Hi my friends,
I remember a world with less restrictions, a planet without a pandemic, a state of affairs when most travelled freely, and a time when the world as it is today was inconceivable.
And yet, here we are, at the end of an almost 3 year run at this virus’s stroll around our planet or is that wishful thinking?
Waking up predawn, watching the first light unfold, creating dreams to replace the ones I would have had under my sheets; sunrise photography is becoming a much loved practice.
The luxury of not having to share the landscape, to admire the first light till your eyes are twinkly, to breath in the abundance of air till you are giddy; trumps morning sleep any day.
*How unfortunate that the word ‘trump’ makes me cringe each time I use it.
The stillness, soft light, undisturbed water, the lone human… the reasons to wake up before they all do.
Boracay is a place you leave and always dream of going back to, to its ocean, to its skies, to its lively skies and mostly to its warm people and the girl with the yellow balloon. This ends this month’s journey into the litte paradise island of the Philippines. On to the next!
Do we live our lives in a way that our footsteps will be worth following?
I dream of a world where blue overwhelms the red. I dream of times when all will cease to compete for self gain. I dream of a place free of war, hate and anger. I dream in blue.
Color has such a tremendous effect on us earth dwellers , doesn’t it? We are surrounded by color and we are gifted with the ability to see it, register it, feel it and be influenced by it. We find ourselves drawn to certain colors, some colors give us inner peace, others charge us and energize us, some make us feel well and calm, others we may find agitating. Our sunsets are golden and they have a way of making us feel a certain stillness and a causing us to go inside of ourselves and into a contemplative state. But what if our sunsets were a different color? What if they were blue? Would our lives be any different?
With all the changing and shifting weights of our lives, how do we retain our balance? If balance is a very thin line that we need to walk on, then how do we guarantee our stability when life tries to push us left and right?
It was dusk, that magical time when day surrenders itself to the mysteries of the night in a golden embrace, a storm was approaching, the wind was starting to gain speed, people were shuffling about to get to the shelter, but the boy and his guitar were completely lost inside a piece music that had to happen. I walked past him but he did not see me, I photographed him and he was completely unaware. He was floating inside of his art.
There are places on this planet that cause us to reflect. On mountain tops, near river beds, in thick forests, and on beaches, we find parts of ourselves that we seem to have lost. I have always felt so lucky in my life that every morning the first thing I was able to dip into shortly after opening my eyes, was a jar full of inspiration. Inspiration causes a kind of effervescence that keeps me going and drives me to want to create and to want to be alive. When I find myself in a reflective place like this beach in Boracay, the first thing that gets refilled is that jar of bubbly inspiration.