Tag Archives: Autumn season

Quince Pie with or without quince

Today we do not encounter many small trees or shrubs of the rose family (Rosaceae), grown for its edible fruit, which deliver the ingredient for some tasty dessert. The fruit (kweepeer or kweeappel = quince)has a strong aroma and is astringent in the raw state but makes an excellent preserve and is often used to give flavour and sharpness to stewed or baked apples. In the past it was also often used in a sort of tart or cake. The flesh of the fruit, which you can not eat raw because very sour, takes on a pink colour when cooked, giving an attractive colour to jellies and conserves. Because the fruit contains a lot of pectins they are very suitable to be used in jellies.

This year it looks as if we are already some months in Autumn time. That is the time when those Cydonia oblonga fruits normally are harvested.  Harvest time is October/November, but you can keep quinces for a long time, and looking at the weather we are still going to have these days, it would be ideal to present it already now to warm us up.

The fragrant fruit, covered with green-grey down, originates from the Caucasus and was already greatly appreciated by the ancient Greeks. Today you will not find it mentioned in many recipe books, but there are many several recipes for quinces in medieval cookbooks, and sometimes it isn’t clear whether a recipe is for apples or quinces. Though with apples, pears, quinces or no quinces at all, underneath you may find links to two sample recipes. One is s a delicious type of sweet tart common to Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Italy, Egypt and Greece. You can use for it quince jam, dulce de batata, dulce de leche or guava. the other goes back to a very old recipe for which you can use quinces, boiled in clean water, or pears roasted 6 or 7, a quarter pound peeled almonds, a quarter-pound fresh curd or even dulce de leche or milk caramel, and a handful of raisins without pips.

Quince Pie

Please find the recipes to make a lovely dessert:

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  1. Quince Pie
  2. A very special pie from the sixteenth century

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Just a thought for this month of Changing colours in Western Europe

The North and West of Belgium may look like a country full of bricks, full of houses with here and there some green trying to stay straight and alive. Where there can be found trees and fields the landscape is changing to red, yellow and golden colours. In the little gardens we may have mushrooms are the living proof we are in fall.

From the Schmidlin Family Farm we hear that at their place, in the Pacific Coast Range of Northern Oregon,

Fall seemed to only last a week this year in the Pacific Northwest.

the vibrant hues of the trees as the leaves turned from greens to wild splashes of color was only in full display a short while.

Trees with leaves ready to fallStorms that came in from the ocean sent wind and rain driving sideways at times. They lashed at the vegetation and ripped the tender stems of the leaves right off the trees that are drifting into slumber in preparation for the cold ahead. {From Vivid To Bare}

For the moment in Belgium we did not receive our portion of Autumn storms, but the temperature indicators do not seem to know where to go, one day cold the other day warm (? 17° C) for the time of year.

This year in Flemish Brabant the trees started already becoming brown in July (because of the water shortage for two years already), though in the South of France in September we could find lovely green colours and later in October them starting to give way to red, yellow and gold. They want to show the world they are strong and not yet willing to give away the crown they may be in the sky. Whilst mother earth cries unto them they sing their song in the wind, calling for memories and tricking us into lovely walks in nature.

At some places in Europe the birches are master of the surroundings. At the Muir of Dinnet National Nature Reserve it won’t be long until they lose their leaves, so the  park strongly advise to get out there now – or we’ll miss the best autumn colours!

Loch Kinord has been looking especially pretty with the yellow birches. There’s just something about reflections on water that makes things extra-beautiful. {Golden Autumn Days – Muir of Dinnet NNR}

How long did we looked forward to sunny and warm days, and how quickly they are gone. Though at for some years, at certain times in Belgium it looked like we only had two seasons, a wet one and a wetter (and colder) season. With global warming we are treated with more extremes, hotter days but also more heavy winds and rainstorms. Some parts in West Europe receive in a few hours the amount of water which would normally fall there in three months. Without any concession, the water takes everything it can grab and drags it along into the depths or miles further to throw it on one large scrap heap. Cleaning up is all what rests for those who could survive the sudden torrent.

Is it not water then there are the flames which love to lick the earth and get tourists flee their resorts of rest. That way the flames get those fleeing people thinking about the drought and how they too are responsible for what is going on with nature which seems to have lost its wheel.

Is it the slow speed by which this year wants to announce the coming Winter, that I may be feeling a little bit down? Or is it my awareness that mankind has not treated his surroundings very well? Is it me feeling like man has lost his connection with mother earth or not willing to take care of it any more?

Though Fall brings us such magnificent colours and when we look at the many blogs and at Instagram, we are treated with an incredible world of magic. But that magical colourful world is something which seems to be far away from the industrialised economical world of West Europe. Most people not receiving enough time to go to the parks and to enjoy the changing nature.

The trees call out and reach to the people down there. But they do not seem to hear or seem not wanting to see. Even when youngsters already for months call those in charge of governments to become aware that we should turn our way of life and have to make serious measure to protect our earth.

Let those voices on the streets in the big cities know that their honest cry is heard, by those who can live in that beautiful nature, which seems to be  strangled by industry and by profit-seeking investors. The trees may be leaning in close to encourage another and want to give the people who live around them the lovely sweets of a year of pride standing high above the earth and streaming water. Now

it’s as though
Heaven itself conjoins with Earth. {Encouragement}

Is it not that the youngsters of today could also need some encouragement? Or should they become the driving force to get those older people coming to change their attitude of life? Perhaps the roles have to be switched and in this age it have to be the younger ones to bring the older ones to the senses?

It is just my (feeling down) thought for today.

 

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Find some Autumn reflections and lovely pictures at

  1. Encouragement
  2. Golden Autumn Days – Muir of Dinnet NNR
  3. virginia hikes: Mount Pleasant loop, October 24 2019
  4. Fahnestock Flora
  5. Spectacular Color along the Parkway

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Additional reading

  1. Temperatures rising
  2. Air-conditioning treath and HFCs extremely powerful heat-trappers
  3. Global watershortages and Worsening food security conditions
  4. June – July 2019
  5. Stepping forward with public commitments for Making different sectors carbon neutral by 2050
  6. Reducing effects of environmental disasters
  7. After the Summer-holiday thinking even more about God’s creation

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Related

  1. It’s getting hot in here!
  2. Global Warming
  3. Time to Care Before More Islands Disappear
  4. Global warming is no joke
  5. A Forecast for a Warming World: Learn to Live With Fire
  6. Industrial Carbon Storage/Removal
  7. The terrifying truth about Global warming
  8. What a Melting Arctic Circle Means for Us
  9. Concerns for the future of the Arctic
  10. New assessment related to Arctic Climate Argument
  11. Clear evidence the Pentagon has no idea how the global climate system functions
  12. Global Warming
  13. Arctic impact has showed our world is in danger
  14. Marianne Williamson: We Need ‘World War II Level Mass Mobilization’ to Fight Climate Change
  15. Tirol: Will Austria stand up for its environment and against Climate Change by refusing the Oetztal & Pitztal ski area merger?
  16. Caring for the Earth

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Autumn Grandor!

Every year over and over again we come to see the seasons presenting the beginning of new life, the grandeur of the fruitfulness, the changing colours and light shades before we receive a white carpet, having us to escape the wind and cold air, looking for warmth in the house.

Joy Cometh In The Morning

Nancy On The Stump

AUTUMN GRANDOR

Out of the house with noisy clamor Sunshine and flowers and colors galore Experiencing joy and giddy laughter Breathing fresh air and so much more Seasons are changing and causing a pause Shifting of gears and temperature loss Rearranging my closet and getting prepared For crisp morning wakeups and frost I’ll celebrate change and embrace its renewing Of memories from past days of life When school days and ball games Fulfilled the expanse free of strife I’ll once again welcome, in great expectation The beauty, the freshness, the glory Amazing sunsets and full moon rising With maple and pine telling the story Of God’s creation in awesome display The wonder and beauty of all Breaking through summer’s doldrums This remarkable, beautiful FALL The picture he’s painted no words can describe Though words will inadequately flow I try to describe the grandeur before me Take a walk in the…

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Summer or Autumn-time in September or in Lifetime

At the moment I am in the Ardeche-Lozère region enjoying my Summer holiday with long walks but also feeling that at a certain age we have come in the autumn of our life, not so able any more to climb the rocks. One moment, the day before yesterday, we were pleased the climbing cables were already provided on the rocks. But with our 13 year old Sheltie it was not such an easy thing to hold him in one hand using the other to keep me safe close to the steep cliff, facing 400 metres down. Much too dangerous at our age.

