“No spring nor summer hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.”
-John Donne
“Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.”
– Emily Bronte
“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting, and autumn a mosaic of them all.”
-Stanley Horowitz
“Autumn is the season to find contentment at home by paying attention to what we already have.”
-the inspiration room
“Fall, the time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.”
-Lauren DeStefano
You can click onto any of the thumbnail photos for a full sized version, then use the arrows for a full sized slide show.
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”
-George Eliot
You can click onto any individual photo to view a full size version – then use right and left arrows for a slideshow.
“A lake carries you into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable.”
-William Woodsworth
This lake certainly did carry me into impenetrable recesses of feeling! It’s incredible depth carries an equal depth in peacefulness. The blue is otherworldly, the reflected mirror of the sky and clouds serene and beautiful.
At 1,949 feet, it is the deepest lake in the United States, and 7th deepest in the world. The caldera was created when Mount Mazama’s top quarter was blown off in a powerful volcanic eruption and over time it was filled entirely from rain and melted snow. The purity of the water is felt as well as seen.
I loved the feelings accessed here, and just being absorbed by the tranquil quiet of this lake’s shores…
“Ah, Lovely October, as you usher in the season that awakens my soul, your awesome beauty compels my spirit to soar like an leaf caught in an autumn breeze and my heart to sing like a heavenly choir.”
-Peggy Toney Horton
The Columbia River Gorge, bonds Washington and Oregon, and has draped them both with overwhelming power and beauty. And the Gorge and its waters have touched my soul.
I long to spend more time here. There is a depth to be penetrated over time, in the inner and the outer realms. Rich tapestries of greens, radiance of waterfalls, myriad wildflowers, mysterious forests, sumptuous grand canyons, all endlessly beautiful. They touch the deepest part of me.
Every turn holds a wonder – a sometimes quiet and often times shuddering exuberance of majesty. Hidden wonders everywhere waiting to be explored.
Yes, I need more time here.
“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: What is soft is strong.”
-Lao-Tzu
“Water is the one substance from which the earth can conceal nothing; it sucks out its innermost secrets and brings them to our very lips.”
-Jean Giraudoux
A few facts about the Columbia River Gorge (from the website for Foundation for Water & Energy Education; http://fwee.org/environment/what-makes-the-columbia-river-basin-unique-and-how-we-benefit/):
Words and Song by India Arie
You can listen to her sweet clear voice here:
“I Am Light
I am light, I am light, I am lightI am not the things my family did
I am not the voices in my head
I am not the pieces of the brokenness inside
I am light, I am light, I am light, I am light
I’m not the mistakes that I have made or any of the things that caused me pain
I am not the pieces of the dream I left behindI am light, I am light, I am light, I am light
I am not the color of my eyes
I am not the skin on the outside
I am not my age, I am not my race, my soul inside is all lightAll light, all light, all light, all light
I am light, I am light, I am light, I am lightI am divinity defined
I am the God on the inside
I am a star, a piece of it all
I am light”
(*You can click onto any individual image to see a full size version, and then click the right hand arrow to see all images in full size.)
“The summer night is like a perfection of thought.”
-Wallace Stevens
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“Then followed that beautiful season… Summer….
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.”
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“
Sometimes you read something that resonates as if you had written it yourself! When I read this quote it was surely one of those times.
I think Victoria and I would get along famously!
*I’d have to add books and wine though!
“I just want to live in a world of mountains,
coffee, campfires, cabins and golden trees,
and run round with a camera and a notebook,
learning the inner workings of everything real.”
-Victoria Erickson
My living with coffee, campfires, cabins, golden trees, cameras and a notebook represented in photos below. Living the dream… (you can click onto any image for a full size version, then hit the arrow to see each image in turn).
“The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the center of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.”-Margaret Atwood
“The Amen of nature is always a flower”
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Click onto any image for a full sized version, and to view each photo individually in full version by hitting the arrow…
