HOLD out your HANDS...

"Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all..." 

-Helen Keller 1880-1968

(The Open Door)

Excerpt writings from "The Faith of Helen Keller" edited by Jack Belck

Hold out your hands to feel the luxury of the sunbeams.

Press the soft blossoms against your cheek, and finger their graces of form,

their delicate mutability of shape, their pliancy and freshness.

Expose your face to the aerial floods that sweep the heavens,

inhale great draughts of space, wonder, wonder at the wind's unwearied activity.

Pile note on note, the infinite music that flows increasingly to your soul

from the tactual sonorities of a thousand branches and rumbling waters.

I am sure that if a fairy bade me choose 

between the sense of sight and touch,

I would not part with the warm, endearing contact 

.....of human hands..... 

or the wealth of form,

the mobility and fullness....

that press into my palms.....

"Even more amazing than the wonders of nature are the posers of the spirit..." -Helen Keller 

Photographs 2025

 

OCEAN...

 “The waves of the sea, help me get back to me…” -Jill Davis

I remember those days, when  the ocean crackled over our feet,

pulling us down, down, down.....

Building castles along the shore.

Telling magical stories of imaginary sea monsters.....

..........splashing thru warm tide pools

Wondering where the mermaids were hiding.

Did they use sea urchins to comb their seaweed hair?

We sang silly  songs, standing on the edge of the abyss

Lapping at our bare feet.

Flinging froth at seagulls  flying languidly into the wind.

We breathed salt from the sea. Dreamed our childish dreams.

Skipped rocks. Chased surf bubbles along the sand.

Then collapsed  in a heap of kelp  

To watch the little  Sandpipers strut their stuff.

I remember sitting  quietly  on wind worn logs.

All those things...... 

when the sea calls my name again

And lo and behold, we’re children once more,

Wading in the water

Listening to it crackle like fire over the stones......

Photographs 2025  

  Tyee Spit, Discovery Passage, Quadra Island, Campbell River, B,C,

 

Mt. WASHINGTON RANGE MAR 17, 2025

"Wherever we go in the mountains, we find more than we seek..." 

                                                                            -John Muir

"What we get from this adventure is sheer joy...." -George Leigh Mallory

"Happiness is like the mountain summit.  It is sometimes hidden by  clouds, but we know it is there.." - Helen Keller

"I gave my heart to the mountains...."- Wallace Stegnor

"When the sun is shining, I can do anything. No mountain is too high. No trouble too difficult to overcome..." -Wilma Rudolph

Mount Washington Range from  our house on the hill.......

"It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out; it's the grain of sand in your shoe.." -Robert Service

"The water which rises in the mountains, is the blood that keeps the mountain in life..." - Leonardo da Vinci

"These mountains, which have seen untold sunrises, long to thunder praise but stand reverent. Silent, so that our weak praise should be given God's attention..." - Donald Miller

"Oh God! that one might read the book of fate, And see the revolution of the times Make mountains level, and the continent, Weary of solid firmness, melt itself Into the sea..." -Shakespeare

"Range after range of mountains. Year after year. I am still in love with them...." -Gary Snyder

"Oh, hear Him within you speaking this infinite love, lifting the sky of the soul......spreading the mountains with flame, filling the hollows with Heaven..." - Jessica Powers

                       "A mountain ..." -Walter Bonatti

                                          "And the wilderness of it all.. " -Deny King

"One may walk over the highest mountain, one step at a time..." 

                                                                                                                 - John Wanamaker

"So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar, But bind him to his native mountains more..." -Oliver Goldsmith

"This faith can move mountains...." -Norman Vincent Peale

"Let the wind course over us till we become beautiful..." -Mian Mian

 Photographs 2025  Vancouver Island ranges,Mt Washington Range,  B.C.as seen from Campbell River, B.C.