Sometimes we love to stay young, and it may be hard to feel we are not able any more to do those things we could do some twenty or forty years ago. We are confronted with autumn in life, no matter we want to stay in the Summer.

Suzette B lets us think about the yearly returning seasons and reflects on the beauty of autumn. For some it might be one of the most attractive colourful seasons of the year. For Lauren Destafano autumn has always been her favourite season, whilst for Suzette B fall has a lot to offer, but she sometimes finds that dull days of fall and the looming days of night (aka winter) tends to give the fall season seemingly less favour than the other seasons.

Suzette B writes:

It champions the journey of life.

It celebrates the color of change.

It announces the bounty of the harvest. It reminds us that life has promise – hope.

No matter how much we would love to resist, we shall have to face that particular moment in our life, before the winter part or end part of our life shall come to us.

Perhaps she has good reason to say:

It symbolizes courage. It takes courage to say “goodbye” to one thing and not know what is to come.

But often it is not so easy to say goodbye to the things one loves and one loves to do. With the seasons of the yearly calendar one knows the Summer will come back? With life, we know there is no way back. The new season is the point of no return.

Though:

Fall is a reminder that one journey has come and gone. Another begins.

All people who have to face the days, after the hands of the clock have gone over half or over 6, I wish happy remembrance days. Taking the courage to come to see the better parts we were lucky to have had, and nobody can take them away. Let it be the point where we can enjoy now a new journey in life with beautiful colours of autumn. The golden leaves of our years of the past.

Like Suzette B I would say:

To new beginnings everyone.

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Filed under Being and Feeling, Health affairs, Knowledge & Wisdom, Lifestyle, Nature, Pictures of the World, Quotations or Citations, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs, Reflection Texts, Welfare matters

The Gift of Giving

Autumn brings us many beautiful colours in nature. The world seems to bring us golden leaves. Getting colder and getting more wind and rain we like to spend more time in a warm living room. Getting darker we look for literal cosy lights and spiritual light.

We come closer to a time of year that people everywhere in the Western World, get very excited about giving. It is often said that part of the fun is in the giving, in watching the expression on the face of a loved one as they open the present, or in the delight of a child as they play with a new toy.

The Bible agrees that giving is an important part of our human existence. It is within the capacity of all of us to make someone else happy by giving – either a present, or a hug, or even some time and attention. There are plenty of Bible stories that talk about being generous and selfless in the way that we give. Think of the widow woman, for example, who gave her two mites into the temple treasury, which was all she had to live on (see Mark 12v41-44). This example to us means even more when we think that she was not necessarily an old widow; she could have had children to support. And yet the giving was the important thing, not the amount, and not what she got in return, just the giving itself.

Too often we focus on the value of material things, and what we accumulate in our houses. The focus is on the object, not on the action. Jesus Christ lived his whole life as a gift to others – constantly serving, providing, healing and comforting – as well as pointing out the way to please God was to do likewise. Ultimately this is the way the Gospel of John describes his final act of self-sacrifice: as a gift not from Jesus, but from God.

“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3v16)

Should we be giving more this year than presents and cards? What could we do with our time, our love, and our thoughts and prayers?
Do we value those as much as the goods we purchase in shopping centres? And how do you value the ultimate gift that is offered to you?

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.” (Romans 6v23)

Part taken from the article “The Gift of Giving” by the Burton Christadelphians

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Preceding

The Proper Place of Excess

Looking for a shepherd for the sheep and goats

08ED4BE4-BA74-4418-B4C9-8AB581345538

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Additional reading

  1. A season of gifts
  2. Hanukkahgiving or Thanksgivvukah
  3. Sancta Claus is not God
  4. Christmas customs – Are They Christian?

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Related

  1. Make #GivingTuesday More Than Just a Giving Day
  2. How to foster an environment of thankfulness!
  3. Lean in…and Give
  4. Advent of the Coming King . . .
  5. 10 Best gifts for Mom this Christmas

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Pagan Holidays

Drew Carey is right in saying Americans celebrate a lot of holidays which have nothing to do with the Bible. Many Americans run high with the pagan Winter Holiday and consider it the major Christian festival having a Nordic Santa flying through the sky to bring presents to their children. they also think Jesus Christ his birthday would be on what they do not seem to know is the birthday of the goddess of light.

Did the Americans ever question where Santa Claus came into the picture by Jesus birth? And why celebrate somebodies birthday months after he was born, because Jesus was born in what is the Autumn-time in America. (October 17, 4BCE) and what have fur-trees to do with Bethlehem or the nativity of Christ?

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Preceding

Halloween is Satanist Christmas

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Further reading

  1. So Thanksgiving was ordained by whom?
  2. Happy Hallonksmas
  3. The origin of Christmas
  4. Ho Ho Hum
  5. Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays?
  6. Who does Thanksgiving, actually Thank!
  7. Dang those spooky Druids
  8. The dark side of Halloween
  9. Ghosts by Lauren Raine
  10. Acts 5:29 “… We ought to obey God rather than men”
  11. Halloween – An Occultic Observance
  12. Halloween and the forces of darkness
  13. The Witch’s Desk: Celebrate September! ~ Full Moon & Autumnal Equinox
  14. The Witch’s Desk: Celebrate October! ~ Full Moon & Samhain
  15. Halloween (…and other pagan holidays)
  16. The Pagan Roots of Halloween
  17. Offerings to the Ancestors
  18. Should Christians Not celebrate Chrismas?
  19. Pagan Holidays in a Muggle Environment

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wordsoffaithandgooddoctrine

Jeremiah 10:2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

2 Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,

Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

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Beautiful, Brilliant, Scary

After a very warm beginning of Autumn, having temperatures going up to 17° Celsius, we got literal and other storms from last weekend onwards. Today the temperatures fell back to normal and we got the literal white snow whilst the red cold blanket was further enrolled bringing the country to a terror alert 4, giving us the impression the country could as well soon declare us at war. That scares many people who in the region Brussels were also been asked to stay indoors and to have all shopping centres closed.

Though we should look outside and go into nature where the shouting colours can bring us back at peace. For sure a big change will take place this year and after 70 years no war in Belgium it could well be that Autumn might have come over that idea of peace and tranquillity.

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To remember

  • glorious red, yellow + orange of the seasons’ leaves = message of death +> Winter is coming
  • season that looks forward to barrenness and bleakness
  • autumn reminding in inescapable colors change is taking place =>lead to new growth + life = All paths falling into place.

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Preceding:

Autumn is in the land

Storms on the way

Nature’s Watercolor Painting

Bits and Bobbs, of a beautiful Autumn

A Virginia Autumn

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Author Stephanie Ascough

Isn’t it funny how we (I) wax on and on about autumn? Behind the glorious red, yellow and orange of the seasons’ leaves is a message of death. Winter is coming. When I stop and think about it, I remember of all the ways I run from change in my own life. And yet, I love and always will love the changing seasons. Even-especially- the one that looks forward to barrenness and bleakness.

It’s like autumn is reminding me in inescapable colors that change is taking place, right under my nose. It may be through a place that feels like death at times. But I can trust that it will lead to new growth and life. All these paths are falling into place.

And in the meantime, for the first time, I get to relish this season. For what it is, and for what comes after.

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Bits and Bobbs, of a beautiful Autumn

km Salvatore from Western New York lives on the Erie Canal where there’s always something going on, in any number of the towns scattered along the water way. He also lives between 2 Great Lakes where also there’s always something to shoot.

The park and the wall on his photo’s reminds us of the park in Tervuren near Brussels.

In his surroundings he knew to capture the vivid life Autumn also can bring.

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Preceding: Autumn is in the land

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KmSalvatore

DSC_8257 can ya just hear the leaves crinkling

DSC_8264 it was such an awesome day, i cant remember the last time i stayed in the park so long…good thing there were plenty of benches

DSC_8267 in front of the conservatory

DSC_8269 magnificent colors all over

DSC_8270 made me think spring was here

DSC_8273 chestnuts galore

DSC_8276 im sneaking into the sunken garden

DSC_8280 usually wedding take place here, and they have posted, no one is allowed to taks pictures with out …paying a fee..yeah right!!!!

DSC_8281 ok…..im going in

DSC_8283 i know a short cut..

