Laine's Blog, Thinking Out Loud

Earth Day!

 

There we are

on that little blue ball

happily floating through space

 

that gorgeous blue ball

we call our home planet

spinning out the seasons

and the days and nights

as we delight in the joys of being alive

 

seeing the flowers and birds and sunsets

oceans rivers mountains and valleys -

our very own earth.

 

 

 

 

 

NASA photo of the earth from outer space.

What If?

 

 

What if you are here on this beautiful, physical, gravity based planet,

simply because you want to be here?

 

You like a challenge!

 

 

 

 

 

Reprinted from LainesBlog 

©LaineQuinn 2022

 

What if you are here on this beautiful, physical, gravity based planet,

simply because you want to be here?

 

You like a challenge!

 

 

 

 

 

Reprinted from LainesBlog 

©LaineQuinn 2022

Home...

 

 

 

A lot of people will be traveling over the coming weeks,

going home.

 

Where is home? 

 

Is it where you spent your childhood?

 

Or where you choose to live?

 

Is home a moveable feast?

 

Do we carry it within us?

 

 

Is it a place we cherish or a person we love?

 

Is it all of these things?

 

A place, a person, where you've been and where you're going

 

and where you are right now?

 

 

The heart and soul of home

 

seem to be everywhere!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Airplane window, setting sun, clouds.

Reprinted from Laine's Blog, November 2012, long before traveling became so precarious because of the pandemic.

©Laine Quinn 2021

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of people will be traveling over the coming weeks,

going home.

 

Where is home? 

 

Is it where you spent your childhood?

 

Or where you choose to live?

 

Is home a moveable feast?

 

Do we carry it within us?

 

 

Is it a place we cherish or a person we love?

 

Is it all of these things?

 

A place, a person, where you've been and where you're going

 

and where you are right now?

 

 

The heart and soul of home

 

seem to be everywhere!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Airplane window, setting sun, clouds.

Reprinted from Laine's Blog, November 2012, long before traveling became so precarious because of the pandemic.

©Laine Quinn 2021

 

 

Setting Sun...

 

 

The sun sets on another day

another week

another year.

 

 

 

 

 

©2021 Laine Quinn

Inlet, Vilano Beach

 

Not Like That...

 

I wanted to write about the unsettling times we find ourselves in

and then there was that date,

September 11, 2021

staring me in the eye.

 

In 2001, almost a week after that horrible day,

I was on a sailboat in Provincetown Harbor

and witnessed the most magnificent sunset

caused by the dust in the air all the way from 

New York City to Cape Cod,

from that terrible tragedy at the World Trade Center Towers.

 

I lived in Provincetown at the time and my friend invited me out on the water.

Planes were still grounded and it was eerily quiet and peaceful, calm and beautiful.

 

We talked about how the U.S. behaved in the world

and how that created more enemies than friends.

 

The Country stood still for a while - 

collective grief - shock - compassion - empathy.

 

And you know the rest of the story.

They said,

"Get on with your lives." "Go shopping."

We'll start a war or two and make it right.

 

A primitive response lacking insight, intelligence, even compassion for the victims.

It's not what their families wanted.

 

It wasn't misguided -

it was exactly what some people wanted.

 

Will America ever be the Beacon of Democracy she promised to be?

 

Not like that.

Not like that.

 

 

 

 

 

©Laine Quinn 2021, photo September 17th, 2001.

 

 

Getting Grounded Again...

 

How's it going?

Personally - within?

 

Take a moment to remember

that you are here now

with your very own life.

 

Your very own precious life.

 

How's it going?

Within?

 

Breathe.

 

 

©Laine Quinn2021

 

Moonlight...

 

Every day brings us closer to moonlight

But

Where is she now?

                                                               

 

(Crescent moon coming soon to your neighborhood sky!)

 

 

 

 

In Honor of National Poetry Month, an original!

©Laine Quinn

Photos taken in 2013, the moon and Venus just after sunset.

 

 

                                                                         

Hidden Gifts...

