John & Anne Wiley

2012/06/09

Rock, Water, Life, Time

When I fly the hills here, the rocks never cease to sing their stony stories. Maybe a geologist would benefit from scientific understanding of every nook and cranny. To me, there’s sculpture wrought by water, life and time.

1852 Tangerine Falls

1852 Tangerine Falls

Not just the rain and waterfalls, but every life form that has touched these rocks makes a mark. Sometimes I see the rocks moving in slow motion over eons to catch a play of light that simulates shapes in my imagination.

1855 Fantasy Shapes

1855 Fantasy Shapes

Talking amongst themselves, they speak to me. When I walk or drive among such shapes they speak, but from the air another sort of language emerges somehow.

1857 Detail

1857 Detail

Maybe the same details would emerge looking across a ridge or down a ravine. But maybe the combination of a fleeting whim to snap a scene combines with the ease and freedom of flight to produce what I experience as unique. I don’t recall a single snap from the ground that evokes what these views do for me.

1860 Add Air

1860 Add Air

When I add air to the rock, water, life and time, another dimension emerges.  An expanded context. Somewhat like when I first met The David in Florence, Italy. I walked around the shape several times, and was startled by how much more powerful it is in three dimensions. I wanted to float around it to see every angle Michelangelo did. I wanted to add air. Is this part of the fascination I find in flight?

2012/06/08

Fly Envy

As a kid, I had fly envy. Watching them whiz around and even land upside down on the ceiling made me want to do that. Now my fly envy arises when we haven’t flown for a week or more and I hear a distant plane. Well, just now it nudged me to share some flying pix. I chose the place nearby with a scary name (in Spanish), Diablo nuke plant, because Edhat ran one of my pix from that flight today. That’s it in the distance in the first shot of course, but check out how beautiful that whole area is.

9281 Diablo Area

9281 Diablo Area

That big offshore rock at the right is the subject of the next pic, and if you click to see the larger version you can make out lots of seals and some birds hanging out there.

9289 Seal Rock

9289 Seal Rock

Locals will know I was approaching Diablo flying along the coast toward Avila and home to Santa Barbara. That route offshore gives a nice safe view of the nuke plant, and the reassuring sight of the gravity-feed core cooling water reservoir above the plant. It’s sure situated in a beautiful area. I sighed deeply just now remembering that flight. My fly envy is temporarily eased. 🙂

9292 Diablo Hills

9292 Diablo Hills

2012/06/07

Bowl Of

Life is a bowl of cherries. Some add a comment about the pits, but I like to focus on how sweet life can be. Playing with a new camera at the farmer’s market it was fun trying to capture the essence of cherry.

0007 Bowl of Cherries

0007 Bowl of Cherries

As she was about to sample one, I caught the sweeter essence of a cherry with the fingers of my favorite human.

0006 Free Sample

0006 Free Sample

Later we paused passing Alameda Park for a very different mood. Light slanting among the chorus of trees and a couple in quiet company sing a different harmony of life’s fleeting sweetness.

0017 Tree Song

0017 Tree Song

2012/06/03

Old California

Walking the mission area is relaxing, connecting with how it was here in past centuries. Yet we often discover something that’s new to us. This bell tower between the mission front and the seminary might have once housed the bells.

0541 Missing Bells

0541 Missing Bells

The big fountain in front of the mission is an ageless magnet for kids, and their watchful parents who navigate that ageless line between protection and freedom as their child teeters along the wall or leans to splash.

0544 Water Child

0544 Water Child

This visit, a new fascination for me was the sculptures over the mission roof. I like how the afternoon light played on the top one.

0545 Roof People

0545 Roof People

I presume her anchor honors the maritime history of Santa Barbara, and the brave souls lost at sea over the years.

0545 Anchor

0545 Anchor

From the front her anchor is invisible, and her visage changes. Probably more religious in theme, yet to me this could be a contemporary young woman in a hoodie engaged in quiet conversation.

0551 Quiet Maiden

0551 Quiet Maiden

Across the street on the expanse of lawn next to the rose garden, some young maidens were enjoying themselves, the weather, the setting and each other in just such a dialog at this gentle place where old California is renewed.

0559 Relaxed Conversation

0559 Relaxed Conversation

2012/05/27

Fresh

Spring is fresh and green here. Farmer’s markets abound, with one somewhere around town most every day of the week. One of the most colorful is the Saturday market downtown, and the first sign we saw approaching it yesterday was the people carrying fresh local flowers as they headed home on the street.

0234 Colors for Home

0234 Colors for Home

Among the many carefully adorned stalls, the people are colorful too. This woman with young child and a box of fresh organic local strawberries kindly paused for my camera.

0232 Wholesome

0232 Wholesome

To me this pic could be Europe, and it also has fresh flavors of times long past. Or an advertisement for wholesome food to nourish your family. A few minutes later nearing home we stopped to admire the crisp mountain view and a swallow dancing between insect snacks in the clear Spring air.

0235 Cloud, Bird, Mountain

0235 Cloud, Bird, Mountain

Strolling amid the bright smell of pepper trees, I contemplated moments and memories. Every season overflows with moments, each so precious yet most not noticed. Some become memories, and some are chosen by an unknown formula to become pix that can represent an essence of our memories or maybe trigger an impulse in us to take yet another fresh look around.

0240 Fresh Look

0240 Fresh Look

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