the meaning of life

a mark
the start
all it takes
a giant wakes

the mark
does spark
that raging creation
this is elation

teeminglife.apoem

If you think the world
is crumbling,
or has a moral compass
gone wrong
look to the times past
those dusty pages of
ancient days
and then throw them away
Look up (look out
look around)
to those bright summer days
the soft fall of snow in winter
The way your loved one laughs
And let your fatalistic fantasies
melt away
leaving empty hands
how raw, exposed,
bruised from a life
lived by clenched knuckles
Empty and open
to hold the world
as whole, teeming, alive
as it has always been
and always will
Until the sun envelops us all
In that one bright, burning
moment

majesticphotowomen

I was just reading the new National Geographic that arrived today (or more like looking at the pictures), when I arrived on their PHOTO JOURNAL section. They featured Traer Scott and more specifically her Natural History portfolio. It is such an amazing set! The photographer in me just wants to steal her idea and go out and do the exact same thing, although I know that the range of photos she captured (candidly, many props to her), is worth many, many hours waiting in front of dioramas. So instead I thought I’d share her genius. Check out the link above to her portfolio or just feast your eyes on this magnificent specimen.

onethousand, athousand

So…I feel like I’ve had one thousand experiences and lived one thousand lives since I last really really posted. Being in Europe, then being home, and now, today, arriving back in Charleston (my second home), it just turned me around and around and around. And now I stand straight and stare into the face of the emptiness that is the beast of the unknown. This is my last semester of the period of life known as the (undergraduate) college years. How did I get here?

I’ve done so much and learned so much and still know so little. It is daunting and it is life.

I’m an independent person by nature. Even in my toddler years “I do it by myself,” was one of my favorite phrases to say. Being indepedent, you have to be comfortable with being alone and going out and just “doing” by yourself. Doing. Action. I love movement. When I stop, I feel as if my life  and my being become stagnant. And we are talking about stopping for a day. A single day. This is different from, say, being a workaholic or not being able to relax. It’s more about living forward. I must live forward. And with independence, comes living forward alone.

Thinking back on all my experiences, I’m truly the only one that has gone through what I have gone through. People have gone through some stages with me, but no one has been with me the entire time. It’s me. Thinking on that, it’s kind of scary and something not truly lonely but akin to it.

I’ve just been thinking a lot recently. And struggling with myself and my ideas about larger things. I’ve learned and found things to grab ahold of and I’ve also realized things about myself that I need to work on. THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS IN MY BRAIN haha. Well cest la vie!

Oh and here is a photo I took at a little cathedral fortress in Austria near Spitz.

 

Priests used to pile their bones together in a sanctum type area when they died. I captured what remains of them along with the reflection of what was outside of their sanctum.

 

 

snippitysnap on the way back.

And to finish up my photo journey of the road trip back home, here are some snapshots along the way that I felt strongly about enough to post. They span from rainy Asheville NC to a quaint farm in Iowa.

photopath.

So on my path from South Carolina to North Carolina and then to Tennessee through Kentucky to Illinois then onward to Iowa and finally home to Minnesota, I was able to break out my camera and take some, well many, photos.

I’ve uploaded many of the colloquial snapshotish ones to my Facebook but here is where I shall place the ones that are formed from the creative particles within me. This set comes from the Miller Park Zoo in Bloomington Illinois. Enjoy!

More sets of photos to come!

photoartfabulous

Oh hello future.

Today, I went to the Career Center. The impending prospect of the fact that in about 8 months I will have graduated with two majors, a minor, and no idea where to go and what to do with all that transcript paperwork, is a little daunting and I realized I need to a least start thinking about what I truly want to do and where I want to go. I’ve narrowed down my list of where I would like to end up to Minnesota, Charleston, Chicago, LA,  Austin/San Antonio , Nashville, Arizona/New Mexico, or…abroad. I also think it would be cool to be a Park Ranger in South Dakota in the Badlands or at Mt. Rushmore. Anyway, that’s besides the point, as you can see “narrow” is an arbitrary term.

And don’t even get my started on what job I want. I have no ideaaa. So I think I’m going to do an idea board! Something like this:

I’m thinking I’ll put my heroes on it, things I like, photos of the places I’d like the live, places I like, goals, and all that on it. Just something to focus on while I’m trying to zone in on what I want to be in my future.

Yippee!

Sharing time!

I found this photo somewhere out in the immense space of the interweb and instantly fell in love this the concept in the graffiti. It’s informed, ironic, and just darn cool. So of course I wanted to share it with you all. Duh.