“By forces seemingly antagonistic and destructive, Nature accomplishes her beneficent designs. Now a flood of fire, now a flood of ice, now a flood of water; and again in the fullness of time an outburst of organic life.” – John Muir The words of Muir give nature a spiritual dimension. As meaningful and descriptive as […]
“Great cataclysmic things can go by and neither the orchestra nor the conductor are under the delusion that whether they make this or that gesture is going to be the deciding factor in how it comes out.”~ James Levine, Metropolitan Opera conductor, Boston Symphony music director Enjoy the respite from the heat for a few […]
“To go out with the setting sun on an empty beach is to truly embrace your solitude.” ~ Jeanne Moreau, French actress Was it the 100 degree heat or an instinctual longing that led us unhesitatingly to the beach last Friday afternoon? The expected monsoonal flow left only a few drops of rain as […]
“The dance of the palm trees, the oceans calling, the first rays of sun and heaven is here.”~ Mike Dolan Almost certainly over the years these words or similar ones were used to describe the memories and blessings of Crescenta Valley living. Thousands of years ago, the area’s indigenous people – the Tongva – gazed […]
“I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand. Why the thunder lasts longer than that which causes it, and why immediately on its creation the lightning becomes visible to the eye while thunder requires time to travel. How…” ~ Leonardo Di Vinci By the time the final window-rattling crash of […]
“The rain began again. It fell heavily, easily, with no meaning or intention but the fulfillment of its own nature, which was to fall and fall.” ~ Helen Garner, Australian writer “There is going to be an El Niño this winter.” “We going to have a lot of rain this winter.” “Maybe the drought will […]
“In lang, lang days o’ simmer, when the clear and cloudless sky, Refuses ae wee drap o’ rain to Nature parched and dry. The genial night, wi’ balmy breath gars, verdure spring anew. An’ ilka blade o’ grass keps its ain drap o’dew.” ~ James Ballentine, 18th Century Scottish artist and writer Scottish 101 […]
“Rosy clouds were spread like flowers in the sun’s pathway… The singing world of the air hung exulting in hues of heavenly blue. Sparks of clouds darted up from gold bars along the horizon; at last the flames Of the sun streamed over the earth.” ~ Jean Paul Friedrich Richter And so was our sunset […]
“How beautiful the rain! After the dust and the heat…. Across the windowpane It pours and pours; And swift and ride, with muddy tide, Like a river down the gutter roars… The rain, the welcome rain!” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Summer is only days old but already we have grown weary of the heat. […]
“Then followed that beautiful season … the Summer! Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; And the landscape Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of childhood.” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie” Temperatures above 100 degrees on several occasions these past weeks could only mean one thing […]