Marcia’s Meanderings – Faith & Hope

Welcome to the New Year of 2010. It certainly is already proving out to be an amazing one for many. May it be so for you as well, dear reader!

At the beginning of each new year I go through my notes from the year previous – reviewing the best of the best and putting sticky arrows on pages worthy of a relook in the coming weeks. It seems 2009 was a record breaker for me with the number of poems written in a single 12 month period. Plus there were several sections of my journals (filled 4 since this time last year) that have what appear to be quality ideas for descriptive phrases I may use in upcoming short stories or my next novel.

However, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself as I have a current novel – my first – that is in its second draft and that I hope to have in print by June of this year. In addition to my time writing here at M&M’s Musings, my commitment to myself and my Self is this novel’s completion. What a joyous journey it has been and continues to be! I have such faith in the realization of this dream manifesting before 2010 is even half over.

Faith has to do with things not seen, and hope with things not in hand. ~ St. Thomas Aquinas

The topic for today’s meanderings is simple – Faith and Hope. (Notice I left out the Trust? That’s a topic on its own for another day.) I’ve already used both words in the writings above: I hope to have my book in print by June; I have such faith in the realization of this dream. To some it sounds like I’m referring to the same thing, merely phrasing it differently. Yet there is a remarkable difference in the two. The hope is to have the novel in book form in my hand so I and others can read it. The faith is in the unknown factor behind the scenes.

Continue Reading →

He Says, She Says…

Greetings:  Well, we’re now into our second month of having our blog site, of being ‘citizen journalists’, and this process has opened many different doors for us both.  With that in mind we thought we’d tackle the idea of what this means to each of us, taking on the subject of ‘Social Networking’.

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

Telling Tales – New Year’s Eve

Last night we caught the bus downtown as we wanted to be near the water. There’s one place in town that’s on our ‘dream list’ and we went there first. It was raining yesterday, but although we brought our umbrellas with us the rain stayed away. The sky was a blanket of cloud however, and Marcia said, “It would be nice to see the Grandmother tonight.” Well, where we were going there’s a bench and we sat down there and looked over at our ‘home’… All of a sudden the sky cleared in a circle around the moon and she shone down bright and beautiful and directly over our home. The clouds were like veils of mist coalescing around her, but there were also rainbows from the light shining down. It was the only clear patch in anotherwise cloudy sky. We both sat there going, “Wow…”, glued to our seats.

A little later on we were walking down by the docks and we were met by this beautiful long-haired orange and white cat. He wouldn’t let us approach him at first, but he was quite content to be our guide as we followed the path around the harbour. At first it was quite a treat to have him as our guide, but we began to grow concerned the farther we went as he showed no signs of going back home. As we walked, he walked, sometimes in front, sometimes beside, sometimes trailing behind but always keeping pace. He walked about 1 1/2 km with us, and nothing we said would dissuade him, even though he was getting farther and farther from his ‘home’. If we sat, he sat beside us, even gaining some lap space at one point. We finally read his tag – AZAN – and called the phone number on the tag, but being New Year’s Eve there was nobody home. When we reached a busy street his fear overcame him and he would go no farther. We kept going north, and after a bit of hesitation he began to follow another couple walking back the way we had come. We trust he made his way home safely. We finished our night down at the water, each holding a candle, lit from a place of peace within us.

Love,
Mike.

Being Green Update – Water

Hi Folks:

First of all, for everyone following the Gregorian calendar, Happy New Year!! We wish you and those close to you a 2010 filled with as much health, happiness, peace and prosperity as you can handle!

Okay, I wanted to talk a bit about water this week. As the expression goes, “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.” We tend to take water for granted; most of this little blue marble of ours is covered with water, and water makes up some 55-78% of our bodies depending on size, sex and age. We use water daily for drinking, for cooking, for cleaning, for waste removal, and for so many things that we don’t often consider that all of the water that comes out of the tap must be collected, transported, treated… and there is a similar ‘stream’ of actions must be taken for water that pours down our drains.

