My precious daughter and her wonderful husband just last night on 12-16-10 delivered a healthy baby girl, and we’re all starved for photos. I already know she’ll be the most beautiful baby born into the world since my daughter, but their pix will still of course be most welcome. Right now they’re resting up from an exhausting few days. Seems like only yesterday our little girl captivated everyone with her arrival, and now she’s grown up with a girl of her own.
Turn Around
This evening we enjoyed a brief flight that could be our last chance for a few days due to forecast rain. I’ve sent some words & pix to Edhat and posted some on my Photo Page (links in the right column of this page), and wanted to share more here. Already feeling blissful from being aloft again, the mood deepened when we spotted this “sun dog” over the channel.
3982 Sun Dog
Over the sacred Chumash site named Shalawa Meadow was another contemplative view of clouds over the coast to Ventura.
3983 Coastal Clouds
By the time we landed, our mood had shifted far into the mystic. Back in town we paused to admire the rainbow moon floating in an indigo sky beyond the magical tree shapes, portending tomorrow’s rain.
4022 Rainbow Moon
We have a tiny window in our bathroom that opens on the Winter sunsets. Watching tonight’s show, it wasn’t different enough to motivate me toward the camera so I just stood and watched. Then suddenly just before it all ended, the horizon lit up magnificently against the deepening blue.
3968 Last Colors
As it faded, I realized this is the last natural color we’ll see today. Luckily during these long nights we have lots of holiday lights to enjoy, eh? I also pondered how the sunset itself is a little window: into what’s going on beyond the horizon. If it’s cloudy there, the sunset ends early. If it’s clear way out into the Pacific the light show lasts late with deep blue above.
Tonight we hosted a small party of “Mystics” – the group we formed for a retreat in Ballyvaughan Ireland with poet, scholar, Celtic mystic and former Catholic priest John O’Donohue back in 2003. It was one of those deeply enchanting and transformative experiences in life for most of us. We met here in SB, went on hikes together, did the 10 day retreat, and have kept meeting sporadically since. Tonight we enjoyed a leisurely potluck supper and regaled each other with conversation, memories and singing. It was a homecoming of sorts, including the sense of connecting with our ancestors. Part of the Ireland experience many of us shared was being welcomed back there by the spirits of our ancestors, and tonight’s conversation touched on that.
In looking over a few photos from tonight, I also glanced back at pix from our 12/6 flight to Neverland. Among those is this one of Brad Pitt’s place, where there also may be some sort of homecoming going on. Since he began spending lots of time in New Orleans, his waterfront bungalow West of town has been deserted except for the caretakers on top of the hill. I noticed tonight that there’s a white car parked down near the beach cottages and lots of cars parked up at the entrance. Maybe he’s visiting, or they’re preparing the place for a visit. There’s some odd black thing with white “doors” on pallets that I don’t recall seeing there before, and I’m curious whether it will be there if we fly out that way tomorrow.
3874 Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie's SB Beach Cottage
Another day, another glorious sunset stroll with the woman of my dreams. Someone on Edhat said maybe this string of fabulous colors is some compensation for this year’s unusually cool summer. Maybe that also has something to do with it having reached upper 70s today? Anyway, this first one leaping over the high voltage lines keeps reminding me of counting sheep.
3919 Leaping Cloud
The huddle of them by San Marcos Pass launched this one, and it moved the width of this photo within two minutes. Perhaps a minute after this shot it had melted away completely. It’s unusual to have sunset colors in different directions, but this one was almost opposite to the first.
3924 Northeast Sunset
A few minutes later, the last colors gathered in the West for a warm farewell.
3955 Afterglow
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