BE THE LIGHT

Photo by S. Auberle

SUMMER

Photo/Painting by S. Auberle

~~~how swiftly the seasons pass~~~

SLIGHTLY USED

Photo by S. Auberle

FOR SALE: Used angel wings--only worn to church on Sundays and for occasional flights about the neighborhood. Very low mileage. Perfect starter wings. Warranty included...

WORDLESS

Photo by S. Auberle

Every now and then I go through a wordless period, and my mind seems to want to speak only in images. Now is once again that time, so for now I'm posting only photos. Hopefully, they will speak to you without words...

~ mimi

REALITY

Pansy Mandala by S. Auberle

"There is no reality

except the one

contained within us.

That is why so many people

live such an unreal life.

They take the images

outside them for reality

and never allow the world within

to assert itself."

~ Herman Hesse

SUPPOSEDLY

Encaustic Wax Monoprint by S. Auberle

Sitting in the sun. Thinking of the moon.

July 20, 1969--forty years ago today. I'm sitting in the orange chair on the green rug, glued to the TV. My almost four year old daughter sits across from me, blue eyes wide, but bored, as we tell her how major this event is. Her eighteen month old brother is asleep in my arms.

The man stepping out of the capsule is a native of Wapakoneta--the town just up the road from my hometown in the Midwest of the USA, the west of Ohio. He is much older, or so it seems to me, but still, I think of him traveling the same roads as me, eating in the same little restaurants, going to the county fair. A simple time, a simple place, though the past few years had been anything but...the war, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, and now this other-worldly event. It has all seemed other-worldly, even the fact that I am now a mom, no longer a kid, but responsible for these two innocents I've brought into a world like this. What was I thinking? But here they are, and here I am (supposed to be) grown up, and here is Neil Armstrong, doing something (supposedly) out of the realm of possibility and belief.

What next?

What's next is suddenly it's forty years later and those two innocent kids are now (supposedly) grown up, with kids of their own--more innocent children in a time even more frightening. And I am (supposedly) old, though I still wake up some mornings thinking what a nightmare I had--I dreamed I was old, and it seemed so real.

The world is older, Armstrong is older, even the moon--that ageless beauty queen is older. The footsteps on her have (supposedly) blown away if, indeed, there is wind on the moon. I don't know. I don't know if the flag is still there. I don't think I want it to be.

What part of space that is now (supposedly) out of the realm of possibility will be explored before these grandchildren of mine are grandparents?

Perhaps I should care, but I don't. Tomorrow is new moon and once again that silver orb will wax to her full, majestic beauty. Somewhere a little Russian girl will look up at her and dream of becoming an astronaut. An African boy will let her guide him through the dark veldt. An old Inuit woman will give thanks beneath her light. Somewhere in the world two people (supposedly) will fall in love--because of her. Like I did. And still do. Even if I am old.

IN SILENCE

Photo by S. Auberle "Beach Stones"

"I will try, like them,

to be my own silence.

And this is difficult.

The whole world is secretly on fire.

The stones burn, even the stones.

They burn me.

How can a man be still

or listen to all things burning?

How can he dare to sit with them

when all their silence is on fire?

~ Thomas Merton

(excerpt from In Silence)

DUCKS

Photo by S. Auberle

nobody

ever

gets

theirs

all

in

a

row

HOLY

Photo by S. Auberle - from the Keweenaw

"The world is holy.

We are holy

All life is holy.

Daily prayers are delivered

on the lips of breaking waves,

the whispering of grasses,

the shimmering of leaves."

~ Terry Tempest Williams

LITTLE SUNS

Photo by S. Auberle

oatmeal & (buckwheat) honey

apricots like small, fallen suns

your hands, reaching

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Photo by S. Auberle

Happy Birthday Pablo Neruda and Henry David Thoreau

"...if one advances confidently

in the direction of his dreams,

and endeavors to live the life

which he has imagined,

he will meet with a success

unexpected in common hours."

~ H. D. Thoreau

COMPASSION

Photo by S. Auberle

A woman lifts a broken sparrow,

cups it in her hands.

What shall I do now?

she asks...

Sun runs behind a cloud,

the river licks its mossy shoulders,

trees shiver in a cold wind.

She places the bird

under a fallen limb

and goes on her way

in the fading light.

~ mimi

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE

Photo collage by S. Auberle

In those days it was a big adventure

to pack a peanut butter sandwich,

ride your bike from the north end of town

down to the Big Four bridge,

climb the cinder-gravel hill to the top,

because in that flat Midwestern town,

there were no mountains--

the bridge was the pinnacle,

and then you could look out

over the whole town, see its smallness

and you were queen of all you saw,

till the train whistle sounded faraway

and you had to scramble off the bridge,

because there was no place to escape,

no way but to run, as fast

as your pounding heart would take you,

off the bridge, down the embankment,

cinders and gravel tearing at your skin,

stories of children sucked under train wheels,

of a man buried in the bridge pillars

tearing at your mind--all those risks you took,

to see past your small horizons,

to find your place in the world,

to know you were alive.

~ mimi