Angi English Photography

Prayer is the Evening Grass

Mindful

Every day

I see or I hear

something

that more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light.

It is what I was born for -

to look, to listen,

to lose myself

inside this soft world -

to instruct myself

over and over

in joy,

and acclamation.

Nor am I talking

about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,

the very extravagant -

but of the ordinary,

the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.

Oh, good scholar,

I say to myself,

how can you help

but grow wise

with such teachings

as these -

the untrimmable light

of the world,

the ocean's shine,

the prayers that are made

out of grass?

--Mary Oliver--

Rio Chama Overlook, New Mexico

The Rio Chama was the inspiration for "Blue River," by Georgia O'Keeffe. I found the overlook which is not marked by researching it on YouTube. Hikers have placed cairns at the overlook. It was a crisp fall day at the overlook with the yellow cottonwood trees. 
www.nmartmuseum.org/online/nmhistory/art-activities/okeef...

Blue River, 1935
Georgia O'Keeffe (American, 1887 - 1986)
oil on canvas, 16 1/2 x 30 1/2 in. (41.9 x 77.5 cm)
Gift of the Estate of Georgia O'Keeffe, 1987
1987.312.1
Georgia O'Keeffe, born in Sun Praire, Wisconsin, was a major figure in the American Modernist art movement of the early 20th century. She challenged the boundaries of modern American artistic style, synthesizing abstraction and representation, transforming her subject matter into powerful iconic images. O’Keeffe enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago and later, the Art Students League in New York City. She also worked with Arthur Wesley Dow whose influence strongly affected O'Keeffe's thinking about the process of making art. She exhibited with other pre-eminent artists in the avant garde art movement in New York City at Alfred Stieglitz’ 291 Gallery. She and Stieglitz married in 1924. After a first visit to New Mexico in 1929, she was inspired by the landscape and forms of the region, which she visited and painted from 1929 on, buying a house at Ghost Ranch in 1940, her well-known hacienda in Abiquiu in 1945, and moving to New Mexico permanently in 1949 after Stieglitz’ death. O’Keeffe is chiefly known for paintings of flowers, rocks, shells, animal bones, and landscapes. Her paintings present crisply contoured forms co-existing with subtle tonal transitions of varying colors. Although she had lost much of her central eye vision, O'Keeffe continued to paint until only weeks before her death in Santa Fe, NM in 1986.

Sea Nettle Jellyfish at Monterey Bay Aquarium

Sea Nettle (Chrysaora) is one of the genus of Scyphozoa class of the phylum Cnidaria. The species of sea nettle we are most commonly knowledgeable about are Chrysaora quinquecirrh, which is mostly found along the east coast of North America in the Atlantic Ocean, and Chrysaora fuscescens, which is mostly found along the west coast of North America in the Northeast Pacific Ocean.

The Sea Nettle is semi-transparent and has small whitish dots and reddish-brown stripes. In some cases, these stripes and dots are missing, and they make the sea nettle look whitish and opaque. The sea nettle is saucer-like in shape. The bell of the sea nettle usually grows to about 6 to 8 inches in diameter. It also has four oral arms attached to the underside of the mouth. In addition to this, it has a number of long tentacles, along the margins of its body, which extend for several feet.

Sea Nettles are equipped with a number of nematocysts along their oral arms and tentacles. These nematocysts are like capsules with a coiled thread inside it, which is lined with barbs along its length. The thread contains powerful paralyzing toxins within itself. When a sea nettle comes in contact with any hard surface and pressure is applied to the tentacles, these nematocysts get activated and the thread starts uncoiling. They get fired into the surface in its contact and inject their powerful venom into it.

This is how the sea nettle catches its prey to feed upon. Unlike many species of jellyfish, who only subsist on microscopic plankton and zooplankton, in addition to these, the sea nettle also eats a number of significantly larger preys. A number of sea nettle species are known to eat young minnows, bay anchovy eggs, worms, and mosquito larvae amongst other creatures. Sea nettle is also known to feed upon other jellyfish and jellyfish larvae.

