Christmas 2009

This was my first Christmas Eve and my first Christmas without my Mom. I'm sure she was there with me in spirit. I miss her physical presence, but her spiritual presence was with me today. Love carries on beyond the material world into the spiritual world. As long as we keep the ones we love in our heart, they will never die.

But now that the presents are wrapped and put together. The pork was cooked and eaten and as now everything is put away, the night is silent. And it is good. I think back to the beginning...

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, 'Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.' And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.'"

Luke 2:8-14

Photo of Everglades National Park
© 2009 by Michael Pancier Photography

The Feeding Begins

Image ©2009 by Michael Pancier Photography
Please visit my website at Michael Pancier Photography

"Appeasers believe that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will become a vegetarian” -- Heywood C. Broun

Good Tidings from Shenandoah National Park

Image © 2009 Michael Pancier Photography
Visit my Website at Michael Pancier Photography

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."

-- John Muir, Our National Parks , 1901

Landscape Poetry

Image © 2009 Michael Pancier Photography, All Rights Reserved
Images and Prints Available at MichaelPancierPhotography.com

This T.S. Eliot poem came to mind as I took this photo in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

T.S. Eliot - East Coker

My Course in Good Water

© 2009 Michael Pancier Photography

“Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.” -- John Muir

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The photo of the capital was taken a week ago during my trip to rainy and cold Washington.