DSC_8284 here we go im almost inside

DSC_8285 good,no one is shooting anything special

DSC_8287 theres the main entrance… where one would pay…

DSC_8295 can you imagine your wedding here… it must be beautiful, almost fairy taleish

DSC_8297 i loved walking through here

DSC_8289DSC_8291DSC_8292DSC_8294

take a walk with me take a walk with me

DSC_8303 gotta kick those leaves

DSC_8300 well that was my little tour, that i DID NOT pay for!!!

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Autumn is in the land

Last weekend there was a huge storm in a glass of water. Whilst in Paris several people found an end to their life by terrorist actions in Europe others found an end to their life by the season which reminds many of death.

Storm came over Europe and let us feel again why this season is called Autumn. Still today it is warmer than usual but we have the rain and wind to accompany us and even break our umbrellas. But it does not break our souls, for the warm glue of the changing colours overpowers us.

Autumn fields, Leefdaal, Flemish Brabant, Belgium, European Union

Autumn fields, Leefdaal, Flemish Brabant, Belgium, European Union

Considered the last month of autumn it looks like only now the season got from the ground swept up by the first heavy winds.
Some may never been a fan of this November or Autumn month. For lots of people November is the month of the dead, and used allusively with reference to the short, damp, cold, or foggy days regarded as characteristic of the northern hemisphere. For those fearing the cold winds of Canada and the warm breezes of the South fighting with each other, around the Great Lakes, may find themselves left in such misery. For those who are having migraines regularly they very well know when it is going to storm or when snow is going to come. That is not a very pleasant feeling and if one has to work it is a very (damn) nuisance.

We have entered a season which may be even more unique than Spring Season. We also may see more different shades of colours than in Spring.

It should not make us sad but should get us up onto our feet, going out to show the winds that we are stronger than they. Though I do agree I am not an hero to go out in the bad weather, and was it not for the dog, I perhaps waited sometimes a bit longer before having a stroll.

I am not a good photographer, so for looking at nice photos I would recommend to go and look at Cindy Knoke and Chae H. Bae their site and some other photographic WordPress sites. But this is the time I use my eyes to linger and to bring a fantasy world to life. No wonder so many writers found enough inspiration in this season and for crime or who-dun-it authors this season is a gold mine.

Aurora borealis by permus by Chae H. Bae

After the Summer holiday most people are back at work and the retired folks who took their Summer vacation at a sunny place somewhere further from home, it is time now to sit at home cosy warm and enjoying some music, film or documentary or entertaining program on television. Hopefully they also will take some time to enjoy the biggest life show on earth. The ever changing colours the big kaleidoscope of nature world.

Behind the glorious red, yellow and orange of the seasons’ leaves many may find a message of death, but often they forget it is all a message of an abundant life where water was taken from deep under the ground and the warmth of the sun was enjoyed and had caressing the tree-trunk, making it grow and glow.

Trees are telling us after all that sun and pleasure it is time to meditate on what went on and on where to go. They are calling to come to a stand still in our rushing world which does not seem to have much space for the wonders of nature. This time the red and yellow are the screaming colours which ask for attention whilst the wind shouts it out load. We can’t ignore the call of our surrounding nature.

At certain places where there are still enough trees in Europe, the elk makes sure that we can hear it is time to find a renewal of intimacy. It is time to come closer to each other again. Be it by the fireplace or by some extra light in the darkness of this season.

Winter is coming. More and more older people are running away from it and going to spend their Wintertime in the South of Europe. But the coldest season of the year does not frighten many youngsters who love to go skying or snowboarding. For many the “old man wrapped in cloak” may bring an invitation to go outdoors again after all the storms and heavy rain of the Autumn months. After that season that looks forward to barrenness and bleakness, the white eiderdown will attract many to go out again to brave the cold.

At moments this season may also be a moment to be in tears for seeing how certain North Americans boast so much they killed a huge bull elk.

A new video with a recent elk hunt in Utah shows how hard work this work may be and how it pays off for some.

From the video maker:

“After years and years of trying, plenty of opportunities and hundreds of miles hiked, I was finally able to fill my over the counter, general season, archery elk tag. This has proven to be one of the most challenging hunts I have ever been on. He is my biggest bull to date by a country mile and I couldn’t be happier with him. Not a lot of action in this video, it has mostly my reaction to the incredible situation I found myself in. All Kuiu, all the time.” {Video: Bowhunting for Bull Elk in Utah}

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elk-18

Dan Agnew killed a bull in Columbia Co., Wash., after making an impressive 250-yard shot

I agree to be able to have enough winter-meals prepared, for man living in this world, we need hunters and we have to agree some may be hunted. And meat from animals living in the wild always taste better than from farm-animals. As long as those people who want elk antlers to hang on a wall, hunt respectfully for those forest kings it is acceptable and will keep some balance in the forest as well.

We are so closed in, that those animals able to run in the wild, may remind us what man has sacrificed for more comfort and material gadgets they do not always need. So many people have become a slave of their materialism they even do not notice it any more. Now the gusty winds are calling them to remind them that there is life there outside they are missing.

The swaying trees whistle and tell the stories of the past Summer but also of the things to come, calling animals to shelter for the coming Winter.

 

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Preceding articles:

Looking at Autumn

Abscission

Autumn Verses

A Virginia Autumn

The Elk are Bugling~

An Autumn Ramble

You’re Lighter Than Air~

Family happiness and little things we do

Your position about materialistic desires having conquered the world

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Further reading

  1. A Lovely Day Trip
  2. Moose
  3. the elk
  4. RMEF Tops $1 Billion in Total Value of All-Time Conservation Efforts
  5. More on the Bob Marshall Wilderness Trip
  6. A Dozen Elk at Crystal Mountain, WA
  7. Different Types of Camping – What is your Preferred Style?
  8. [Build an Ecosystem] Rain Gardens
  9. Elk Cranberry and Cheddar Meatballs
  10. Video: Bowhunting for Bull Elk in Utah
  11. Video: Bowhunting for Big Colorado Bull Elk
  12. The Top 40 Typical and Non-Typical Elk Records
  13. Great Smoky Mountains
  14. Elk Crossing
  15. Elk Camp – What’s a Beta mom to do?
  16. Bits and Bobbs, of a beautiful Autumn
  17. Singing Round 203 – November
  18. Autumn Farm Scene
  19. Macro Photography : fallen leaves by ShinichiSaeki
  20. New on 500px : Light on the Grove by gjim9beam by gjim9beam
  21. New on 500px : Mating Call by lanremakele by lanremakele
  22. New on 500px : Fall colors by jfzhang by jfzhang
  23. New on 500px : Sun Valley by MAPhoto
  24. New on 500px : Into the unknown by SelahattinNizamPhotography by SelahattinNizamPhotography
  25. New on 500px : Autumn by Parkddoven
  26. New on 500px : Autumn roads by argiriouvasiliki by argiriouvasiliki
  27. New on 500px : Autumn by picspassion by picspassion
  28. Basildon Park
  29. autumn dusk
  30. Autumn leaves have no hiding place from me and my assistant
  31. Autumn Poems and Songs for Young Children
  32. Willow moon
  33. Autumn Reflections – Day 19
  34. One day of November
  35. Winter Squash and Apple Soup
  36. Turkey Vultures?
  37. Flowers of autumn
  38. Oak Grove in Autumn

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A Virginia Autumn

With all the bloodshed in Paris we perhaps could loose sight or track of an other changing element, nature “dying softly” to prepare for a new life, a new Spring in a few months.

Let these beautiful photographs bring some soothing to the morals, bring calmness and bring peace to our runaway beaten heads.

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In a small town in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, most rooms of this photographer her home look out upon the Blue Ridge Mountains at the physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range, which keep changing within minutes.

She may belong to the lucky ones who can live in a place where humans did not get a chance to destroy nature.

It looks even that she can be around a place where there is a major freeway in Virginia that boasts a long stretch of empty beauty.

The Road Home from Clifton Forge

  1. Mitseadazi~
  2. Mini Me~
  3. what is actually happening in the garden?
  4. New on 500px : 輝く霧 by photoevecolon by photoevecolon
  5. New on 500px : Stone bridge by GerhardW500px
  6. New on 500px : I will survive by WiesiaLeal
  7. New on 500px : Autumn at Glade Creek Grist Mill by JakiGoodMiller
  8. New on 500px : Mountain stream by kim_young_kwon
  9. Beautiful, Brilliant, Scary
  10. Colourful and crisp autumn
  11. Autumn from my office
  12. Winter’s Faded Ways
  13. Pine Cones
  14. November… the awkward month

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Virginia Views

After the Rain 2It rained a day or two.

