Yamaha YDS3 "Big Bear" Scrambler
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
The Nightingale of Paradise
Monday, January 25, 2016
The Promised Day is Come
A tempest, unprecedented in its violence, unpredictable in its course, catastrophic in its immediate effects, unimaginably glorious in its ultimate consequences, is at present sweeping the face of the earth. Its driving power is remorselessly gaining in range and momentum. Its cleansing force, however much undetected, is increasing with every passing day. Humanity, gripped in the clutches of its devastating power, is smitten by the evidences of its resistless fury. It can neither perceive its origin, nor probe its significance, nor discern its outcome. Bewildered, agonized and helpless, it watches this great and mighty wind of God invading the remotest and fairest regions of the earth, rocking its foundations, deranging its equilibrium, sundering its nations, disrupting the homes of its peoples, wasting its cities, driving into exile its kings, pulling down its bulwarks, uprooting its institutions, dimming its light, and harrowing up the souls of its inhabitants.
-Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come
-Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Friday, January 22, 2016
Subjects to Paint
Subjects to paint when I get some time..
FIRE DEPARTMENT
I spent a night as a high school Fire Science student with three classmates in the room above the first door on the right. We got to slide down the pole and clean the fire trucks. At 11 pm or so, there was a big racket of garbage cans coming from the Rinky Dink, the little restaurant across the street. On queue, we yelled "HEY!!" out the window, and then one of us turned on the lights and we mooned whoever it was making the racket. We never heard anything about it--maybe it had become routine.
Twenty eight years later, the fire chief was my landlord, and I'd bring the rent check to him at the firehouse on the first of every month.
PICO BLANCO
There's a great view of Pico Blanco where the Cabrillo Highway (California Highway 1) jogs east to cross the Little Sur river.
This is the view I'd paint.
LITHIA PARK
When I met my sister for the first time (my mother had given her up for adoption 45 years before), I picked her up at the airport in Portland and drove to Ashland where she would meet for the first time her birth mother (my mother), and her birth father (my step-father). The drive affored us the opportunity to get to know each other. We walked through Lithia Park in Ashland, and that is where I took this picture.
FIRE DEPARTMENT
I spent a night as a high school Fire Science student with three classmates in the room above the first door on the right. We got to slide down the pole and clean the fire trucks. At 11 pm or so, there was a big racket of garbage cans coming from the Rinky Dink, the little restaurant across the street. On queue, we yelled "HEY!!" out the window, and then one of us turned on the lights and we mooned whoever it was making the racket. We never heard anything about it--maybe it had become routine.
Twenty eight years later, the fire chief was my landlord, and I'd bring the rent check to him at the firehouse on the first of every month.
PICO BLANCO
There's a great view of Pico Blanco where the Cabrillo Highway (California Highway 1) jogs east to cross the Little Sur river.
This is the view I'd paint.
LITHIA PARK
When I met my sister for the first time (my mother had given her up for adoption 45 years before), I picked her up at the airport in Portland and drove to Ashland where she would meet for the first time her birth mother (my mother), and her birth father (my step-father). The drive affored us the opportunity to get to know each other. We walked through Lithia Park in Ashland, and that is where I took this picture.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Adam
Witness, therefore, how numerous and far-reaching have been the changes in language, speech, and writing since the days of Adam. How much greater must have been the changes before Him!
--Baha'u'llah
Baha'is believe that Earth coalesced from cosmic material billions of years ago as willed by a Creator we call God (In Arabic, Allah; in Spanish, Dios; etc.). While our ancestors surely didn't look like us, they were always human, albeit unevolved physically and lacking intellectual developement and spiritual awareness. Our progress from our primitive origins was incremental. We evolved from an embryonic condition to our current state of relative perfection.
"(A)t one time man was an inmate of the sea, at another period an invertebrate, then a vertebrate and finally a human being standing erect. Though we admit these changes, we cannot say man is an animal. In each one of these stages are signs and evidences of his human existence and destination." --Abdu'l-Baha
I believe Adam was the first human given the knowledge that our nature is essentially spiritual. As such, he became "The First Man". Adam proclaimed the knowledge of God to his contemporaries, and the truth he told eventually was recorded in the written word. Genesis conveyed our relationship with the Creator in a manner comprehensible to our ancestors. Scientific inquiry and discovery have given us a clearer idea of our physical origins, and the Manifestations of God provide us with an understanding of our spiritual reality which transcends time and space.
Monday, January 18, 2016
A Blue Jewel in Space
"When you're finally up at the moon looking back on earth, all those differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend, and you're going to get a concept that maybe this really is one world and why the hell can't we learn to live together like decent people".
— Frank Borman, Astronaut, Apollo 8,
"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens". --Baha'u'llah
Saturday, January 16, 2016
Cardinals in Winter
Cardinals are a cheery sight in winter. I wish they would find their way to the Pacific Northwest.
Images from internet.
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
The Differences Among Mankind
The differences among mankind are of two sorts: one is a difference of station, and this difference is not blameworthy. The other is a difference of faith and assurance; the loss of these is blameworthy, for then the soul is overwhelmed by his desires and passions, which deprive him of these blessings and prevent him from feeling the power of attraction of the love of God. Though that man is praiseworthy and acceptable in his station, yet as he is deprived of the perfections of that degree, he will become a source of imperfections, for which he is held responsible. --Abdu'l-Baha
Friday, January 8, 2016
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Monday, January 4, 2016
Господи помилуй
Господи помилуй
Колокольный звон
Над землей плывёт,
А в монастыре
Братский хор поет:
- Господи, помилуй.
Инок-канонарх
Положил поклон.
И тотчас затих
Колокольный звон.
- Господи, помилуй.
- Господи, воззвах, -
Тенор возгласил,
Канонарху хор
Слаженно вторил.
- Господи, помилуй.
Свечи, образа,
Мантии, кресты.
Братия поет
Грустный глас шестый
- Господи, помилуй.
Странники стоят,
Молится народ.
Русь еще жива,
Русь еще поет.
- Господи, помилуй.
Схимники в крестах,
Бороды, как снег,
Потупив глаза,
Молятся о всех.
- Господи, помилуй.
С музыкой такой
Хоть иди на смерть!
Много ли тебе,
Русь Святая, петь?
- Господи, помилуй.
Твой черед настал.
Молодой звонарь,
Пробуди простор,
Посильней ударь.
Братский хор умолк,
Снова перезвон.
Только слышно мне
Как со всех сторон:
- Господи, помилуй.
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Saturday, January 2, 2016
Rocket Re-entry
A man near Bangkok recorded the re-entry of a rocket that launched a weather satellite December 11.
Friday, January 1, 2016
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