Western Giant Swallowtail On Our Patio Lemon Plant — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Archive for the ‘Tucson Airzona’ Tag
Western Giant Swallowtail On Our Lemon Plant Leave a comment
Experience The Difference Leave a comment
Tom Markey — Image by kenne
“What’s the difference
between a good friend
and a best friend?
A good friend knows
all your stories.
A best friend
helped you write them.”
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Our Patio Dove Has Finally Flown Away 1 comment
Our Patio Dove Has Flown — Image by kenne
It’s been a two weeks since this dove flew into our patio door. She was stunned, so I approached her to see if she could still fly.
She walked away but didn’t fly. I later realized that she may have injured her left wing. Since then, I have been making sure
she has seeds and water. She instinctively protects herself by staying in a prickly pear cactus; when leaving the cactus,
she only walks around the edge of the patio wall.
In recent days she has increased her attempts to fly. Yesterday she was getting two feet off the ground.
The patio wall varies in height from four to seven feet, so she knew where to practice getting up on the wall.
I didn’t see fly over the wall, I only know she has left the patio.
— kenne
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Neotropic Cormorant Leave a comment
Neotropic Cormorant In Tucson’s Reed Park — Image by kenne
It is common for neotropic cormorants to dive into the water to catch fish,
but not this guy who happens to have a damaged right wing.
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Black-headed Grosbeak 3 comments
Male Black-headed Grosbeak at Our Patio Feeder — Image by kenne
Grosbeaks tend to visit feeders, but this guy is the first one I’ve seen at our patio feeder.
Black-headed Grosbeak Video Clip
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Southern Dogface Leave a comment
Southern Dogface — Image by kenne
Southern Dogface butterflies are so named for the yellow dog’s head marking surrounded by black on each
of their dorsal forewings. Their ventral wing surfaces are yellow with a small, black-ringed spot
on each forewing and either one or two small, brown to pink-ringed spots on each hindwing. The forewings
are point-tipped and can either be straight-edged to slightly hooked , as with this Southern Dogface.
— Source: The Firefly Forest
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Imperial Sand Dunes Leave a comment
The Imperial Sand Dunes National Recreation Area west of Yuma, Arizona (July 26, 2023) — Image by kenne
The Imperial Sand Dunes, 20 miles west of Yuma, AZ, is one of the largest and most popular off-road vehicles
recreation areas in the United States, but not when the air temperature is 114 degrees as it was when we were driving
Interstate 8 back to Tucson yesterday.
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I Remain A Traveler In Other People’s Reality — Revisited 2 comments
This posting first appeared on July 23, 2013. In April 2020, the blogger Old Jules passed away.
Since then the blog is maintained by Jeanne Kasten (See “About” page for further information).
https://sofarfromheaven.com/2020/04/21/au-revoir-old-jules-jack-purcell/
Photo-Artistry Self-Portrait
Invoking the Full Meaning of Life
How best to express sharing new life
when each moment deserves its face.
What seems apropos for the moment,
when the next moment fosters a unique experience.
Is it in a number?
The number of days?
The number of thoughts?
The number of heartbeats?
The number of turns?
The number of prayers?
. . . you can count the ways,
only to still not know life’s score.
Is it in a word?
Loving?
Caring?
Sharing?
Giving?
Sheltering?
Words to communicate thoughts and feelings
when manifested in knowledge and experience.
Or is it in art?
Transforming thought,
expressing feeling,
experiencing emotions and
the desire to evoke life,
even when distance
appears to separate a lifelong bond.
I wrote this in the 1990s. Since then, retirement and moved 1,000 miles from where we had spent 25 years, putting distance between bonds. In the three years since moving, we have watched the bonds drift away, causing me to question the desire to evoke life, even when distance can’t separate a lifelong bond.
We had moved to the Sonoran desert with the illusion that friends and family would be beating a path to our new home in the desert southwest — not such luck. So we try staying in touch through social media, often questioning whether the bonds were ever real — confirming that we remain tourists in other people’s reality.
The other day I read a posting by blogger Old Jules, “These damned ego-warts.”
Old Jules is a 70-year-old hermit, living with three cats somewhere in the Texas Hill Country and writing a blog I enjoy reading from time to time. Old Jules has concluded that he has spent over a third of his life “being insignificant in the lives of others.”