FencelineAnd then the sun celebrated Autumn.

An Autumn in Virginia.The Way Out

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Autumn Verses

In Belgium the last few days, in day time, have shown higher temperatures (17°C) than normal for the time of year, but the leaves colouring and falling off tell us that it is really autumn.

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looking at

  • summer idles soon dissolve
  • October’s captured insects > spiders all well fed
  • woodyard debris,
  • frosty days arrive with each November,
  • dense cloud of leaves.
  • Unfazed by promise of mortality
  • comfort in the silence and stillness.

Mortality, and the confrontation we have with it, does force us to pay attention to those details.{lazarusdodge}

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Preceding articles:

Looking at Autumn

Abscission

An Autumn Ramble

Waiting in the mist

The Elk are Bugling~

During Wind and Rain

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Further reading

  1. Changing over…
  2. Changing seasons…
  3. The Colors of Autumn
  4. The Comfort of Mortality
  5. Macro Photography : IMG_9616.jpg by mciampin
  6. morning autumn by soriniko
  7. Already Late
  8. Change
  9. Misty Autumn by sysaworld
  10. beauty
  11. Liberated Quilting
  12. Takayama Autumn Festival (秋の高山祭)2
  13. New on 500px : Autumn bustle by h_shirasaki by h_shirasaki

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1 Comment

by | 2015/11/06 · 12:53 pm

The Elk are Bugling~

As Autumn comes in town those in the industrial sites and cities can only dream of the changing beauty of the countryside. For sure they miss a lot.

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DSC05859
As fall descends in Yellowstone and the Tetons,
DSC05857
painting the trees golden-yellow,
DSC04745
the elk are rutting,
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bugling,
DSC05128
and posturing.
DSC05148
They become so exhausted by all this effort, they bugle while resting!
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The calves,
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and does,
DSC05024
provide a peaceful contrast!
Cheers to you from the Tetons in the fall~

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Filed under Nature, Pictures of the World, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs

Abscission

Abscission: The shedding of leaves, flowers, or fruits following the formation of the abscission zone or act of cutting off; sudden termination.

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The separation of a leaf, fruit, or other part from the body of a plant. It involves the formation of an abscission zone, at the base of the part, within which a layer of cells (abscission layer) breaks down. This process is suppressed so long as sufficient amounts of auxin, a plant growth substance, flow from the part through the abscission zone. However, if the auxin flow declines, for example due to injury or ageing, abscission is activated and the part becomes separated. {A Dictionary of Biology | 2004 }

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In this writing:

  • a story told in the ephemeral nature of colour.
  • sound of change – rustling and rain of leaves
  • On brighter autumn day, sunshine moving through leaves = illuminating as enlightenment.
  • Fluidity in time and space, the flow of the circle = part of the cyclical design
  • Nature shows us tangible, real-time change
  • Energy = always moving.
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  • Autumn: Returning to the Root (hokku.wordpress.com)
    As are all seasons, autumn is a stage in the interplay of the two forces, Yin and Yang. In autumn Yang is decreasing and Yin increasing, and that is particularly obvious now that the autumn solstice has passed. Withering and dying are Yin, and in autumn we see plants and leaves begin to wither and die. Cold is Yin, and in autumn we feel the air growing ever cooler as the sun declines lower and lower in its arc across the sky. Darkness is Yin, and in autumn darkness (night) grows while light (the day) wanes. Things that retreat or fall are Yin, and in autumn the sap retreats from twigs and branches in trees and leaves begin to fall; in annual plants the energy has gone into the seeds, and in many perennial plants the life energy leaves the withering, visible part of the plant and retreats to the root.
  • The Science of Fall Color, Revisited (michpics.wordpress.com)
    The Science of Color in Autumn Leaves from the United States National Arboretum explains that process that starts the cascade of events that result in fall color is a growth process that starts in late summer or early autumn. When the nights get long enough, a layer of cells called the abscission layer forms that begins to block transport of materials from the leaf to the branch.
  • Farewell, Summer. It’s the Autumnal Equinox (yoursforgoodfermentables.com)
    I remember, unfondly, a late September day, several years ago, when a manager of a Maryland wine-and-beer shop dismissed my sales call by telling me that she would not be interested in any more beer for the fall, because beer could only be sold in the summer.
  • Dialectic (thewritingwolf.wordpress.com)
    I want to make the seas churn like my stomach
    water turned to acid, acrid and frothing
    foam on the shore now rabid spittle
    infecting those who approach in curiosity
    covering their skin with rash and pockmarks
    blemishes that won’t wash off, won’t wash off
    until they scrub their skin with bristles
    and uncover the beating veins underneath
    every sea turned to a Red Sea as we gouge our eyes
    and peel off our fingernails
    and retch our dreams out onto the floor
    the putrid remains of childhood splattered
    against our dust-covered calloused feet.
  • Why Do Leaves Turn Different Colors? Abscission Reveals Flavonoids, Carotenoids, and Anthocyanins (equipped.outdoors.org)
    I’ve written a fair bit about fall foliage, including the best resources for finding peak foliage; how to take great foliage photos, especially with a polarizing filter; and how to find better foliage using a geologic map.
  • The science of autumn colors (theweek.com)
    The cycle of colors in the leaves of deciduous trees is influenced by weather and temperature (more on that later), but one of the primary drivers is the lengths of nights and days, which govern a tree’s growth cycle. As nights start getting longer, deciduous trees start to form what are called abscission layers at the intersection of leaf and stem. The cells in that junction begin to divide rapidly but do not expand, creating a corky seam that will eventually be the point where the leaf breaks off and falls. As this abscission layer forms, it gradually chokes off the flow of minerals and nutrients between the leaf and its branches.
  • Sugar versus Auxin: which is dominant? (aobblog.com)
    Apical dominance is the phenomenon whereby the outgrowth of buds on the side of a shoot is suppressed in favour of growth by the apical bud (hence its name…). Maintenance of this suppression has long been assumed to be due to the production of auxin by the apical bud and its transport down the stem, which effectively keeps the lateral buds in check. Understandably, outgrowth of lateral buds upon removal of the apical bud – and its associated auxin-production and outflow – is a key bit of evidence for the role of auxin in this phenomenon.
  • nubbsgalore: leaf senescence begins with the advent of the… (rayegunn.tumblr.com)
    leaf senescence begins with the advent of the summer solstice, as the days get shorter and sun becomes more distant. trees begin to reduce the production of chlorophyll — a green pigment critical to photosynthesis — and eventually begin to break down that which remains in the leaf in order to reabsorb its nitrogen.  

Water Over Fire

©Toni Tan

I see it, a story told in the ephemeral nature of color. It’s impossible not to look, but I close my eyes, and listen. It’s the sound of change. Autumn calling out in its rustling and rain of leaves when the wind blows. I want to remember it. Not just see it, but feel it. On a fall day enveloped in grey mist, a flash of red leaves will interrupt the fog, burning through the space. On a brighter autumn day, sunshine moving through the leaves is as illuminating as enlightenment.

Change is forever our status. Fluidity in time and space, the flow of the circle. We don’t think about change, but sometimes something shakes you into awareness: a birth, a death, or the brief and brilliant leaves coming loose from their branches.

This is part of the cyclical design. Trees are actively cutting off their leaves in a survival…

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An Autumn Ramble

Prince Edward Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada, may look a paradise. After the richness of the Summer, Autumn presents its magic colours. The trees want to tell us stories and their leaves write the words in the air while they’re falling like they’re falling in love with the ground.

No doubt we can see here that Prince Edward Island is a photographer’s dream.

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  • 7 Fabulous Fall Getaways in Eastern Canada (everythingzoomer.com)
    Take in Canada’s blazing bushes and dazzling displays of autumn. Here, a guide to some fabulous foliage spots
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    Always popular as a summer destination, visitors are discovering the beauty of Prince Edward Island in the fall. The warm waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Northumberland Strait moderate PEI’s climate, creating one of the longest fall foliage periods in northeastern North America. On Island hills and ridges, sugar maple leaves turn bright apricot-orange, mixing with the scarlet-reds of red maple, cherry and sumac and the vibrant yellows of poplar, beech and birch.
  • The top fall foliage road trips in Canada (sunnewsnetwork.ca)
    Yes, it’s sad that summer is ending, but there are reasons to be excited about fall – one of which is the wide array of fall foliage that is put on display around this time of year. There are countless spots in our massive country to plan a beautiful autumn road trip around. But we’ve narrowed it down to the top 10 places to see fall foliage in Canada.
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    Gulf of St. Lawrence, Prince Edward Island

    There are a huge range of colours in Prince Edward Island’s forests. The mix of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Northumberland Strait create a moderate climate on the Island, making for a long viewing season.