 

 

 

What I have been trying not to say out loud,

is that there are blessings or gifts hidden in tragedies,

and these gifts may not be obvious for some time to come,

but they are there.

 

If we can make a commitment not to let the anger and helplessness

allow us to disconnect,

and instead turn to our friends and families,

and really see them in that deep way that keeps love alive,

then that compassion spreads to our neighbors, and the person behind the counter,

and we become part of the force that moves us away from the madness,

and towards creating a loving and compassionate world.

 

Be gentle with each other and kind and open.

 

 

 

 

 

Reprinted from Laine's Blog, 4/2013 and 6/2016

 

More Light After a Storm...

 

 

St. Augustine Harbor

looking east, with the sun low in the west

lighting up the sky,

after an afternoon storm.

 

(True Colors!)

 

 

 

 

 

©LaineQuinn 2015 St. Augustine, Florida

 

Poets...

 

 

Ecola

 

I walked by the sea-creek side.

The wind laughed, the gulls cried.

Sweet water lapped on the salt sand

between the deep sea and the deep land.

                                                Ursula K. LeGuin

 

Years ago, Joseph Campbell told us that the poets would save us.

 

I begin to understand.

 

 

 

From Ursula K LeGuin's book of poems, "Late in the Day."

Joseph Campbell, in his series, "The Power of Myth."

Photo of St. Augustine Beach, ©2020LaineQuinn

 

 

Original Simplicity...

 

 

Breathe

Walk

Smile

 

                                                         Thich Nhat Hanh

 

Back to basics,

one of my first teachers'

best advice.

 

 

 

 

Sunset, Moultrie Creek, from Vaill Point.

 

Every Day

 

Every day the sun rises,

whether we see it or not,

the rotation of the earth allows for one sunrise and one sunset a day.

 

 

On the International Space Station the sun rises and sets about 15 times a day!

 

It's a shift in perspective,

a way different point of view!

 

 

 

 

St. Augustine Beach sunrise, last month, 2017.

 

Just Wonderin'...

 

Worrying...

It's quite a distraction...

and then,

well...

 

 

Wonder on the other hand,

it will lift you up and up and up!

 

 

(I wonder what I will worry about today?)

 

(I worry what I will wonder about tomorrow!)

 

Just wonderin'.

 

 

Here's a line from one of the poems in Mary Oliver's book of poems,

Blue Horses:

 

...It must be a great disappointment

to God if we are not dazzled at least ten

times a day.

                                                       The poem is Good Morning.

 

 

 

This post was first published in March 2015. The Captain rests at Disney and the sunset was off my deck!

 

Beauty, Love

 

 

Beauty in the world is experienced by the individual as feeling.

 

If we look more closely at beauty and try to describe more carefully the beauty of the world,

we do not arrive at aesthetics, but rather love.

 

Is not beauty the particular way in which the world expresses itself as love?

 

...love, the interior presence of beauty.

 

 

 

 

From the book by Robert Sardello, Love and the Soul, Creating a Future for Earth.

 

Stillness

 

 

Movement in the stillness,

more in the woods behind us,

squirrels and owls,

and under the surface of the water.

 

A balance is struck at the end of the day

as the light fades

and we rush to beat the darkness home.

 

 

 

 

Sunset at Vail Point on Moultrie Creek.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Pigs Fly

 

 

 

Bless us all

on this

unusual

inauguration day.

 

And Bless America.

 

 

 

 

 

A New Year

 

Anything can happen!

And hopefully we will all be here at the end of it!

 

Throw caution to the wind?

Why not?

It might just be the thing to do.

 

Happy New Year Everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

Sunset, Porpoise Point, St. Augustine, 2016.

 

 

Sunset

 

 

Anchored driftwood-

the top completes the bottom

on reflection.

 

 

Yesterday's sunset, yesteryear's tree...St. Augustine Inlet, Vilano Beach.

 

Just Wonderin'

 

Worrying...

It's quite a distraction...

and then,

well...

 

 

Wonder on the other hand,

it will lift you up and up and up!