This same mechanism is used by sea nettle when it encounters danger like a large predator. It stings the predator with its numerous nematocysts and injects its toxins into the flesh of the predator. In the case of smaller creatures, this venom is strong enough to cause death. In larger animals, it usually produces a paralyzing effect, which gives the sea nettle enough time to escape. In the case of humans, their sting is considered moderate to severe. In most cases, it produces a rash that can be extremely painful for 20 to 30 minutes. The rash is likely to feel extremely prickly and may be accompanied by a burning sensation. The symptoms can be more severe in the case of sensitive individuals. Also, the venom from the sting may cause allergic reactions that can become very serious, and sometimes even fatal. The risk to an individual also increases if he or she has been stung multiple times by one or more sea nettles.

It is important to remember that sea nettles don't 'attack' human beings. The sting is just a part of their natural survival mechanism. Ideally, care should be taken by humans to avoid known habitats of sea nettles.

Barn with Red Door

Watkins Glen Falls

Still Rainy Morning

I thought the earth remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging

her dark skirts, her pocketsfull of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.

--Mary Oliver--

Sunrise over Lake Seneca and Hobart William Smith Boat Dock

Got up early at 5:30am in Geneva, New York while on a Bike Trip to catch the sunrise.  Getting a bit frustrated about where to set up my camera, I saw the top of this boathouse from the sidewalk.  Along comes a college police officer in a golf cart......we struck up a conversation about photography and he unlocked the gate and drove me down to the Boat House in his cart.  We talked a bit about photography and I took a few photos of the Hobart William Smith College boathouse that is home to one of the best men and women's  rowing teams  in the nation.

YouTube Video http://youtu.be/6EQKAZqXNXU

The Lilies Break Open Over the Dark Water

Inside that mud-hive, that gas-sponge, that reeking leaf-yard, that rippling

dream-bowl, the leeches' flecked and swirling 

broth of life, as rich 
as Babylon,

the fists crack 
open and the wands 
of the lilies 
quicken, they rise

like pale poles 
with their wrapped beaks of lace; 
one daythey tear the surface,

the next they break open 
over the dark water. 
And there you are 
on the shore,

fitful and thoughtful, trying 
to attach them to an idea — 
some news of your own life. 
But the lilies

are slippery and wild—they are 
devoid of meaning, they are 
simply doing, 
from the deepest

spurs of their being, 
what they are impelled to do 
every summer. 
And so, dear sorrow, are you.

--Mary Oliver--

Nature Sounds of the Cypress Swamp:

Tybee Island Sunrise

In 1520, the Spanish laid claim to what is now Tybee Island and named it Los Bajos. It was at the northern end of the Guale missionary province of Spanish Florida. During that time the island was frequented by pirates who used the island to hide from those who pursued them. Pirates later used the island’s inland waterways for a fresh water source. After the founding of South Carolina in 1670, warfare increased between the English and their pirate allies and the Spanish and their Native American allies. In 1702, James Moore of South Carolina led an invasion of Spanish Florida with an Indian army and a fleet of pirates. The invasion failed to take the capital of Florida, St. Augustine, but did destroy the Guale and Mocama missionary provinces. After another invasion of Spanish Florida by South Carolina in 1704, the Spanish retreated to St. Augustine and Pensacola; the Sea Islands were depopulated, allowing the establishment of new English settlements such as the colony of Georgia. In 1733 English settlers led by James Oglethorpe settled on Tybee Island before moving on to settle eventually in Savannah.

Gray Whales Breaching in Dana Point Harbor, California

Video of Gray Whales:  Mother and Baby in Dana Point, California

Gray whales inhabit shallow coastal waters of the eastern North Pacific. The gray whale makes one of the longest of all mammalian migrations, averaging 10,000-14,000 miles (16,000-22,530 km) round trip. In October, the whales begin to leave their feeding grounds in the Bering and Chukchi Seas and head south for their mating and calving lagoons in Baja California, Mexico. The southward journey takes 2-3 months. The whales remain in the lagoons for 2-3 months, allowing the calves to build up a thick layer of blubber to sustain them during the northward migration and keep them warm in the colder waters. The return trip north takes another 2-3 months. Mothers and calves travel very near shore on the northbound migration. There are some individual gray whales that are found year round in the Straits of Juan de Fuca between the State of Washington and Vancouver Island, Canada, and some that are seen during the summer months off the northern California coast.