Continue Reading →

Bears On the Loose!

Hi Folks:

We heard through the grapevine that the Sidney Museum was being overrun with ‘bears’, so yesterday we had to go and see for ourselves.  The museum is located on Beacon Avenue in Sidney in the ‘Town Centre’ building, down in the lower level.  We walked in, flashed a badge and informed the gentleman sitting at the front desk that we were from the ‘Teddy Bear Squad’ and had received a report that they were being taken over by bears.  Having ascertained our qualifications, he ushered us right in.  Turned out it was just as we had suspected…

Teddy Bear Squad

Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month

Hi Folks:  As I mentioned back in November, I thought  I’d dedicate the last day of each month to a ‘Photo of the Month’ page.  This has been a very busy month of writing and posting and holidays and family and… but I have managed to make a few photographs.  I’ve made more photographs this month than I’ve had a chance to run through Lightroom; truth be told I’m still processing LAST month’s images, but anyway.  Of the photographs I have processed, I had a few choices I was happy with.  But of all of the images I’ve made this month I wanted to dedicate this month’s ‘Photo of the Month’ page to an idea more than a specific photograph.  It’s a project idea I’ve been playing with for a few years now but never got around to… yeah, one of those.  This particular project I call ‘Leaf Shadows’.  When the leaves fall from the trees in the autumn, they cover the ground and line our streets and some of them at least fall on our sidewalks.  I’ve found that in the right conditions (I’ve asked, but Mother Nature isn’t sharing Her secrets), the rain leaches the tannins out of the leaves and ‘leaves’ behind an imprint of the leaf on the concrete.  I was out Christmas shopping in Langford a few days before Christmas and came across some wonderful impressions.  All I had with me was my walk-around camera, a Fuji FinePix S1500fd, and I didn’t have my tripod, but I made a few shots anyway.  I think they cover the concept pretty well, and I’ll take a more serious look at this idea, maybe next autumn.  Fortunately this whole leaves falling from the trees thing happens every year!  I’m going to post three of the images I made that day.  Of the three, the last one’s my favourite.  Different people see different things in them.  Are they in clouds?  Are they skeletons of leaves left behind? Are they stories unto themselves?  You decide…

Mike.

(click on the images for a larger view)

Poetry Corner – moving into 2010

Dear Ones,

Last week’s Poetry Corner honoured women poets and their Christmas poems. This week, so close to New Year’s Eve, I thought to offer the same honour to the male poet counterparts. Alas, there were such sad, depressing and angry poems written by the men that I had a hard time finding any poems at all that resonated with optimism and the love of the past year going and expressing excited potential of the year newly to arrive. All, that is, but the one I’ve recorded below by Robert W. Service – whose last stanza fit the very mood I hoped to create as the baton of love changes hands to another year of possibility:

The Passing of the Year

 

by Robert W. Service
Jan. 16, 1874 – Sept. 11, 1958

 
My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,
My den is all a cosy glow;
And snug before the fire I sit,
And wait to feel the old year go.
I dedicate to solemn thought
Amid my too-unthinking days,
This sober moment, sadly fraught
With much of blame, with little praise.

Old Year! upon the Stage of Time
You stand to bow your last adieu;
A moment, and the prompter’s chime
Will ring the curtain down on you.
Your mien is sad, your step is slow;
You falter as a Sage in pain;
Yet turn, Old Year, before you go,
And face your audience again.

That sphinx-like face, remote, austere,
Let us all read, whate’er the cost:
O Maiden! why that bitter tear?
Is it for dear one you have lost?
Is it for fond illusion gone?
For trusted lover proved untrue?
O sweet girl-face, so sad, so wan
What hath the Old Year meant to you?

And you, O neighbour on my right
So sleek, so prosperously clad!
What see you in that aged wight
That makes your smile so gay and glad?
What opportunity unmissed?
What golden gain, what pride of place?
What splendid hope?  O Optimist!
What read you in that withered face?

