I photographed this yellow wild flower taking a stroll through the woods of Mertztown, Pennsylvania.

Boise is a valley surrounded by desert, my fear of snakes and lizards has pretty much deterred me from venturing out into the desert but I found a set of ba... and decided to head out. I was astonished of the beauty that the desert had to offer. The wild flowers were cool and the view of the surrounding foothills was great.

All those years of self control...of self punishment and mutilation had not been able to stop her from wringing her little Sophie's delicate neck. How she had been scared for her mother. Little Sophie, even while struggling to gulp her last breath, had looked into Aurora's eyes, into her mother's eyes and been scared for her. She was scared her mother was turning into a monster everyone would be scared of.

Aurora winced as a sigh crept from the eerie depths of her tainted soul. She had brutally murdered her last ray of hope. Sophie was supposed to be her key to salvation, her ultimate chance for redemption. And now she had lost that too.

That one night had changed everything. The night when Jonathan had breathed his last. Jonathan, the love of her life. The man who had made Aurora's every dream possible. The man she had loved with all her heart, had died. She had learnt to live without him. She had learnt to live without his memory.

But tonight, it all came rushing back. The night was back. The same night when she held the dead body of another loved one was in front of her again...bringing with it an uneasy sense of déjà vu. It was happening all over again. The night was back to haunt her.

I found this lovely patch of them near our local lake as I was driving around trying to get my baby to sleep and at the same time, looking for something to shoot.  I lucked out when I saw this... Actually, I don't believe it was luck.  God sure has a way of sending you little and big blessings each day, and I believe this was a blessing.

The lighting at the moment was amazing as it filtered through the trees.  I couldn't have been happier for the nap time that my baby was demanding and for the sleep that she fell in while I came upon these flowers.

When I was about to turn thirteen, my name sake also my Great Aunt, had planned a really neat birthday surprise for me, a flight back East to Virginia where she lives and then we were to travel down to North Carolina where we would spend the week in a beach house.

This would be the first long flight I would take by myself and the first time I'd be that far from home.

My Mom told me, before I left, that God will give me tiny blessings each day to remember Him and that I better make sure to have my eyes open and ready to see what He had planned.

It could be a Cardinal bird sighting...

Or a small flower.

Be sure you keep your eyes watchful for what God wants to show you.  There are tiny blessings everywhere, and I believe I came across a big one today.

Rock sucio, agresivo, sin florituras, directo y cañero: que maravilla.

It's the simple things in life. . .

Daisy in the lawn.

26 April 2008, originally uploaded by Chalkhills Collective.

Trifolium stellatus, originally uploaded by olaf gunderson.

Trifolium stellatus
Flores silvestres
Wild flowers
Wildlife

[i wanna have this dress]

This photo was taken along the WAA-line and shows a field of Annual Yellowtops. Although by no means very special or scarce, their sheer numbers make them very pretty and their yellow colours go very well with the red sand and blue sky.

(Please, click here or on the photo to see more photos of this location)

The good thing about going so slow is that you have ample time to enjoy the wildflower!

There is a path that stretched beyond our suburban town home. A seemingly boring path that was usually traveled by dog walkers and the occasional mom with a stroller. I could only see part of the path from our living room window, and never thought much about traveling down it. One day, while going through a particularly rough patch of depression, I decided to go walk and take the camera. To my delight I came upon a meadow of daisy's, but what inspired me that day was the sign that announced them. "Wild flower meadow in progress." That little sign in the meadow of flowers gave me a tremendous amount of hope in that moment. Despite all that I thought was going wrong in my life, I realized that I was just like that meadow, wild and in progress. And just like that meadow, I was something beautiful, even when still in progress. Every time I need to be reminded that life is beautiful, I stare at that picture and remember that I'm "in progress" and that above all, to be wild is to be beautiful.

Op de deur van mijn studentenkamer hang een poster van Billy Duffy die, als een eigentijdse Keith Moon, z'n gitaar een zwengel geeft. Welkom in het einde van jaren tachtig. Hardrock is op z'n retour. Grunge zal het genre uiteindelijk de nekslag geven. Zover is het nog niet. The Cult maakt met Sonic Temple het album waarmee de Britse band rond zanger Ian Ashbury en gitarist Billy Duffy doorbreekt op het Europese vasteland. Goed album, erg goed zelfs. Maar The Cult is over z'n hoogtepunt heen.

De geschiedenis van de band is aardig gedocumenteerd door All Music. De essentie ontbreekt er echter. Iets meer informatie is te vinden op de wiki-pagina van de band. Waar ik op doel? De befaamde Manor Sessions die uiteindelijk leiden tot Electric, één van de beste ongecompliceerde rockalbums ooit. Al tijdens de opnamen is er gedonder. Ashbury en Duffy hebben het niet meer zo op de new wave-sound van producer Steve Brown. Waarom ze de goede man hebben gevraagd is een raadsel. Hij staat immers garant voor de productie van Love. En das toch het waverock-album bij uitstek. Ook goede plaat, overigens.

Uiteindelijk produceert Rick Rubin Electric. De opnamen van Brown - werktitel: Peace - komen pas op de Rare Cult-box uit 2000 te staan. Wie Electric naast Peace legt, weet meteen wat Ashbury en Duffy destijds in '86 bedoelden. Electric is een proto-rockalbum dat de beste grooves uit de popgeschiedenis bij elkaar brengt. Op de werkelijk waardeloze cover van Steppenwolfs Born To Be Wild na, overigens.

Alles klopt aan Electric. De stoer, simpele gitaarriffs die de nummers dragen, de eveneens oersimpele maar effectieve baslijnen en de geweldige zang van Ashbury. Natuurlijk, in tegenstelling tot Love heeft Electric helemaal niets vernieuwends. De plaat is een lofzang van twee kanten op eenvoud, rockclichés en de kracht van het verleden. Waarom moeilijk doen als het makkelijk kan? Mooiste moment van het album? Zonder twijfel het gitaarriff van King Contrary Man. Is er zo eentje als dat van Back in Black van AC/DC. Pure magie.

Daarna gaat het mis. Ashbury hervindt zijn Indiaanse roots en ontslaat de halve band. Sonic Temple is een goed, maar ook wat laf album. Het toont een emotionele Ashbury die vol overgave over revolutie zingt of onder begeleiding van heuse strijkers zijn liefde betuigt voor een mooi meisje dat Edie heet. Dat is godverdomme niet de stoere rockster die als een wolf naar de wilde, paaldansende vrouw van zijn lusten huilt. Maar die poster van Sonic Temple? Dat is en blijft pure magie.

Goed, om het af te leren onder elkaar: Wild Flower (dat riff, godverdomme zeg...), Edie, Ciao Baby (Ashbury als emotioneel wrak, maar wat een geweldige solo) en Rain (een oudje van Love, ook geweldig overigens met ook een beetje jankerige Ashbury).