IN THE JANUARY DUSK...

"There's a special quality to the loneliness of the dusk, a melancholy more brooding even than the night's..."-Ed Gorman

"The whisper of the dusk is the night shedding its husk..."

-Dean Koontz

                           "Dusk is an illusion..." -Nicholas Sparks

"Dance with me. Dance with me into the colours of the dusk..."

                                                                      -Ben Harper

                       "....dusk is the time..." -Simon Raven

"Let me bathe my soul in colours.Let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow..." -Khalil Gabrin

"Out of the dusk, a shadow..." -John B. Tabb

"Already there is dusk, instead of darkness at five in the afternoon. Already hope is stirring at the edges of the day..." 

- Kathleen Noris

"There is no dusk to be. There is no dawn that was. Only there's now, and now, and the wind in the grass..." -A. MacLeish

"I came home in the dusk, with my ears ringing in the quiet..." 

-Tim Winton

"Watching the day slowly bloom into night..."-Patricia A. McKillip

"Contrary to the general belief about photography, you don't need bright sunlight: the best moodiest pictures are taken in the dim light of almost dusk, or of rainy days." -Jack Kerouac

"This is my favourite time of day. Light and dark touch for a few moments...." -R. McBride

"There was a filmy veil of soft, dull mist obscuring, but not hiding, all objects, giving them a lilac hue..." -Elizabeth Gaskell

"Every moment of this strange and lovely life from dawn to dusk, is a miracle. Somewhere, always a rose is opening its petals to the dawn. Somewhere, always, a flower is fading in the dusk." -Beverly Nichols

Photographs 2026

 

NEW YEAR CHIMES...

"A new heart for a New Year, always!"

                                                 -Charles Dickens, "The Chimes"  published December 1844

"The Chimes are ringing in the New Year. Hear them!" 

"Had he ( Trotty) dreamed? Or, are his joys and sorrows, and the actors in them, but a dream...

...himself a dream; the teller of this tale a dreamer, waking but now?

If it be so, O listener, dear to him in all his visions, try to bear in mind the stern realities from which these shadows come...

and in your sphere, none is too wide, and none too limited for such an end...

endeavour to correct, improve, and soften them...

So may the New Year be a happy one to you...

happy to many more whose happiness depends on you!

So may each year be happier than the last!"

"They WERE ringing! Bless their sturdy hearts."

"Great Bells they were; melodious, deep-mouthed, noble Bells!" 

"Some new remembrance of the ghostly figures in the Bells; some faint impression of the ringing of the Chimes."

"the Bells, the old familiar Bells, his own dear, constant friends, the Chimes, began to ring the joy...peals for a New Year..."

Photographs 2026.  Quotes from 1844 " The Chimes" by Charles Dickens

 

IT'S NOT THAT FAR ( Christmas 2025)

“We’re not that far from Bethlehem. where all our hope and joy began. For when our hearts still cherish Him, we’re not that far….”

                                                            -Point of Grace

That night I walked with them.

When rain turned to snow, then back to rain.

 I hurried. And worried. I led them, preferring a warm fire to the gloom. 

  

It was beyond midnight. In the silent hours, when the city slumbered.

I heard their footfalls, behind me. They struggled to match my hurried steps. How did I end up here? Tonight.   

 Fading streetlights, showed our way.  They slowed, when we paused at the corner.

I sighed into the endless shadows. I could be anywhere but here.

“Is it far?” they asked. 

            I stepped into the sole light on the street.  Rain switched to snow once more. She reached for my hand.

And then I knew. At last, in that instant. On that deserted road. 

I Knew.

“No, it’s not far. We’re almost there,” I managed to say.

“Lead on,” she whispered wearily.

                                          

 So, I went before them that night.

Till we reached the place, when rain turned to snow and then to 

nothing, then to stars. 

There were no words.  They vanished into the depths, beyond my sight. 

It was where they longed to be.

                                                  

And as for me.....…I waited in the stillness. Only one light remained. 

Over the place we came to. It shone like a thousand suns.

The night was old. It waned into morning. A morning that was new .

But I was not weary. It had not been far.

                                                 

And Others came, while I kept watch.  

            

There was joy. There was no darkness. Only light.

That wonderful night of nights, when the world was born once more….….

"Once in our world, a stable had something bigger in it that was bigger than our whole world..." -C.S. Lewis

Photographs 2025 Campbell River, B.C. Canada    (Merry Christmas)

      "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given..." -Isaiah 9:6-7