Spring is a Happiness So Beautiful

Hello! It's been too long...I've been M.I.A. for weeks. My back and ribs are improving tremendously and I couldn't be happier. Spring has also officially arrived in Virginia, which makes me almost giddy.

These last weeks have been tough - it's funny how, when you're ignoring the balance in your life, your body will literally bring you to your knees to get your attention. My pain issues forced me to re-evaluate and I'm spending less time sitting at the computer these days. I'm also eating much healthier, meditating, and doing yoga. It's hard to believe, but I think my injury was actually a blessing in disguise because it forced me to take a look at some bad habits I had developed. I'm now making my physical health a priority in my life, and reducing the "noise".

Our daffodils are out! And the birds were happily chirping this morning when I woke up with the sunrise. Our trees have buds on them, too...oh, how I love spring!! Thank you so much for stopping by, and I hope to be back to more regular blogging now. I will finally have pretty things to take photos of, now that things are starting to bloom! No more gray trees and brown landscapes. I'm linking up today with Kim Klassen's Friday Finds.

Spring is a happiness so beautiful, so unique, so unexpected, that I don’t know what to do with my heart. I dare not take it, I dare not leave it – what do you advise? ~Emily Dickinson

Light and Shadows

I haven't been blogging much lately...my apologies for being absent and out of the loop. I've been dealing with some pretty intense rib cage/upper back pain for about five weeks now and it's just not improving...it's very uncomfortable to sit for more than a few minutes at a time. This has put a huge cramp on my blog posts, photo editing, and any other creative thing I'm wanting to do...all of which require sitting. I'm also having trouble sleeping because lying down just doesn't feel good. I've started physical therapy this week and am hoping it will start helping me heal. I'm trying to stay positive and not let my discomfort get me down. Any and all prayers and good thoughts are deeply appreciated.

The weather went crazy last night - we went from the high 60s to single digit temperatures overnight. The winds were brutal - in excess of 60 mph! It's still very gusty this morning but it's supposed to slow down soon. Needless to say, I haven't been outside and I took the above image this morning in my dining room. The grain, light and shadows are symbolic of my state of mind right now: there's an ongoing struggle between the frustration of my pain and my hope that I'll be better soon!

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope spring is coming soon wherever you are! We're almost there...

Spring is Just a Rumor

SPRING IS JUST A RUMOR

I wander with my winter heart,
inhaling the March tones,
the silence of things,
the showy sunset.
If the sky had a scent
it would smell of
tangerines and honey.
The birds speckle the air
with flecks of color:
rubied cardinal, rusted robin,
purpled finch.

Tulip buds hide and ache
beneath the snow, yearning
for their colors.
I breathe in the smell
of a winter fire, the
loneliness of chimney smoke.
I fret about the looming hollow
of moon shadows across
midnight walls. Spring
is just a cruel rumor,
whispered bitingly
among the oaks.

© Sherri Brannon 2014

Every winter, 
when the great sun has turned his face away,
 the earth goes down into a vale of grief, 
and fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables,
 leaving her wedding-garlands to decay -
then leaps in spring to his returning kisses. ~Charles Kingsley

Actually, spring is more than a rumor...it's a tiny light in the distance, and I can see it. This makes me happy! It's supposed to be in the 60s here for the next couple of days. I'm so ready to let go of the winter "blahs", so much so that this poem irritates me when I read it back. These words I wrote are tiresome...remnants of that melancholy head space I get caught up in every February and March. I'm so ready to let them go and move on to the renewal of spring!

The photo was taken with my iPhone on a winter sunset walk to our community lake recently. Thank you for stopping by! I'm linking up today with Poetry Pantry.

Flower Power

It was such a welcome change to work on this flower image and see so much beautiful color for a change...this endless winter landscape is so gray and drab that it's seeping into my spirit. Every blog post I write lately is about my melancholy, winter state of mind - I apologize for sounding whiny! This weekend the time changes and that always helps: more daylight in the evenings. Just a few more weeks and April will be here...

This was a flower I photographed at Disney World in January. I used Bonnie's "spring light canvas" texture and also played around with the cutout artistic effect in Photoshop. I then put my image through Radlab until I was happy with how it looked.

Flowers are those little colorful beacons of the sun from which we get sunshine when dark, somber skies blanket our thoughts. ~Dodinsky

What Would the Fox Say?

It's kind of sad that we spent a week in Florida and the only chance I got to take photos was on a foggy, gray morning. You would never know these photos were in Florida, except for the pelicans! I love fog photos, though, and was excited to get outside with my camera. And I was shocked to discover, once I uploaded my images, a photo with a very alert fox in it. He was staring down those birds and hoping for a hearty breakfast! Can you spot him in the first image? I was so focused on the birds that I never noticed he was there. This beautiful pond is right near my parents' house.

The mood of these photos matches my creativity lately...I feel very uninspired. I haven't been doing much of anything that's creative and I'm hoping to snap out of it soon. Winter is taking a toll...spring, please come soon!

I'm linking up with Kim's Texture Tuesday - in the first image above, I used her "sybil" texture at Soft Light/25%. Thank you for stopping by!

February Slump

I'd do just about anything for love...except move to Alaska. And lately, Virginia has felt a little bit like Alaska with its unusually brutal temperatures and excessive snow flakes! I've just about had enough...the days are long and frigid. The landscape is so bleak, which matches my state of mind this past week. It's so cold that I rarely go outside because my body wants to hibernate. I experience this winter slump every year at this time - my creativity goes out the window (along with my motivation).

We had our biggest snow yet on Thursday into Friday, and I finally wandered outside the next day to take a few photos in my back yard. The landscape was very symbolic of my February state of mind: thoughts that cast long shadows, and creativity as stark as the snow...a white, empty space. However, at least the sun was shining! That was a welcome change from the gray, cloudy days we'd been having.

Spring will be here soon, and as always, my enthusiasm will return with the flowers! I can't wait...thanks for stopping by. I'm linking up with Kathy's Song-ography today - her song theme is "I'd Do Anything For Love..."

And winter sheds its grief in snow… ~Emily Brontë

Heart Tender

HEART TENDER

My muse is a heart hunter, her bow arched readily,
her arrow point dabbed with a gossamer glint
the color of spirit.
I am her target and, emboldened with time,
I confront her with soul-fire and fear-ashes,
stomach knots and eye-stars.

Sky and trees are tossed by the air,
green-shuffled and blue-shifted in a windblown vertigo,
the sunset on my neck-nape.
I spy, with delight,
ten thousand wren-wings of a migrating flock,
their nerves fraught with dusk-twitter.
Twilight nestles against slumbering petals,
their flower-souls folded in and dreaming.

I wave my white handkerchief.
Seizing her moment, my muse bends an arrow back
and releases, our eyes locked.
My ears hear the whistling sound the arrow makes
as it soars through the air to my lung-cage,
hitting its target dead center, heart-tender.

© Sherri Brannon 2014

I find that poetry comes to me easier in the wintertime...there's less distraction, less color, less external activities. I'm more contemplative, quieter...there's a stillness present that isn't there in the bustle of spring, summer, or fall. This is a poem I've been working on for the last couple of weeks. I never know when I'm going to get "hit" with the sudden need to write. It was fun to think of my muse as a hunter with her bow and arrow.

My photo was edited using Radlab - I like the dreamy effect I was able to get. And through the wonders of Photoshop, I was able to add a flock of birds by finding an image at Flickr Creative Commons and adding it in as a separate layer.

Thank you for stopping by!

It just happens to be the way that I’m made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them. ~Haruki Murakami