The Gryphon's Feather Studio

One Singular Moment

We receive gifts scattered through out the many days of our lives, gifts of singular moments.  Moments which, despite the clichéd nature of the phrase, are "once in a lifetime."  

I want to show you a gift I was given.  But first, a bit of a background story: 

Joe, Gryphon, Sunny, and I were out in the boat exploring the river. Tooling around in our old jon boat is something we do often, of course, since the front yard of the river house literally ends with the Allegheny River in the same way other front yards end at a road. I almost always take my camera bag with me. For this river adventure, Gryphon was using my Canon SX10-IS, and I had my Canon Rebel XS.   

Shooting has a way of bringing me more fully into the moment, of narrowing the focus of my awareness into what is right there around me.  Shooting grounds me, brings me more fully present. There are no to-do lists running through my head when I have a camera in my hand. I am looking; I am seeing. I am completely here in that exact moment in time, in that exact location in space. Being present is a key part of being whole, being spiritual, of being able to hear the divine that exists in each of us, in the world around us. Photography as a path to being present is one of those gifts I feel a powerful obligation to share.

 

You might have noticed I collect "found hearts" - images of objects, scenes where I find hearts hidden in plain sight. My "found hearts" are secret messages reminding me I am loved, reminding me to love.    

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

 This quote, while often attributed to Ghandi is actually a distillation of his words:

"Gandhi said “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. ... We need not wait to see what others do.”

(Brian Morton, The New York Times, Aug. 29, 2011)

My "found hearts" remind me to change my own nature, to risk, to fear, to love and be loved.

     

© 2013 Gryphon Ludwig

 

 

© 2013 LK Ludwig

 

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.                                                                                John Lubbock         

 

The real gift, that day, wasn't the astonishing sight of a heart-shaped cloud drifting across the sky. The gift was having Gryphon, Sunny, and Joe with me in the boat.  The gift was seeing their bright smiles, hearing the joyful laughter bursting out spontaneously, and sharing that exact moment to remember for ever, creating a memory, a treasure to be pulled out of a pocket and rolled around in our fingers whenever we need.

iPhone Photo Friday

i pray you keep your inborn sense of wonder: iPhone Photo Friday

 

“If a child is to keep alive her inborn sense of wonder, she needs the companionship 

 

of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with her

 

the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.”
Rachel Carson

 

 

Kathy Malakasian posted this as her quote of the day on her FB page on Tuesday.  I love this quote, because it really reflects a belief I try hard to live.  Innocence may pass, but feeling wonder and awe, believing in mysteries,and sensing magic at work can stay forever.  In all the parenting mistakes I make, I hope this is one of the things I get right.

*I did switch the pronoun gender to female for my flower-girl.  (Sunny Rose.)

 

photo details... iPhone photo, Perfectly Clear to brighten, Tilt Shift Generator, Picture Show, and then Pic Grunger.

a garden, it seems...

It seems, over the river bank filled with wild lupine, I have built a garden

 

a place that leads the gaze over curves of stone that are older than time

 

where one can study balance by observation or experience

 

or observe steadfast river guardians as they watch the ceaseless flow

 

 

where the river flows through, around over my pool, the current cascading over rocks,

the water cool like liquid satin on skin,

 

 

a garden where stone and water make sculpture

 

a place one can contemplate or pray

or, in fact, splash and giggle

 

which is another kind of prayer, too often forgotten.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

there was a lot to do with river rock

The river is so healthy. This time of year, when there hasn't been days and days of rain pouring down the creek beds and into the river, the water is clear- you can see the bottom of the river.  Loads of freshwater mussels, helgrammites, blue winged olive nymphs, crayfish, small fish, and a wide variety of river grass can be found when you walk out into the water just a couple of feet from shore.  The herons are camera shy, but they fly low over the river at dusk, their low call almost mechanical sounding as they fly. The eagles fly low over the river, too, on weekdays when most of the humans are at their weekday homes and jobs.  Sometimes the eagles are fishing ,and sometimes they are skulking along, thieving from the herons. Some mornings, there are trout along my wall. I cannot find the words to tell you how much I love that river bend. I attempt to show you in photographs.