  • Kick Off NHL Season on a Canadian Course (golfnow.com)
    As a previous recipient of Golf Digest’s four-star rating as a “Best Place to Play,” Glasgow Hills’s gorgeous natural surroundings, including the Gulf of St. Lawrence and River Clyde, have attracted golfers from around the world since it opened to the public in 2001. Renowned as a challenging, yet fair layout that all golfers can enjoy, Glasgow Hills measures nearly 7,000 yards from the back tees and features several elevation changes, as well as a course rating of 73.8 and a slope of 134. Aside from its surroundings and layout, the course has also steadily gained recognition for its immaculate conditions, which are typically sustained throughout the summer and fall.
  • Adventure Canada to Send Contest Winner to France, While Barely Leaving the Gulf of St. Lawrence (adventure.travel)
    Photo Life Magazine’s annual photo contest, The World We Live In, returns for its 20th anniversary, and this year’s grand prize is an expedition cruise for two aboard Adventure Canada’s Mighty Saint Lawrence, travelling from Québec City to the French territory of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. The winning photographer and guest will embark on the expedition company’s newest ship, Ocean Endeavour, for its inaugural voyage of the season, departing June 14th, 2015 to June 23rd, 2015.
  • The 30 Best Islands In The World (picturesdotnews.wordpress.com)
    Charlottetown, the capital of the province, is a great place to explore and learn about the area’s history, nosh on local seafood, and take in arts and culture. There’s also a natural wonder stemming from the Gulf of St. Lawrence: This 40-foot-tall Thunder Cove double arch composed of copper-hued red sandstone layers.

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During Wind and Rain


They sing their dearest songs—
He, she, all of them—yea,
Treble and tenor and bass,
And one to play;
With the candles mooning each face …
Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!
They clear the creeping moss—
Elders and juniors—aye,
Making the pathways neat
And the garden gay;
And they build a shady seat…
Ah, no; the years, the years;
See the white storm-birds wing across!

They are blithely breakfasting all—
Men and maidens—yea,
Under the summer tree,
With a glimpse of the bay,
While pet fowl come to the knee…
Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ript from the wall.

They change to a high new house,
He, she, all of them—aye,
Clocks and carpets and chairs
On the lawn all day,
And brightest things that are theirs…
Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs.

(Thomas Hardy)


 

Written five years after his wife Emma Hardy’s death in 1912.

"Thomas Hardy," oil on panel, by the...

“Thomas Hardy,” oil on panel, by the Scottish painter and engraver William Strang. 17 in. x 15 in. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thomas Hardy (c. 1840–1900) English novelist, poet, and dramatist who unites the Victorian and modern eras.

Wrote a.o. the novels: Under the Greenwood Tree (1872),  Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), and Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891)

Poems:Wessex Poems (1898), Poems of the Past and Present (1902), Satires of Circumstance (1914), Selected Poems (1916), Moments of Vision (1917), Late Lyrics and Earlier (1922), Human Shows (1925) and published after his death: Winter Words (1928).

English: Watercolour painting inspired by the ...

Watercolour painting inspired by the Thomas Hardy novel “Under the Greenwood Tree” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Find additional notes:

  1. Thomas Hardy: During Wind and Rain
  2. Poetry Analysis during Wind and Rain by Thomas Hardy
  3. Some Thoughts on Wind and Rain
  4. An analysis of During Wind and Rain by Thomas Hardy
  5. During Wind and Rain
  6. During Wind and Rain – Thomas Hardy [1840-1928]

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Filed under Being and Feeling, Nature, Poetry - Poems

Autumn always too early

English: Autumn fallen leaves of Zelkova serra...

Autumn fallen leaves of Zelkova serrata (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Autumn

 

Autumn is always too early.
The peonies are still blooming, bees   
are still working out ideal states,
and the cold bayonets of autumn   
suddenly glint in the fields and the wind
rages.
What is its origin? Why should it destroy   
dreams, arbors, memories?
The alien enters the hushed woods,   
anger advancing, insinuating plague;   
woodsmoke, the raucous howls
of Tatars.
Autumn rips away leaves, names,   
fruit, it covers the borders and paths,   
extinguishes lamps and tapers; young   
autumn, lips purpled, embraces   
mortal creatures, stealing
their existence.
Sap flows, sacrificed blood,
wine, oil, wild rivers,
yellow rivers swollen with corpses,
the curse flowing on: mud, lava, avalanche,   
gush.
Breathless autumn, racing, blue
knives glinting in her glance.
She scythes names like herbs with her keen   
sickle, merciless in her blaze
and her breath. Anonymous letter, terror,   
Red Army.

Adam Zagajewski

Adam Zagajewski, “Autumn,” translated by Renata Gorczynski, from Without End: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2002 by Adam Zagajewski. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC

Adam Zagajewski

Adam Zagajewski – Photo by Jerry Bauer

Adam Zagajewski (Lvov, Poland, 1945)  was considered one of the “Generation of ’68” or “New Wave” writers in Poland; his early work was protest poetry, though he has moved away from that emphasis in his later work.

Collections of poetry: Tremor (1985), Mysticism for Beginners (1997), and World Without End: New and Selected Poems (2002).

Zagajewski’s prose collections include Two Cities: On Exile, History and the Imagination (1995) and the 2000 memoir Another Beauty. Zagajewski has won the Prix de la Liberté as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Berliner Kunstleprogramm.

  • “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” by Adam Zagajewski (jrbenjamin.com)
    You’ve seen the refugees going nowhere,
    you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
    You should praise the mutilated world.
    Remember the moments when we were together
    in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
  • To Go to Lvov by Adam Zagajewski (bluemet.blogspot.com)
    To go to Lvov. Which station
    for Lvov, if not in a dream, at dawn, when dew
    gleams on a suitcase, when express
    trains and bullet trains are being born. To leave
    in haste for Lvov, night or day, in September
    or in March. But only if Lvov exists,
    if it is to be found within the frontiers and not just
    in my new passport, if lances of trees
    – of poplar and ash – still breathe aloud
    like Indians, and if streams mumble
    their dark Esperanto, and grass snakes like soft signs
    in the Russian language disappear
    into thickets.
  • Lughnasadh (elisasspot.wordpress.com)
  • Sunday Poem (3quarksdaily.com)
    Rain fell. I felt a little happiness. Someone entered,
    someone left, someone finally discovered the perpetuum mobile.
  • Nobel Prize in Literature announced Thursday (yakimaherald.com)
    It also includes names far less familiar to most American readers: Belarusian journalist Svetlana Aleksijevitj (6/1), Polish poet Adam Zagajewski (20/1), Egyptian writer Nawal El Saadawi (20/1), Chinese poet Bei Dao (25/1), and South African novelist Karel Schoeman (33/1).

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Looking at Autumn

In Belgium the chrysanthemums are again taking over the markets as if they want to be a floor carpet covering the whole city. They are eagerly waiting for a buyer to be taken to the place which is mostly empty for the rest of the year, but now so many people are running in each-others way. People can’t go deep enough in the pocket, to make sure they shall not have to feel guilty having forgotten the deceased, and the stallholders make good use of that guilty conscience.

English: Autumn Colours

Autumn Colours (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Eagle and child inkling shows with her photograph on Second City that those coloured flowers also may be used in an other way than only decorating the tombstones. The Creator has not given the flowers for the dead, because they are nothing with it, but for the living. And even when nature seems to die, it does not die. this month may be the beginning of ‘killing sounds’, with hurling storms, falling trees, water coming too high, endangering many (like in the other ‘in-between season’ Spring). In many countries this is the marvellous time for photographers wanting to capture the miracles of nature and its wonderful colours.

Our European mountains can enchant many.

There is something in the mountains which holds people there

knows also Sharon Wray who grew up in rural England and developed a love of the outdoors early on. She now lives in the Alps full time, and teaches in a primary school in Geneva. She is not in a bad place to ponder and contemplate the world around her, observing what makes people think and how people choose to live their lives. In those mountains you might say people can feel closer to the Creator and you have to do a big effort not to be taken or to be ‘handcuffed’ by the magic of the Creation.