In 1992, after 25 years of marriage and a career of 20 years, he began a new job and life in Santa Fe.
“All secure in the knowledge the extended family and friends remaining behind were part of my life in which I’d been and remained important.”
Over time he concluded it was all an illusion.
“Kids, young adult nephews, and nieces I’d coddled and bounced on my knee pealed out of my life-like layers of an onion. Most I never heard from again.”
He began to realize that he was merely tolerated, “. . . a piece of furniture in their lives.”
Over time he rebuilt his life with a more potent dose of skepticism concerning his worth and place in the lives of others, which resulted in his becoming a hermit.
“I no longer assume I’m important in the lives of other human beings and get my satisfaction in knowing I’m at least relevant to the cats.
Because cats, though sometimes dishonest, aren’t capable of the depth and duration of dishonesty humans indulge regularly.”
Old Jules has come to believe “. . . that life is entirely too important and too short to be wasted in insignificance.”
His new awareness of life is now in teaspoon measurements, “. . . measured in contracts with cats not equipped to lie. A determination in the direction of significance measured in teaspoons of reality,
as opposed to 55-gallon drums of dishonesty and self-delusion.”
“Teaspoons, I find, don’t spill away as much life in the discovery
when they’re found to be just another ego-wart of pride and self-importance.”
Bonds, illusion or not, have difficulty being when the moments are separated by time and distance, becoming gleams of light, for an instant, in the long night.
I understand where Old Jules is coming from and feel his disillusionment. There is, however, a binding force that comes from a homesick longing to be whole, to have completion, as Plato described in the myth of the human halves passionately striving towards one. Like all mythical totalities, humans are subject to the triple dramaturgical rhythm of primal completeness, separation catastrophe, and restoration. The most significant attraction effect occurs between the second and third acts of life’s drama, which is where I find myself today — maybe this is also where Old Jules is. I am learning to understand myself from a new divide, one half experienced, the other inexperienced — in such a way that I’m learning to understand myself in new ways.
— kenne
“Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time!
It’s abominable! When! When!
One day,
is that not enough for you,
one day he went dumb,
one day I went blind,
one day we’ll go deaf,
one day we were born,
one day we shall die,
the same day,
the same second,
is that not enough for you?
They give birth astride of a grave,
the light gleams an instant,
then it’s night once more.”
— Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
Photo-Artistry by kenne
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Teaching Photography In The Canyon Leave a comment
Teaching Photography In Sabino Canyon (03/07/14) — Image by kenne
Remembering moments from the past —
“Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality…
One can’t possess reality; one can possess images–
one can’t possess the present, but one can possess the past.”
―
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Green Darner Dragonflies Leave a comment
Green Darner Dragonflies (Sweetwater Wetlands, Tucson)– HDR Image by kenne
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Day One, 2023 Road Trip/Cruise Leave a comment
Early on the morning of May 22nd, we began our road trip/cruise by driving up to Las Vegas,
a familiar drive since we frequently go to Vegas. Since Joy gets food and room comps,
our stay in Vegas at the MGM Park, nestled between the T-Mobile Arena and New York-New York Resort.
View from our MGM Park room.
Our food and drink at the Eataly in the Park, the largest Italian marketplace with restaurants worldwide.
We always seem to order more than we can eat.
Bon Appétit
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Street Art Leave a comment
4th Avenue Street Art, Tucson — Images by kenne
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Blooming Saguaro Leave a comment
Blooming Saguaro — Image by kenne
Blooming saguaro
A clear shot with pristine light
I see these presences.
— kenne
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Desert Spiny Lizard Leave a comment
Desert Spiny (Sceloporus magister) Lizard — Image by kenne
These are medium to large lizards with snout-vent lengths ranging from 2¼ to 5¼ inches (63 to 138 mm).
These robust lizards have keeled, pointed scales. Background color is usually subdued gray, tan, or blue
with a striking wide, purple stripe down the back and single yellow scales scattered on the sides (S. magister),
or scattered turquoise scales mixed with tan and brown on the back and sides (S. clarkii). Both species have a
dark collar under or around the neck; males have vivid blue throats and under-bellies. Females develop
orange to red heads during the breeding season. — Source: Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
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Verdin Foraging 2 comments
Verdin Foraging — Image by kenne