This summer, we have internet via cable broadband, and I installed a wireless router. I have brought sufficient supplies to work on my classes,in my journals, and on some paintings and tucked all that into the ancient pie safe cupboard behind my art spot - a countertop with a view of the river. I only head home to do the laundry, now that I am over the flu. I have been nesting a little, putting rugs on the hardwood floors, changing up some of the artwork on the walls, tweaking the shelves and tabletops, attempting to keep up with the endless parade of children and family. The heat brings a lot of company to a river house.

My latest creation at the river began as this- a small wall, and a couple of outcroppings... I built them one afternoon as a thunderstorm rolled in.  We build a wall or two each year.

I spent some time in the incredibly hot days of late, seated in the water, watching the river flow and the littles play. The walls created deeper pools and a lovely sound that I could hear at night when I was lying in bed.

 

One day, I found this rock, and asked my Maggie if she'd like to have it.

   

I plucked it off the river bottom, and I turned it over in my hand and saw:

 
 

so I knew it was truly hers.

Then, another day, for about eight or nine hours, I built this:

 
 

That's Lilah Delilah Butter Bean Ludwig, there on the right, for scale.   (And yes, that truly is her AKC registered name. we're certifiable here. Bonafide.) She's a year old now, you know.

The river is pretty shallow there in our front yard; an adult can walk across the river at our bend right now. The current might plow you flat, but it isn't deep.  However, the river doesn't need to be deep.  Fast is quite enough.

The current can be a bummer, if you are small and want to splash and play without floating downriver in your lifejacket every time you fall over. Grown ups must splash downriver to catch you up. The solution?  Mom slips a gear and builds a paddling pool out of stone.

Yes, I built about 47 feet of rock wall, varying from 18" to 30" in height. And then, to make it pleasantly deep for soaking in for those of us who masquerade as grown ups, I dug out the pool, making a river-ish sort of infinity pool.  I back-filled the wall with the stone for support.  I also added to my two outcroppings, made a teeny tiny island of stone, and cleared stone between the places to adjust the flow.    I did this. all. by. myself. 

It was a joy, a pleasure, to spend the day in the water. All the stone is from right there.

Joe guesses I moved about 2 ton of rock total. with my two hands. no tools.  I chucked, flung, threw, lifted, carried, hefted, and rolled depending on the the size of the stones.  Water helps, of course. I'm actually pretty strong for my size.  I worked straight through.  It was 100+ degrees and I wasn't leaving the water anyway.

   

yep.  I'm nuts. 

Oddly, surprisingly, I was a little sunburned, and had a smidge of muscle stiffness and sciatica that evening, but I woke up the next day feeling fine.  It was another scorcher, so I went in and tweaked some flow issues, while the littles snorkeled all over the place. The only lasting effect has been that I wore the skin off my fingertips leaving them a bit sensitive, and without most of my fingerprints. 

But I have to tell you, I am amazed- who would have thought that I could do all that?

  images- iPhone 3gs, running iOS4, processed in CameraBag for Desktop.

iPhone photo Friday

a little swankolab-love!

iPhone Photo Friday

last weekend

I saw this...

while sitting here working on this

and when it became just too warm, I headed down to the riverbank and saw this:

and smiled at this: 

and this, these two cousins made my smile crack open wide.

 

 

just some notes...

 

(Lilah puts her whole head and front torso under the water, chooses a river stone, brings it to the bank and adds it to a pile of her special stones.)

 

(two life-jacketed little girls, Maggie & Zoë, holding hands. Maggie, so careful with Zoë, who is to be five tomorrow, reminds me of how much Maggie has grown.  It hasn't been overlong since this was Gryphon holding onto Mags...  the love and the change make me weep sweet-mama-tears.)

iPhone Photo Friday... 6 days late

iPhone images of my favorite flower... one of them, anyway... (and yes, I am posting this nearly a week late)

When thou seest an eagle

When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of genius; lift up thy head.

William Blake

 

I love watching the wildlife at the river, particularly the birds.  The river house is situated in the midst of some protected nesting sites for certain birds- in particular, herons, osprey, and bald eagles.  The osprey were recently reintroduced to Pennsylvania and we were astonished to discover that of the fifty nesting pairs known in our state, with only eleven pairs on our side of the state, one pair calls our bend home. The presence of these birds and the wealth of  insect hatches on the water in the spring and early summer, the crayfish and hellgrammites we find under the rocks, the river grasses, the tall trees on the river banks, and all the herps (frogs, toads, salamanders, and turtles) we see are a sign of the good health of our river.   Emerson said, "and I hear today for the first the river in the trees." When I look at the poplars, the sycamores, the oaks, and the maples who grow to their maximum heights not far from the river's edge, I can hear that river moving in their trunks.