In Friday thought #10 Beautiful Autumn she not only knows to get us with her words but also with her photographic eye.

P1050231

An amateur snap which proofs with, no photoshop, no colour enhancement, just the pure beauty of nature at its best, that each human eye which wants to open their eyes can capture the beauty of this world. – Photo by Sharon Wray from her article: Friday thought #10 Beautiful Autumn

After the Summer peak season her world perhaps gets a new fresh breath and the pages perhaps look turned over to a new chapter where the quietness has returned. Most people are now back at work and can not go into the mountains any more until their Winter holiday. The tourist places can throw away the commercialism with the skimmer. It can leave the locals again with their little secrets in their own personal paradise, deserted and beautiful.

But those who are not able to travel can also find stunning colours in the trees, the leaves and the heather, when they open their eyes and go outdoors in their own surroundings, taking fresh air.

Those who are clustered to their wheelchair, having such a physical condition that they can not go outdoors, could still find ways to enjoy the changing light and the changing colours out of the window.

Plonking yourself in front of Netflix or the x-factor becomes a typical thing to do when it’s raining outside, but it really doesn’t bring much positivity into our lives.

When our body does not want to do what we would love it to do, it does not mean we have to grunt in this season. Nobody has something to an old grumpy bear. With more people staying indoors, because they find it to wet outdoors, it is a good occasion to be more social active.

loves the interaction you can have by following television shows, such as following comments on Twitter whilst watching and discussing with friends. She writes:

Reading doesn’t have to be an antisocial activity either. With so many websites and apps available now to discuss books and reading, it is a more social way to spend those long cold nights that you may have realised. Joining a book club does not mean leaving the house; you can join a global book club by using an app such as Goodreads that allows you to discuss and review books from the comfort of your own home.{14 Creative Things To Do Indoors This Autumn}

We can not postpone it. In the northern hemisphere we see Summer heading off over the horizon, occasionally sneaking back to give us that last afternoon or two of warm sunshine.

In the meantime the cold sneaks in abruptly, whilst we were busy waving to summer, and we are left feeling rather miserable. Last night we lit the fire for the first time since last winter. That’s it now. No going back. {The First Days Of Autumn}

Why should we consider this the time

to say goodbye to the colours of summer and fall in love with wintery tones all over again. {The First Days Of Autumn}

Is this world not already too grey? Grey is everywhere right now. We would advice you to break the greyness by daring to go for more colour. Why not bright red? but some may consider that perhaps too stereotypical, red hues/berries/conkers/acorn associations.

Let us look forward to luscious blooms that come in a range of striking hues (that will never wilt or die). Perhaps you can look at Cosying up for Autumn to get some ideas. For some a Little Trip to the Dark Side may give some inspiration, though for us it is a little bit to dark. Why not brighten it up more?

For those who live in the city their thoughts could go with try to see the fun of the rain falling on the coble stones. when our heads go backwards in the morning, why not say loud “Good morning” and see the clouds between the houses or between the few trees fighting for their life in the city, while the fumes of the cars stay low by the ground.

As summer gives way to fall, and fall gives way to winter, we like so many others and Harvest & Home are moving the outside plants into the greenhouse before the first freeze.

The air is crisp and there’s no way to escape the cool wind blowing on my face. The plants have lost their vibrancy with spiders starting to take up residence between the leaves. The statues tell of a time long forgotten, as they too give way to the natural elements. {Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Camera Lens}

Let us not forget:

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. {Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Camera Lens}

and take the plants which would not be able to survive the winter-cold in a warmer place. And let us see the creativity and lust for work of the spider, having magical cobwebs by the little drops of mist clinging on it. Let us see the beauty and a story to be told in those cobwebs and statues that have clearly seen better days.

English: Autumn colours at Levens Park

Autumn colours at Levens Park (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Additional literature:

  1. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 1: Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet
  2. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 2 Summersend and mansend
  3. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 3 Black Mass, Horror spectacles and pure puritans
  4. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 4 Blasphemy and ridiculing faith in God
  5. All Saints’ Day
  6. All Soul’s Day
  7. Being fit to take care of a garden
  8. When the wind blows hard on a tree
  9. What happens when we die?
  10. Dead and after

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Further reading

  1. Autumn: third season of the year, when crops and fruits are gathered and leaves fall, in the northern hemisphere from September to November and in the southern hemisphere from March to May
  2. Autumn Harvest for Wildlife and Humans
  3. Autumn Splendour
  4. Autumn Glory; Far from Being Drab and Dull, Autumn Should Be a Season of…
  5. Get Some Autumn Colour; as Summer Flowers Fade, Hannah Stephenson Suggests…
  6. Let Those Autumn Colours Set Your Garden Ablaze with Reds and Gold
  7. Let Autumn Colours Set Your Garden Ablaze
  8. Brighten Up the Autumn
  9. Flowers, the typically showy reproductive organs of angiosperms (flowering plants)
  10. Flowers of the quarter-million species of angiosperms
  11. Flowers for All Occasions
  12. Flowers, like seeds, leaves, and stems, have contributed to human cookery
  13. Conscience and Moral Development
  14. When Conscience Meddles with Ethics
  15. Flowers for Our Dead
  16. Dried Flowers an Easy Way to Capture Nature’s Beauty
  17. Photos from the Pumpkin Patch

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  • The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (givemeliberty01.com)
    In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of Saint Nicholas, there lies a small market town which is generally known by the name of Saint Nicholas
  • The Many Priceless Gifts With Gardening, and a First Frost (growingwithplants.com)
    Last night we ‘almost’ had our first killing frost. We gardeners know the routine – rushing home barely enough time to haul in everything that is frost tender, throwing sheets over dahlias (for some vain reason – as if we need any more!), or packing in begonias, citrus and succulents on the porches so dense that one can’t even get to the dog food or to the recycling bins.
  • The dark, ripe smell of a summer’s end (newstatesman.com)
    Autumn came early this year, the pavements of our corner on Schwarzbacher Straße and Storkwinkel littered with dry leaves and falls of horse chestnut, Virginia creeper and barberry lighting the fence lines with cool flames of crimson and mottled gold. This is the season when the Berlin suburbs come into their own, the usual tidiness softened by drift and straggle, the manicured lawns vanishing under the damp browns and russets of sumac and Turkey oak. I have never understood why so many gardeners favour straight lines and narrow, regulated borders; perhaps they think wildness could work only in a larger space. Whatever the reason, this predilection for a strict and entirely human order makes their gardens almost impossible to enjoy in summer. That is the season for moving around the city by S-Bahn, gazing out into the accidental green spaces where the plant life is free to run riot between stations.
  • The 10 Creepiest Urban Graveyards in the Country (hotpads.com)
    Some of a city’s most interesting sites are often its graveyards. This Halloween, let the ghosts guide you through forgotten or quirky corners of local urban history. Many offer special tours around this time of year, but they’re worth exploring anytime. Here are a few standouts nationwide.
  • More going to Europe’s festive markets (southwalesargus.co.uk)
    The history of Christmas markets dates back to the late middle ages and originates from the German speaking part of Europe.The Bautzen market, in Saxony, is thought to be one of the oldest recorded, dating back to 1384.The Dresden Christmas market, first held in 1434, remains popular to this day, still attracting in the region of two million visitors a year and featuring more than 60 stalls.

    In many German towns the Christian festival of Advent often coincides with the opening of the Christmas market or ‘Weihnachtsmarkt’.

  • Nature, Pixelated – Issue 17: Big Bangs (m.nautil.us)
    It is winter in upstate New York, on a morning so cold the ground squeaks loudly underfoot as sharp-finned ice crystals rub together. The trees look like gloved hands, fingers frozen open. Something lurches from side to side up the trunk of an old sycamore—a nut-hatch climbing in zigzags, on the prowl for hibernating insects. A crow veers overhead, then lands. As snow flurries begin, it leaps into the air, wings aslant, catching the flakes to drink. Or maybe just for fun, since crows can be mighty playful.

