitors. The highlights for this year included on Day 1 - A Great Blue Heron "fly over"; Day 3 - A Sharp-shinned Hawk hanging around for about 20 minutes ( when there was not a sighting or peep from any of our birds !!) and Day 4 - the sighting of a new species for us of a Yellow-rumped Myrtle Warbler.
Making connections means to unite, or "be in close relation with" and for me, my desire to Walk with Nature often and in many ways gives me the opportunity to respect the web.

The Art of Nature

"Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears" 

Fall sunset - 2005                      The Woodland's , Texas / NJF

                   - Fiddler on the roof


In each of it's moods and through out it's daily & nightly hours, the 'heavens' provide an amazing source of beauty & inspiration ! 
For me, catching a sunrise or sunset (often heading to or home from work) is the big prize of being a skywatcher. No two ever alike ~ each with it's own unique palette & set of scenes.
I will never tire of looking up, day or night, to see what sky show is playing. I also delight in the knowledge that I keep good company with MANY others who have been moved to create by skywatching. ( Think Van Gogh; da Vinci & Michelangelo for a start ) 
As I end week two of this new year ~ I continue to ... Explore ~ Discover ~ Imagine &  Express ... care to join me? 
What are your creative goals & inspirations ? Not sure ?  Just Look Up & Enjoy !! 

Awaken the sleeping blog ~

Oh my ! What was only to be a little blog nap turned into a Rip van Winkle sleep !! 
It is the New Year (2011) and high time to awaken this sleeping blog. My thoughts at this time of turning - old to new - are formed by questions & meditations ...... "Where is the meaning?" ...... "What will I do/ be/ see in this New Year?" ....."How will I know what & where?"
I turn to Aguste Rodin's ~The Thinker ~ a long time favorite sculpture ( and artist ) of mine. I was fortunate to visit the Muse'e Rodin in Paris (1976) and more recently to stroll through the Rodin Sculpture Garden at Stanford University (2006). On the pedestal of Stanford's Thinker is carved the question " Where is the meaning?"
The Thinker ( originally titled The Poet ) shows a man in deep meditation and is often used to represent philosophy. So with him as my January muse ~ I go forward mindfully to set goals, to learn something new EVERY day, to be inspired by Mother Nature and other simple things and to joyfully share my creativity where ever possible.
May this New Year of 2011 be Wonder-filled, Full-filled, and Peace-filled for all of us.

A Season's Dawn ...

True to the wonders of Mother Nature , here we are at 6 weeks since groundhog day ! This past weekend we have started to "save daylight" and this coming weekend we celebrate the Vernal equinox ~
that twice a year short period of time when the sun is exactly vertical to earth above a point on the equator.
Four times a year we have a solar herald to a season with 2 solstices and 2 equinoxes.
If the winter solstice signals the birth of the sun, then the spring equinox exclaims the birth of the earth. A resurrection of nature from the deep sleep of winter, where all around life breaks new ground with bulbs, shoots & buds bursting forth. 
Yesterday I spotted my first dragonfly ~ my totem ~and last week I had to shoo a few honey bees away from my classroom door. ( My classroom is in a portable )  Last week, also, a group of my 8Th graders and I did some sketchbooking of signs of spring in the grotto area of our school campus, such a joy!  
So I encourage you to join me and stop, look, and listen to the dawning of spring ~ a time of rebirths in us and around us, and mindfulness of the present.  Seek and celebrate!

Backyard Habitat musings....

"If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come" ~ Chinese Proverb


Today is the final day (day 4) of The Great Backyard Bird Count. I have just completed today's watch/count and submitted it to Cornell's site :) A very interesting and rewarding experience for sure.
We chose to watch for 30 minutes each day and we purposely varied our watch times. Neil joined me in watching on Sat. & Sun. and each day saw action but with differences in species and numbers. Our total number of species observed and reported over the 4 days was 14 ~ ranging from our most prevalent Chipping Sparrows to our beautiful Woodpeckers and our lone Hummingbird :)
    Also interesting is tracking the ongoing Nation wide results posted by the Cornell site. As of now, the state of Texas leads in both number of birds reported ( over 350,000 ) as well as number of species ( @ 302). Will be interesting to see the final tallies, probably ready by weeks end.
I encourage you to put out some seed, grab a pair of binoculars and really enjoy watching our lovely feathered friends. It is definitely one of those "pockets of bliss" opportunities available for free everyday.