my love affair with autumn continues

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all. 

~Stanley Horowitz
 

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face.
 
~John Donne
 

Bittersweet October.  The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter.  

~Carol Bishop Hipps

 

It occurred to me that I ought to document the actual sighting of the coinage, lest one think that I am merely recycling the same coin month/month.

delightful autumn

 from all saints....

to all souls, within the same walk

meditations--Aurelius

 "Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself, and asks nothing beyond itself."

"Look at the inmost causes of things, stripped of their husks; note the intentions that underlie actions; study the essence of pain, pleasure, death, glory; observe how man's disquiet is all of his own making, and how troubles never come from another's hand, but like all else are creatures of our own opinions."

 

Very hard to see, but there was a hummingbird dining on the nasturtiums this morning.

$.11 found on my stroll to a fabulous lecture last night given by Gail Collins.

A happy bench along Lake Washington upon which to sit and read.

Hazy sighting of Mt. Rainier.  A good day to ponder the eternal of mountains and water as close the day's reading with:  "Never confuse yourself by visions of an entire lifetime at once."

to market, to market

to buy myself flowers for consolation

 

as I mourn my shredded garden

and my dead green tomatoes...

paradox

"ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"  says this Robert while this one exhorts:  "Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life."

bits of bliss

Wonder what the signage for toxified air and violence looks like?

Always love the academic aura of a red-ivied brick building.

And as the cost for the NYT is exorbitant on the western coast, I indulge in one of my favorite bits of it, in book form.

serenity

Today's poetry courtesy of one of the songs which I'm conducting right now:

"peace I ask of thee, o river,
peace, peace, peace,
when I learn to live serenely cares will cease
from the hills I gather courage, visions of the day to be....

peace like the falling rain,
       ...like the floating cloud,
                 ....like the flowing stream,
                          ....like the gentle breeze