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The Memory Of You

In the Lifestyle Magazine ‘Stepping Toes‘ attention is given to the different festivals or celebrations human beings want to celebrate in autumn time. The time when the days shorten and people look for the cosiness at home. But also many people want to go out into the stormy weather and love the spookiness of it. Others can not avoid to think about the deceased and hope they can talk to them. Many do feel guilty because the rest of the year they had totally forgotten those who had left the living. By placing chrysanthemums on their graves they do hope to soothe their anger. But like snow, shall be white when it is pure and clean, the flowers shall give colour to places where there shall only be a deteriorating body, left to decay until it shall be dust.

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Find also to read:

  1. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 1: Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet
  2. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 2 Summersend and mansend
  3. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 3 Black Mass, Horror spectacles and pure puritans
  4. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 4 Blasphemy and ridiculing faith in God
  5. All Saints’ Day
  6. What happens when we die?
  7. Fear and protection
  8. Sheol, Sheool, Sjeool, Hades, Hell, Grave, Tomb, Sepulchre
  9. Decomposition, decay – vergaan, afsterven, ontbinding

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Filed under Audio, Lifestyle, Poetry - Poems, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs

Life isn’t unfair

A thirty something, addicted to music and books, like many others in this world, may have many questions about this life in her head, but unlike many she can still say that life isn’t unfair. And that is not what many dare to say. The home country of her husband is being destroyed more and more day by day and they could quickly go ahead and even shout out how unfair life is but, giving it a second thought, they see also parts in it which don’t let them break down completely.

It is not bad this lady gets stuff out of her mind from time to time. A way to get some thoughts getting from our shoulders is to let them loose in the out. Also by writing down what bothers us we can get rid of certain worrying thoughts or even better, we can share our thoughts so that they not only loosen ourselves but also others.

Roses (Roxe) Nature: Cold in the first degree,...

Roses (Roxe) – From the Tacuinum of Vienna (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The writer of the blog reminds us that we often forget in our life full of stress that there are so many reasons to be thankful and instead complain far too much. In many industrialised countries we might consider that a big problem. People are having so much and are seeing others having so much that they bother more about what the others have and they do not. Jealousy makes many people in the world of abundance very unhappy.

Having a rooftop above the head, being able to put a heather on, many keep harping on the weather. Others like to complain about the job or about the prizes in the supermarkets getting higher. They often have enough food and are teasing others about what to eat. Many may have a lot of things around them which they do not like, but most of them forget how many people in the East or in the South can only dream of our bare minima.

In I have so many reasons to be thankful the writer brings into attention that what many of the Western public long have forgotten. How many senses do we really still want to use properly?

Some may blame the pollution having many of us not having any more the pleasures of smell. Sense of smell should bring us lots of memories and desires. With our eyes we than can see all those flowers, all those colours which wave and tell their story in the wind. How many in the West do still want to hear those stories and notice all those animals which move around in that colourful world?

Going into the Autumn season the world is changing colour and red comes more to have its say in this world where the wind wants to make enough noise to have it tell her own stories whilst the branches of the trees dare to react and go to fight with the powers of nature.

We shall not find it warm enough to take some naps in the sunshine, but our wandering and now and then standing still, we shall still be able to feel truly connected with the nature and earth around us. In this time of turmoil, creepy sounds at night, we can feel at ease indoors, close by the fire, or having it nicely warm while we do know Winter shall be coming soon and bringing the bitter cold. Every day becomes shorter, but we want to fight the darkness and have found the candles “for having a soothing source of light” whenever we feel it is needed. The candle light also can bring memories and whispers in our ears that what we would love to hear, from the past. and in the cosiness of the warm living room we may not forget that we are blessed to have all this around us what can make life easier.

Some SFI Thoughts by Geoffrey West

Some SFI Thoughts by Geoffrey West (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many may not like the rain and forget that without it we would not have so much green. So we should be happy it nourishes our surroundings and let us “listen to its beautiful sound”.

Do not forget to think about all the beautiful things around us and about the many everyday things, so many we so often just take for granted. This coming season let it not get us down in the ‘depri world’ but get it down on our knees to be thankful for all what wee have received before and for all what is in front of us.

Life shows us more than enough possibilities to make the best out of every situation and we need to adjust our expectations. I each and every second there are little moments to treasure, we just have to see life through the eyes of love to uncover them.{Is life unfair?}

Like so many magazines we too would say to listen to your inner voice and to enjoy life.

We are driven by our thoughts and emotions and every single magazine tells you to listen to your inner voice but still your life isn’t happy. {Change your habits to lead a happy life}

In Autumn we may find the wind turning from one site to the other, wanting to push us from here to there, and letting us think no way is the good one.

Life isn’t a one way road and there are always possibilities, you may not see them directly but if you start to dig deeper you will find them.
Instead of waiting for big changes take your life in your hands and start to see all those small things that can change your life without too much efforts – and as always, many small changes sums up to be sometimes more effective than turning your life upside down. {Change your habits to lead a happy life}

In Summer we got the energy from the sun and lots of us went to sunny places to charge our batteries. So, let our full batteries now give enough power to come through Winter, but let it also give new impulses to take time to contemplate and to mediate about which way we want to continue and where we want to go to.

MissFaith Munich knows also that we all struggle at certain times and forget the reasons why we started to do something in first place. She is aware that others may start to doubt but that we are better to believe in ourself.

whatever comes along you can succeed. People who start to doubt because of others may lose track and fall, but if you stand up for your dreams and show all disbeliever that you will make it you will create a certainty within yourself.  {Never stop to be a dreamer…}

Now comes the time there will be lesser outdoor-activities and more time to stay indoors at our own little place. Perhaps it is now not so bad to take some more time to come to ourselves. Why not making time to get a more relaxed mind. That means not putting our mind asleep, but giving place to a creative mind which

can bring you forward so stand on your toes, open your arms wide, close your eyes and breathe – life isn’t that complicated! {Never stop to be a dreamer…}If not you, who else will follow your dreams? {Never stop to be a dreamer…}

To come to a relaxed mind come to trust yourself and trust the loved ones around you. as the writer of the mentioned articles also knows:

To rebuild life from within, a wonderful thought but at the same time quite scary.
It seems so much easier to build our life from the outside.
Dress up, sit in a fancy restaurant, surround yourself with hip friends and enjoy.
Easy as that, isn’t it? {Rebuilding Life from Within}

The coming Winter we can take some more time for ourselves, getting closer to the ‘one within’.

The earlier you realize that our “within” is the essential part the better as you haven’t caused too much damage within a short time. {Rebuilding Life from Within}

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Please read the full articles:

  1. Is life unfair?
  2. Change your habits to lead a happy life
  3. Rebuilding Life from Within
  4. Never stop to be a dreamer…

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Additional reading:

  1. Be Honest
  2. Be an Encourager
  3. How do Other People Feel About Mental Health?
  4. What IF you’re only driven by stress?
  5. Depression Is and When
  6. Depression, Anxiety, Pressure and megachurches
  7. Being ‘broke’ a state of mind
  8. Fear, struggles, sadness, bad feelings and depression
  9. Oh god, this is never going to end!
  10. Materialism, would be life, and aspirations
  11. Ageing and Solidarity between generations
  12. Try driving forward instead of backwards
  13. A little ray of sunshine.
  14. Getting fate in your change to positiveness
  15. Searching for fulfilment and meaning through own efforts, facing unsatisfaction and depression
  16. Give thanks to the One Who gave much
  17. By counting our blessings we not only feel good, but we multiply our good
  18. God should be your hope
  19. Joy: Foundation for a Positive Life
  20. Remember there’s a light in the next day
  21. Receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken
  22. You’re Lighter Than Air~
  23. O’ Captain! My Captain!
  24. Coming Out Of The Bipolar Closet
  25. Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality
  26. To be relapsing
  27. Pieces
  28. Thanksgiving wisdom: Why gratitude is good for your health
  29. Aligned
  30. Importance of parents 1
  31. Belonging to or being judged by
  32. Wisdom Quote #21…..seeking within with Carl Jung!
  33. Shelter in the morning
  34. Control and change
  35. Words in the world
  36. A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses
  37. Accommodation of the Void
  38. When you think you have nothing to say or to show
  39. Think hard before you act today
  40. Two forms of Freedom
  41. Don’t let anyone move you off the foundation of your faith
  42. Light within
  43. Wondering
  44. Know by trying
  45. Keep positive
  46. A cheerful heart filled of hope good medicine
  47. Hope as long as you live
  48. Gods word like a surgeons scalpel
  49. Without God no purpose, no goal, no hope
  50. A call easy to understand
  51. Getting of at the fence
  52. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience
  53. A gift of 86,400 seconds
  54. Know Who goes with us and don’t try to control life