In all this beauty, it is the sound of the river, the light in the sky, the mountain stones jutting out from the earth, and the way the woods smell- damp and earth even in the winter, that keeps me centered.  The bald eagles who live near our river house, one of whom  you can see in the photo above, make me feel my soul more deeply.

The thought that we nearly lost these birds from our planet, and now I am privileged to watch them perch in the tall oaks, sycamores and poplars, hunt the river, and soar the thermals brings tears to my eyes. I have seen them close enough now to know they are not pretty birds, but they are magnificent and astonishingly fierce looking. Of the bald eagles we see, there are some we see regularly.  There is a second adult female, two adult males, and at least one juvenile female bald eagle living near our place.   We see a juvenile males so often, there must be more than one still in the area.

More than once last week, I stepped outside, and looked up to see the underside of the enormous female.  This female is easily three feet tall and her wingspan is about seven feet.  I have been walking along the river's edge where the trees grow ninety and hundred feet tall and  felt a small thrill of fear low in my guts when the largest female has swooped down off of a branch and flown, slowly, deliberately over my head.  I am sure she is the reason there are legends of people being carried off by eagles.  Standing at the sliding glass doors, I'd see one of the bald eagles flying in front of our house, and then, throughout the day, down the river  staying closer to the water and further from the river edge than they do in the warm weather. 

We saw the bald eagles flying by several times each day and often they were much closer than this photo.  We don't see the bald eagles that often, nor in as close proximity in warm weather.  In the warm weather months, we see the bald eagles in the early morning hours, hunting and perching along the river's edge.  In the late afternoon, we see them flying above the river, in the valley created where the river cut its way through the mountains.

I suppose the eagles are needing to hunt more diligently.  Ice floes form on the river when the temperature is near zero for a couple days in a row.  While a bald eagle can see fish in the river from several hundred feet above, I would think the temperature and the ice might make fishing tough.  The osprey and the great blue herons, birds the eagles routinely thieve from, have migrated to some place warmer. So, during this season, the eagles hunt birds, including the ducks and canadian geese, small mammals, and eat carrion as they normally do. 

In Jungian theory, eagles are interpreted as a soul image- an animus.  An animus is the masculine aspect of the female psyche- the fighting spirit, the assertive or aggressive nature.  Eagles are seen as fertility symbols because of the way they protect and raise their young.   I love these interpretations as they feel true to me.

I'm taking Gina Armfield's Animal Spirit Guides class- a wonderful mixed media painting/marking class.  In my research for class, I learned something about the bald eagle as a totem animal that is very interesting, as it fits me personally.  Without revealing too much, the bald eagle is a dual totem of both air and water.  Water represents our intuitive self and air our intellect.  Characteristics- creativity, intuition or sight, courage in adversity, illumination of hidden truths in dreams or by inner knowing, loving whole heartedly without restraint, independence, and strength unrelated to size...  My birth totem is the goose- perseverance, determination, ambition, resourcefulness.  Interesting, but not at all  how totems are to be interpreted, is the fact that the animal that seems to be my power totem eats my birth totem for lunch.

  

  

I want add one more important note:

You know, we do not attempt to get close to the bald eagles. Any short range view of them we have is because they have flown in right next to us and landed or remained perched near where we are walking.  We can guess where the nests are, but we do not go looking for the nests. ever. Disturbing an eagle, or a nesting site is not only illegal, it can harm the bald eagle's way of being in their environment or even harm their eggs/chicks by making the adult eagles change their behavior.  We want the bald eagles to stay where they are, so we watch with camera lenses, and binoculars, and delight when they allow us to see them from a closer vantage point.  And, an important cold weather  caveat: Never disturb or approach an eagle you see eating carrion (roadkill) - not only is this the food chain or wheel of life in action,  if the eagle hasn't left the carcass when it sees you, the eagle is desperately hungry.