And You, deep shrinking in the gloom,
What find you in that filmy gaze?
What menace of a tragic doom?
What dark, condemning yesterdays?
What urge to crime, what evil done?
What cold, confronting shape of fear?
O haggard, haunted, hidden One
What see you in the dying year?

And so from face to face I flit,
The countless eyes that stare and stare;
Some are with approbation lit,
And some are shadowed with despair.
Some show a smile and some a frown;
Some joy and hope, some pain and woe:
Enough!  Oh, ring the curtain down!
Old weary year! it’s time to go.

My pipe is out, my glass is dry;
My fire is almost ashes too;
But once again, before you go,
And I prepare to meet the New:
Old Year! a parting word that’s true,
For we’ve been comrades, you and I —
I thank God for each day of you;
There! bless you now!  Old Year, good-bye!

 

And since this is my blog spot I get to choose one final poem of the year. One of my own, commemorating the departure of the old year and the honouring of the new:

Ode to New Year’s Day

by Marcia Mae Nelson Pedde

Today we smile in celebration of the new
Let go the past to better see the future view
Behold what can be, shall be, will
Emblazoned by desire beating still
And fearing failure never more
Stepping boldly through the door
Into the realm of quantum realm
Perfection

Happy New Year Everyone.

May you bring to 2010 every opportunity for the most amazing year … filled to overflowing with not merely the potential but the realization of dreams come true. Allow in all that is good. Live your highest excitement each and every moment of your day. Laugh and love and play and create. Be the best you in all your precious moments.

In Light & Laughter & Love,

Marcia

Mike’s Writings V

Hi There:

Please click this link first.  I’ll wait.

Welcome back.  I’ve had several new ideas come to me lately, but I haven’t yet taken the time to write them down.  I wanted to add in some more information from last year because often when I read stuff from ‘Future Me‘ I find that what I’m writing about now is very similar to things I wrote a year ago.  Sometimes I get upset at that because I feel that I’m still going over the same ground over and over again and not getting anywhere, but other times I figure that I’m now looking at these issues from an entirely new perspective.  As Tom Brown Jr. says, it’s important not to get caught in the rut of ‘the same old thing’.  So, in my recent writings I’ve been writing a lot about joy and experiencing life as joy, and when I look back a year I see that I was writing about joy then too.  Each time I approach this it seems like a new discovery.  Maybe it is…

Love,
Mike.
Continue Reading →

Marcia’s Meanderings

Well, seems Marcia’s mind is meandering all over the place today. However, my heart is focused on what we Islanders call the ‘mainland’ – the lower westernmost main land of the province of British Columbia, Canada. Living on Vancouver Island as I do – in Victoria at the southern tip – going to the mainland is a big event. There’s a fabulous 1 ½ hour ferry ride over the ocean and between the gorgeous and diverse smaller Gulf Islands of the Juan de Fuca Strait – the Salish Sea. The day is cool, bright and sunny. Perfect!

The highest joy of my day will be the time spent with my hubbie, sons, daughter-in-law and our 19 month old grandson. This is to be our family Christmas together. We have chosen not to exchange gifts – it is the time together that is important to us all. That time adds a richness to our lives that sustains us till our next gathering.

Though I am usually rather chatty here, this is all you’ll read from me today. Succinct. Love that word! Means concise and to the point. Short and snappy. Brief. Even pithy. Pithy, now there’s a word to use before the end of a year. Okay, so the wordsmith in me has risen!!!!!

Come join me here next week. I’ll be posting more meanderings through the 52 weeks of the new year.

Have a terrific last week of 2009, folks. Be good to yourselves in 2010. You are so very worth it!

In Light & Laughter & Love,

Marcia

He Says, She Says…

We have been thoroughly enjoying the process and unfolding of this blog site these past two months of 2009.  And so, with great excitement, we are looking forward to the growth, the potential and the inspirational development of ourselves (both individually and as a couple) as well as that of our blog site through 2010. It will be fun to have you journey along with us!

With that in mind, we thought we’d share our thoughts on the ‘New Year

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View