Above, a view from a walking path that parallels the Delaware River in Frenchtown, NJ.
Each year, Nature Photography Day is celebrated on June 15. The NANPA, North American Nature Photography Association, was founded in 1994 to bring together people who shared a passion for photographing the natural world and a belief in its conservation value.
The first Nature Photography Day was established in 2006 to celebrate the organization’s love of nature and photography.
Charlie is an outstanding bug spotter.
Rather than attack an accidental intruder, he sits nearby and watches, waiting to catch my eye. Word seems to be out among the bugs that if they can make themselves seen, I will surely take them back outside.
Charlie is definitely on board with the effort.
Unlike dogs, who, in the face of a curious bee or wasp will often snap at it or bite it, Charlie simply moves his position, waiting for me to notice the odd little dance going on between him and the six or eight-legger. If Charlie were a dog, I suspect he would be a Pointer.
What’s the song that touches you deeply – for any reason? Love, friendship, nature, animals – you name it. That one song that, when you hear it, you are always moved.
Here’s one of mine – a collaboration between two legends – pop musician, Ed Sheeran, and revered tenor, Andrea Bocelli. Truly, I love this whole video – Ed visiting Andrea in his home studio in Italy, surrounded by Bocelli’s family, and recording Perfect Symphony in both English and Italian.
The camaraderie and respect towards each other are so touching, as is Ed Sheeran’s innocent awe watching Andrea Bocelli turn Perfect into something else entirely. I always tear up when Bocelli hits certain notes, and again, when they sing together.
Music has such power to move us. How about you? Your song?
Do you have a song that moves you with only the voice or the instruments themselves? Forget the lyrics and any emotional attachment for the moment … just what you hear from a voice or instrument(s).
The vocal in this song, Epiphany, sung by Jin of BTS, is so hauntingly beautiful, that just the beginning notes set off a quickening in me and an anticipationm of tears.
The lyrics (English translation in CC), are also beautiful – a song about the importance of coming to love oneself in order to be truly able to love another. But Jin’s vocals/tone are what move me, all on their own.
Do you have a song that moves you like this?
BTS is a South Korean “boy” band of seven young men with phenomenal musical talent and a devoted global following. Their music is generally defined as K-pop, but also includes pop, hip hop, rap, and R&B.
Photo thanks: vahapdmr/Pexels @nextgrafik
“Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.”
In 2001, long before many recent books about magical libraries, Carlos Ruiz Zafón had published this book, #1 in the series, The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. It was one of my Annual Library Sale picks. It’s a long read, nearly 500 pages, and I’m just past mid-way, but it’s so beautiful in the language and the writing, I thought to share a few quotes.
“In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see here has been somebody’s best friend.”
“One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn’t have to understand something to feel it. By the time the mind is able to comprehend what has happened, the wounds of the heart are already too deep.”
“Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it’s an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day.”
“I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day.”
p.s. The title of this post, was part of a review by Stephen King.
p.p.s. (Yes, yes, I know … I should have chosen a different mug.)
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