 

 

(I wonder what I will worry about today?)

 

(I worry what I will wonder about tomorrow!)

 

Just wonderin'.

 

 

 

 

From Laine's Blog, March 26th, 2015.

Captain buried at Disney and the sunset is off my deck.

 

 

 

Hidden Gifts

 

 

What I have been trying not to say out loud,

is that there are blessings or gifts hidden in tragedies,

and these gifts may not be obvious for some time to come,

but they are there.

 

If we can make a commitment not to let the anger and helplessness

allow us to disconnect,

and instead turn to our friends and families,

and really see them in that deep way that keeps love alive,

then that compassion spreads to our neighbors, and the person behind the counter,

and we become part of the force that moves us away from the madness,

and towards creating a loving and compassionate world.

 

Be gentle with each other and kind and open.

 

 

 

 

Reprinted from Laine's Blog, April 18th, 2013.

 

 

Blue Evening

 

 

Another day comes to an end,

or rather

daylight ends!

 

The night is young!

 

 

 

 

St. Augustine Beach Pier from Anastasia State Park, yesterday!

 

Turn a Corner...

 

On a cloudy afternoon,

sometimes,

all you have to do is turn a corner

for something wonderful and cheering to come your way.

 

 

The sun pops out and illuminates the clouds over the harbor.

 

A little bit of a rainbow on the way to the beach and then this sunset -

 

 

It's hard to be miserable under these circumstances.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St. Augustine Harbor and Beach. 

 

 

Rainbow...

 

 

 

The sun was setting and shining shyly on the waves after hiding all day,

and then this!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From my first August of doing the blog 2012, this magnificent rainbow, reprinted with permission!

Sea Oats Going By

 

 

 

At the end of the day.

The end of a world.

The end of a life.

 

Doors close.

Chapters end.

 

And then it begins again.

 

The sea oats

going by

will be back in the spring.

 

The sun that sets

rises again.

 

The mystery is solved in 533 pages,

yet some things

will remain

forever

beyond our

 reach,

just the other side of certainty.

 

 

 

 

 

Sea oats and sunset with painterly effect, St. Augustine Beach.

From Laines Blog, October 2013.

 

Evening Clouds

 

 

St. Augustine's Lighthouse

dwarfed by the rolling clouds

of a summer's evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not exactly a Haiku, but close! St. Augustine, Matanzas River and lighthouse.

 

Happy Mistake...

 

 

Maybe my phone really is smarter than I am...

It took this photo when I wasn't looking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday's twilight taken by the Samsun Galaxy S4 without my knowing it, St. Augustine Beach, Florida.

 

Bahamian Duet...

 

Fellow passengers on the cruise to the Bahamas...

Bahamians?

Perhaps...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But nice enough to put the phone down (him) and let me take their photo.

That was back in January, 2015.

Fishing...

 

 

Little fish watch out.

As the sun prepares to set.

White bird is dining.

 

 

 

 

And Human is watching...Vilano Beach, St. Augustine inlet.

 

The Essence Remains...

 

When I was a little girl,

I loved the smell of the earth,

flowers and trees and fresh mown grass,

starry nights and beautiful sunsets,

and time spent at the beach.

 

     

 

A lot of life has happened between then and now,

and I still love all of those things,

as well as making people smile,

feeling connected to just about everyone (on a good day!),

and I especially love the deep friendship that I have cultivated with myself.

 

The essence remains-

we are still those children that we once were

with the refinement that a life lived allows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just Wonderin'

 

Worrying...

It's quite a distraction...

and then,

well...

 

 

Wonder on the other hand,

it will lift you up and up and up!

 

 

(I wonder what I will worry about today?)

 

(I worry what I will wonder about tomorrow!)

 

Just wonderin'.

 

 

 

"Captain" is buried at Disney World and now rests in brine.

Sunset, just off my deck one surprising evening.

 

Related articles

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Madrid or St. Augustine?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lightner Museum, St. Augustine, setting sun, January 2015.