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  • Act Your Age (fernandogros.com)
    The common line is your teens are a time to experiment and enjoy the freedom you will not have in later life. But, this might be changing as social media is apt to keep all our teenage mistakes alive, digitally, for the rest of our lives (especially with video and photos). Moreover, many of the life-defining decisions my grandparent’s generation made in their teens (what career, who to marry, where to live) are now deferred into people’s twenties and even thirties.In fact, being a teenager today might be more about experiencing (or resisting) a narrowing of horizons. The internet is making a lot of teens more tribal, with narrower, rather than broader tastes in music, film and the arts. And, while many key decisions in life are being deferred, prejudices and attitudes are sometimes being hardened earlier, especially in countries where the effects of globalisation are being strongly resisted.So, the teenage years shouldn’t just be a time to experiment with identity and freedom, but also with ideas. It’s a time to learn how to make friends, but also, how to work and collaborate with people who we maybe don’t get along with that well, or perhaps don’t even understand. It’s a time to keep the candle of cultural curiosity alight, before the 24/7 news cycle, internet content farms like BuzzFeed and the workplace water cooler try to snuff it out.
  • The Beauty Of Limits (awildhealing.wordpress.com)
    In the everyday world, the outward changes I’ve made (and been forced to make by the power of fate, a power that seemed to know more than I did about the beauty of having faith) – finally leaving a job that supported the parasitic financial industry, and abandoning the vain and empty hope of a ‘bigger, brighter future’ in London where I would one day ‘make it’, or at least be able to keep up with the others ‘making it’ – to become what, in our current success-obsessed culture, would be classed a ‘failure’.The old skin has shed away, and as I get used to living with the eyes and hands of a beginner, and continue to integrate all that I have learnt piecemeal these last few years, I realise that becoming whole and remaining sane in an increasingly insane world is more of a struggle than it needs to be because our culture – and us, as active participants in it – refuses to acknowledge the central part that limits play in balancing our relationship to the world around us.
  • Uniting the People of the world (filmsforaction.org)
    The more intellectual and thorough our analysis, the more we become entangled in an endless examination of commercialisation and its grievous effects. We find there is no end to its web of complexity. Yet there is nothing theoretical or academic about the family that doesn’t have enough food to eat, that cannot afford to see a doctor, that has no right in some countries even to debate or protest. The more we write and intellectualise, the more we criticise and contest, the more insoluble become the many crises of the world.
  • Rebuilding The Nation: Lessons From Other Lands By Governor Babatunde Fashola (abusidiqu.com)
    in addition to material reconstruction, there is an urgent and massive need for moral and spiritual reconstruction as well: the kind of reconstruction which will help to demolish morbid desire for naked power and domination; abuse and misuse of power and office; greed, selfishness, and intolerance; nepotism, favouritism, jobbery, bribery, and other forms of corruption; and erect, in their places, probity, tolerance, altruism, and devotion; equality of treatment, justice, equity, and fair play to all.”
  • Rebuilding Nigeria: Lessons from Other Lands – by Gov Fashola (olufamous.com)
    the reality is that this rebasing did not, and has not, addressed chronic poverty, infrastructure decay, creeping authoritarianism, mass youth unemployment, adult underemployment, burgeoning insecurity and overall bad governance, and other challenges that confront the country.

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Filed under Being and Feeling, Food, Lifestyle, Nature, Spiritual affairs

You’re Lighter Than Air~

In the West of Europe we are getting the Autumn winds and rains and the days getting shorter and darker. It is the beginning of a period when more people do feel the darkness of life coming over them and by February many feeling it to much to face it further.

The wind in Summer may never be looked at so dangerously as the winds in Autumn . A few weeks ago we regularly could see people gliding in the air, kite-surfing or on the beaches finding children and adults alike, enjoying their guidance of a kite high up in sky. They trusted they would not loose their kite and those who were hanging on a kite trusted they could come down safely in a field or on a square.

For many the last few months were the time to put away their ‘human stressors, worries and blues’. Would it not have been nice not only to temporarily banish them by a simple afternoon, in a stiff wind, flying a kite?

Let us find in ourselves the power to have a light breeze which takes away the worries of the day. that we may trust in everything we have in ourselves to face this world and to go each coming day of Winter.

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  • how to cut big kite using small kite : kite tips and tricks (goazeem.org)
    Make sure you use quality kite thread. Kite thread place an important role. Today among the various kite threads Chinese manja is very famous. This kite thread is also known as China thread. Earlier people used Manja which was made by people itself.
  • Weifang-Kite Capital of the World (chinatraveltips.net)
    Located in the middle of Shandong Peninsula, Weifang (wéi fāng 潍坊) is the heart of the urban agglomerations in Shandong Peninsula.
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    During the Spring-and-Autumn-Period and the period of the the Warring States, some 2300 years ago, the first kite had been developed in the province of Shandong. The long literary tradition of China enables us to find more detailed information. Regarding to the book of Han Fei Zi (hán fēi zǐ 韩非子), the master of joinery Mu Zi (mò zǐ 墨子) had been constructing within three years time of development a man-lifting kite, known as the Wooden-Black-Eard-Kite. Some time later the master of joinery named Lu Ban (lǔ bān 鲁班), had been building another Wooden-Black-Eard-Kite, that had been used as reconaissance device above the ancient city of Song Cheng (sòng chéng 宋城). Both masters originate from the ancient state of Lu, today named Qufu (qǔ fù 曲阜).
  • Spreading joy high in the sky (ocregister.com)
    The Natansons are aware they “sell fun,” but they take their work very seriously. Along with running the shop, the couple also co-host the annual Japan America Kite Festival, which will celebrate its 18th year in Seal Beach on Oct.19.

    The Natansons began serving the local kite community after the 2007 death of Monty Weston, who helped create the festival, shop and club with her son Randy nearly 20 years ago.

    They see the festival as a way to expose more adults and families to kites. It is their passion because they know their customers can always channel childlike wonder and fulfillment through them.

    “You can’t not smile when flying a kite,” Knievel-Natanson, 34, said.

  • Weather breaks for second annual Kite Fest (billingsgazette.com)
    The second annual Kite Fest attracted varying degrees of kite fliers ranging from the novice to the highly skilled — and nearly every age on the birthday spectrum.

    Kite Fest was sponsored by the Yellowstone River Parks Association and SkyWindWorld Foundation, a nonprofit organization that organizes kite exhibits in major public venues.

  • 50-feet-wide kite to dot city sky tomorrow (thehindu.com)
    A giant kite will be flown in the backdrop of the Chamundi Hills on October 1 in an attempt to enter the Limca Book of Records. Pawan Solanki, a kite flier from Ahmedabad, will fly a 50-feet wide kite at Lalitha Mahal helipad after 3 p.m. as part of the Dasara Kite Festival which begins on September 30.
  • Kite-surfer knocks out swimmer’s teeth – why? (sandiegoreader.com)
    On a busy day you can count 20 or more kite-surfers sailing with the surfers. Sometimes they spray water on the surfers as they go by, and some jump directly over the surfers while going against the wave. Obviously they are being propelled by the wind and not the wave. This is important because the definition of a surfboard is a non-inflatable device that is carried along or propelled by the action of the waves. If the kite-surfer is jumping a wave going seaward, it is not being carried along or propelled by the wave, and hence is not considered a valid surfboard that is allowed in a board-surfing area.
  • Flying Kites (therandomwritings.com)
    I counted 2 dozen kites in the sky, and we knew more would be going up as the afternoon progressed. So many kites in a limited space means you have to have some skills as a flier–I witnessed a few crashed perpetuated by less-than-expert handlers.

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with your fist holding tight, to the string of your kite~

Mary Poppins

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Have you ever considered how many human stressors, worries and blues, could be temporarily banished by a simple afternoon, in a stiff wind, flying a kite?DSC02977

It’s hard not to smile and laugh when your flying a kite, at least when you successfully get it in the air.  But then, the crashes are pretty funny too!

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And it’s difficult to be depressed, and smiling and laughing, at the same time.

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There is something about flying a kite that brings out the joy of the child, no matter how long buried, in all of us.

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If you don’t believe me, look at these people. I’m sure all of them have a lot of worries. (I have been a therapist for thirty years, trust me on this).

But right now? Flying kites? Not so much.

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So if life is…

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Filed under Being and Feeling, Health affairs, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs