Honeysuckle Morning

The morning comes right from heaven above, greeting us with light and hope and sweet honeysuckle love.

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Play Misty for Me

When the storm hit the other night, we huddled together as it seemed the lightning was just outside our window crackling and crumbling the trees around us. In the heat and the storms, it's easy to forget that just as night slips into light, the mist and the morning are just giving us a peak into their inviting beauty.


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Come to the Quiet

Last night, I was reminded that Sunday for me is a time of coming to the quiet and re-energizing my soul with silence. At sunset, Lake Susan in Montreat reminds us that we are joyful creatures who want to live in beauty and love. And an inner quiet. My friends, Kirk and Deby Dearman, create beautiful calming music that uplifts the soul and brings us to the space of calm and quiet (Come to the Quiet) - just like Lake Susan.

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It's Another Saturday Night!

We look for her singing - her voice is mesmerizing. Last night, she sang "Change Gonna Come." Best Version I have ever heard.

And man, another Saturday Night in Asheville - just wonderful. We ate cake at Karen Donatelli Cake Design on Haywood St just up from Malaprops. Tiramusu, cupcakes, creations to die for. Even the water is sweet. I think you come out a changed person, sweeter and happier.

It might be another Saturday, and if you ain't got nobody, we've got sweet cake and heavenly music in Asheville.  Donatelli Cake Designs


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When all You Can Do is Crawl, Smile

What is so amazing about Asheville is the people, many who came from farms and factories to become a people so strong and yet so tender.

When I was 6, my father became disabled, starting 40 years of when he said his legs felt like sticks. When I was 10, he crawled to bed - with a smile on his face. And in the morning he arose with pure joy bubbling over. 

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Waiting for You

Early morning always holds a special place in my heart. It's when the world is new and our dreams still linger in our minds. It's when anything is possible and joy and peace abound in our souls.

Here early morning is waiting for us to join and greet a new world of peace and possibility.

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The Meadow of St. James

My daughter and I want to walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela - the Way of St. James. But I think we already have. This is my father's meadow in Leicester - bright fallow fields. When Vanessa was born, we became servants, learning by washing his feet. From him, we learned humility and joy. We learned how to lose your leg and still dance in your wheelchair. We found our way just as my dad, James did.

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Summer Rose

The Secret lives of Roses. The Beauty. The Smell. The Touch. Always inviting. Just as summer is a feast for our senses, so too are roses. They abound in glorious abundance in front of the Basilica of St. Lawrence downtown.

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Havana Nights

Wonderful thing about Asheville now is that you have the world at your fingertips - Havana, Jerusalem, Thailand, but we're still in the same beautiful place we grew up in. There's nothing better than the reflection of lights from the colorful windows. And music. And the streak of car lights. I know I'm not in Havana, but the other day when I passed by, I saw Havana's owner, I think, on the street corner laughing and talking to a hot dog car vendor. For a moment, I felt like I was in Havana.

Bells of the Basilica

Sometimes when we are deep in our grief and thoughts, there's a reminder that hope exists. Last night, I was sitting on my porch totally exhausted from disturbing news, and I heard the bells of The Basilica of St. Lawrence. It was a reminder that all is well with my soul.


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The Wow of Clouds

Transcendence is supposed to be this big event, perhaps occurring in meditation or in some ashram. But for me the most amazing moments happen sitting on the porch or walking out of Ingles. Last night, we walked out of the Ingles on Tunnel Road and this display of beauty in color and light took my breath away.

Too often I have squandered the beauty of nature - either totally ignoring it or treating it like a backdrop to my life. But doesn't nature ignore me? And even if I exist for nature, am I not secondary to its mighty show of glory and force. If I drink in Nature, I feel peace, sometimes distress, sometimes indescribable joy but always alive.

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Looking Glass Waterfalls, Majestic Joy

Looking Glass Falls, in our backyards, was created to manifest glory and Joy.

It's like a reflection of our souls, joy and light pouring out. I am reminded of the song "This Little Light of Mine." Odette did a wonderful version in which she recites Marianne Williamson's poem, "Our Deepest Fear." In it, we are reminded that  "We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone." 

When I saw Looking  Glass Falls, I had a momentary pang of fear. That I am playing small.

                               Your playing small does not serve the world.
                               There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
                               so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
                               We are all meant to shine, as children do.

As, the poem says, we are all bright shining lights of joy, just like Looking Glass Falls, right in our backyard.

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Asheville Skyline from Grove Park Inn

I love visiting the Grove Park Inn and seeing the huge fireplaces, listening to the live music and looking at photographs on the wall of all the famous people who have visited here over the past 100 years. One of my fondest memories is of taking my father on year just before Thanksgiving to see the Ginger Bread Houses, he in a wheelchair. But the irony is that my favorite part of the Grove Park Inn what encircles it. It is the skyline of Asheville and all the mountains that circle our peaceful valley. While in earshot of all the hustle and bustle of the patrons eating and laughing on the patio, you can separate yourself off and drink in the beauty of nature and the vision of man.

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Vance Monument at Night

Asheville on Friday - a huge party. But this was taken early one morning just before 5am, my favorite hour when all is quiet and still before the world wakes up, the hour before the birds sing, when the blackness of the night seeps into your soul, giving you peace and the air just barely wakes up, refreshing you for another day.

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Waiting for the Night

From the yellow house to the side porch, at night, there's a sense of longing and waiting. There's nothing like sitting on your porch at night, watching fireflies and feeling the darkness as if it were a being, an old friend, comforting and peaceful.

This one was taken a while and I had another picture in mind, but an overwhelming urge to put this one on took over. Tomorrow is the girl's 13th birthday and there's a sense of her waiting - impatiently and brooding.


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You Can Go Home Again

It's funny how life goes. As a kid, I remember reading Thomas Wolfe and being told by my parents about places mentioned in the book. Some that had changed, some that were gone, and some that were exactly the same. When I came back to Asheville after many years away, it snowed. I stood at the intersection of Carrier and Salola just a block from Rumbough where the park is and I listened to the quiet. Gone was my grandmother and my grandfather at 94 had just had to move from his house. Now 15 years later, parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles have gone on.

But you can come home again. The intoxicating smells are there, the comforting quiet of an early morning at home and old and new memories waiting.

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In the Valley of Love and Delight

Every morning as we got ready to go to school, I saw these two chairs and trees with a backyard that invited me in. I photographed it at different times of the morning to get the light right. Whenever I saw the two chairs beckoning me, I was transcended. To what I don't know. Maybe it's that lingering memory of my grandparents, born in 1902 and 1903, both sitting in their backyard together, he in is railroad overalls and her in a housedress and straw hat. They sat in lawn chairs together.

The story is that my grandfather was one of nine children who lived way out in Franklin and one day he laid down his hoe and started walking to Detroit. To join all the boys who migrated to make cars when cars were new. But he couldn't stay away. One day when back home he saw my grandmother, a woman with big bushy hair. He fell for her and eventually took her back with him to Detroit. My mother was born there but not long after they settled back home, in Asheville on Salola Street where they lived for 50 years.

These two chairs carry me back to a memory of a backyard where I saw my grandparents evening after evening for many years.

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