Where the Joy Resides

Find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all. 

— Robert Louis Stevenson

Ruby-crowned Kinglet - hiding his Ruby Crown!  

More Info and to hear his Beautiful Music - HERE

Print Available - HERE 

Blue Jay In The Berries

Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.

~ William Arthur Ward

Where The Joy Is

Live. Right this minute. 

That's where the joy is at.

~ Abigail Thomas

Print Available - HERE 


 

Poetry In The Leaves

I dwell in possibility....

~ Emily Dickinson

A frosted web,
invisible thread
reminding me
of
possibility

Patches of Color

Everything that you can see in the world around you presents itself to your eyes only as an arrangement of patches of different colors. 

 ~ John Ruskin

 Virginia Tech Duck Pond - Blacksburg, Virginia

 

Leaf Peeping

Happiness isn't complicated. It is a humble state of gratitude for simple pleasures, tender mercies, recognized blessings, and inherent beauty.

 ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

5 Thoughts On Love

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

- Lao Tzu 

 Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

― Maya Angelou

 Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.

 ― Zelda Fitzgerald 

 It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.

 ― Mother Teresa 

 Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love you will find that you are left holding only yourself.

 ― Leo Buscaglia

Found In The Forest

Only those who find life, find treasures.

 ~ Paulo Coelho

Found during a walk through the forest. 

Berry Tossing Bird Behavior

Previously I had promised to post the American Robin tossing the berry.

This is the 3rd time I've captured this interesting behavior

I've found a Mockingbird doing it - HERE

and

A Catbird doing it - HERE

A Closer Look at the same shot.

The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew.” 

 ― Gregory Maguire

3 Thoughts On Creativity

Starling with a Berry

Prints and More Available - HERE 

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

— Edward de Bono 

 Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.

— Mary Lou Cook 

Every day is an opportunity to be creative – the canvas is your mind, the brushes and colours are your thoughts and feelings, the panorama is your story, the complete picture is a work of art called, ‘my life’. Be careful what you put on the canvas of your mind today – it matters. 

— Innerspace

When Every Leaf Is A Flower

Autumn is a second spring 
when every leaf is a flower. 

~  Albert Camus

 Heritage Park

Blacksburg, Virginia

Blue Jay on a Foggy Morning

In nature, everything has a job. The job of the fog is to beautify further the existing beauties!

 ― Mehmet Murat ildan

We get a lot of fog where I live.  There are frequent dense fog advisories  and many times I look out and can't see much across the road.  This was one of those mornings.  When my husband moved here from New York he commented that he had never lived in an area that had so much fog - and he's lived in a lot of  places.   I LOVE Fog.  It gives everything such a dreamy look.  

 More Blue Jays - HERE 

Seasonal Opportunity

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes. 

 ~ Benjamin Disraeli

There are a few days out of the year when this Dogwood tree is full of berries....and the birds flock to it.   Those are the days when the birds grab the berries and I try to grab shots of them grabbing the berries.   It only comes around once a year - so I had to grab the opportunity.   

5 Thoughts On Kindness

 What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness? 

~ Jean Jacques Rousseau

We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. 

~ Charlie Chaplin

Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change. 

~ Bob Kerrey

Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind. 

~ Henry James

The words of kindness are more healing to a drooping heart than balm or honey. 

~ Sarah Fielding

In my opinion - Kindness is the best gift you can give - and the best gift you can receive.

Robin Balances A Berry In His Beak

We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities but its own talents. 

 ― Eric Hoffer

American Robin gets ready to gobble down a berry.  I think this is BEFORE he would toss it and gobble it down.   I've been VERY lucky with the "berry toss" shots.  I've managed  to capture a Mockingbird tossing a berry - HERE

and a 

Catbird tossing a berry - HERE   

and just this week I've captured a Robin tossing a berry ....but that is a post for another time :) 

Catbird Tosses a Berry

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.

 — Eckhart Tolle

It is always FUN to find the birds exhibiting a unique behavior.  And I guess this really isn't so unique - it's just that they toss those berries SO FAST it's hard to see them when they are doing it.  I usually see that I've captured it AFTER I get home and download the shots.    

Kindness - The Most Valuable Gift

In a world full of people who couldn't care less, be someone who couldn't care more. 

~ Unknown 

 White-crowned Sparrow in my yard.


More of my Bird images - HERE 



 

Downy Woodpecker In The Forest

Every object, every being, is a jar full of delight.

 ~ Rumi

Print Available - HERE 

The Soul Within

I am not this hair, 

I am not this skin, 

I am the Soul 

That lives within. 

~ Rumi

Wise Words from Rumi 

Whispers In The Forest

If you listen quietly enough life will whisper its secrets to you

 ― Rasheed Ogunlaru

Deer in the Forest - Pandapas Pond

Blacksburg, Virginia 

Print Available - HERE 

Flutters Of The Heart

I wanted to freeze 

in the moment in my mind 

forever 

because there's nothing better 

than flutters of the heart

 ― Lisa Schroeder

Male Cardinal in the forest 

Honestly - they do make my heart flutter :) 

Engaged In A Miracle

Everyday we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child - our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

 ― Thích Nhất Hạnh

Live the Life You Love

Live the life you love.
Love the life you live.
~ Bob Marley

Autumn Views

A little bit of color starting to come out.....

Blue Jay surrounded by autumn leaves 

(those leaves look like hearts to me.... can you see it?)  

The days may not be so bright and balmy—yet the quiet and melancholy that linger around them is fraught with glory. Over everything connected with autumn there lingers some golden spell—some unseen influence that penetrates the soul with its mysterious power.  

~Northern Advocate

More Blue Jays - HERE 

 

Let Go and Be Free

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.

― Thích Nhất Hạnh

Tufted Titmouse - Bisset Park - Radford, Virginia

5 Thoughts On Happiness

1.  For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness. 

 ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

2.  People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.

― Abraham Lincoln

3. Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.

 - Daphne du Maurier

4.  The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.” 

 -  J.M. Barrie

5.  . . . All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.

 — Nikos Kazantzakis

Really - it's all about our attitudes, isn't it?  We need to make the choice to be happy - and then BE! 

Simply Happy

Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy.

~ Osho

The Throb Of Amazement

Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.

 — Mary Oliver 

 Female Red-bellied Woodpecker takes flight 

 

Season of Leaves

Just before the death of flowers, 

And before they are buried in snow, 

There comes a festival season 

When nature is all aglow.

- Author Unknown