Halloween Film Countdown #25... The Changeling

 

“Just because something cannot be seen with one’s

 physical eyes does not mean it does not exist.”

 
~Megan Mary,

  The Dream Haunters

 

Questions to ponder...

 

Do you believe in ghosts?

 

Do you believe in the supernatural in general?'

 

Do you believe believe that ghosts are merely the manifestations of unfinished business for the living and, perhaps, the dead?

 

Are ghosts merely the memories we carry with us?

 

Are ghosts regrets, which we cannot allow to heal? 

 

Are ghosts the inability to let accept loss after grief occurs? 

 

What are ghosts?

 

 The movie, The Changeling, will make you ponder the bigger questions of the supernatural, while absolutely scaring the heck out of you! I went with friends to see this movie, all the way back in 1981, and as I said then, I will say now, it's one of the best ghost stories I have ever seen. 

 

Watch it, and ponder, but not alone!

 

The Essence Of Autumn

"Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind.

 Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks.

 And their roots give names to all things.

Their language has been lost.

But not the gestures."

~Vera Nazarian

The Perpetual Calendar Of Inspiration

I have a pair of favorite trees. They are in the tiny park of Cull Canyon in Castro Valley, California. I have documented them each autumn for the last 10 years, long before I began posted my autumn albums. When I lived in the East Bay, I would visit them from time to time, usually in the autumn, but in the summer months as well. I would pack a lunch, and a few cameras and I was on my way. I can't even count the number of leaves I have photographed under those trees, most of which didn't make it into by albums, but are still in my files all the same.

On September 16th, of this year, I took my first jaunt down to Cull Canyon, just to see how my trees were doing, and if they had begun to show their beautiful colors. Liquid Amber produces some of the most beautiful colors in autumn, and they really give Ginkgo and Sugar Maples a run for their money in dazzling cinnamon and deep purple colors! Unfortunately, as I turned the corner that leads into the park my heart just sank! It seems one of the trees had apparently died over the summer, and instead of the beautiful colors of autumn, there were only dry brown leaves and some ugly green moss left on it's brittle grey branches!

Last year, almost to the same date, that tree looked like this...

... and I continued to photograph it well into January, as the last of autumn faded away. By that time, there were about a million or so leaves under that tree, well, maybe not a million, but there were so many that I wished I had more time to visit, because I could have photographed every individual leaf! They were absolutely stunning! It makes me incredibly sad to think I won't see this tree continue to grow, or the colors that it would have produced this year! No tree should ever die... right? But the conflict is, ironically, also the very concept of autumn. 

The sweet, delicious, passing of yet another year of life, and I see the beauty in that death, and I also mourn that same death, when the last leaf falls, and the air turns to the bitter cold winter. Life has it's seasons, and time passes, and so passes even the most vibrant beings... sometimes well before we are ready to let go, but in it's own time. I will miss my beautiful tree, but it's older, bigger brother still thrives on, like a vibrant, feisty old friend, so I will continue to photograph his progress, and be glad to know it's beauty shines on!

The Leaf Of The Day

September 16th 2017

Cull Canyon, Castro Valley, California

 Mood: Sad

~Me

50 Watts

"I travel light. But not at the same speed."

~Jarod Kintz, The Days Of Yay Are Here! Wake Me Up When They're Over.

Dim.

Dim like a burned out light bulb, or dim like a 50 watt bulb?

The question was certainly a poser!

Wait, wait, wait... let me think. Dim like a 50 watt bulb, but you have to understand, if I were one of my really cool, really decorative and trendy purple lamps, well they are actually more of an eggplant color, I would require a 100 watt bulb to work properly. I could take a 50 watt bulb, but there wouldn't be the maximum output of light you would be used to. No. I would cast a much dimmer light. And the light wouldn't go as far into the room. You wouldn't want to read by me, but if you were needing to surf the Interwebs on your laptop computer machine, and you needed a little bit of light to see by, I would probably work out ok.

That's how the conversation went. I was describing what it feels like to experience a case of Fibro-Fog. In case you don't know what that is, it is what those who are diagnosed with Fibromyalgia feel like when they will go to say a word, and something completely different comes out. Like, for example, if I were having a conversation with a friend and they asked what the best utensil for flipping pancakes would be, most people would say a spatula, where I might say a ladle. Even when I am thinking about the word I want to say, and picturing a spatula in my head, somehow, and I have NO idea how, it will come out ladle. But hey, at least I thought of a word on that occasion, sometimes I will be thinking of a word, and again picturing the object in my head, and nothing will come out. No word. Can't do it. Can't think of the word! LOL.

Fun.

Never dull.

Frustrating as HELL!

And yes, I even laugh at it sometimes! LOL. What else can you do? It is what it is. It's all good!

I am much more of a visual person anyway. I will just let my pictures tell the story, in any words the viewer chooses. I like it better that way I think. My photographs tell a much better story than I ever could!

;)

Mood: Happy

~Me :)

Watching The Tree

"People in suburbia see trees differently than foresters do. They cherish every one. It us useless to speak of the probability that a certain tree will die when the tree is in someones backyard. You are talking about a personal asset, a friend, a monument, not about board feet of lumber."

-Roger Swain

I think I have already fallen in love with this tree. It is so pretty. I found it in my new favorite haunt, Tilden Park, in the Padre picnic area. Last year I found an absolutely gorgeous tree in Cull Canyon, and I tracked it's progress through most of the winter. Autumn in California, didn't seem to end in December. The Cull Canyon tree had autumn leaves well into March. It was like autumn had somehow refused to give up. On one hand, I found it so soothing to be able to take a short drive to the canyon, and be instantly near my favorite season, especially just after the first of the year, when nothing seemed like it was going right. I went there often, to get away from my own thoughts, and to get lost in my photography. Before I knew it, spring had arrived, and the last of those autumn leaves had finally fallen.

I can't believe 2007 has moved as fast as it has, considering how January never seemed to end. I was really sad when 2007 began, and now, despite everything that has happened this year, I am feeling very nearly back to normal. Sometimes, when your heart is so broken it is in shards, you really do just need to stop looking at how long it is taking to heal, and just focus on each day just as it comes, with no expectations. Earlier this year I talked a little about how much I had hated this year, and how I wouldn't miss it when the new year comes, but now I can look back, and I see all that pain with such clarity. Like when you have cried and cried, and then when you are all cried out, and you take a deep breath, and suddenly... you just feel relieved. Yes, that is my mindset now. Relieved. Grief has 5 stages, Denial, Bargaining, Sadness, Anger, and finally... Acceptance. The nice thing about acceptance, is that it is what lasts forever, not the sadness.

My 2006 Trees

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity, and some see scarce see nature at ll. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself."

-William Blake, 1779, The Letters

-OndineMonet
Cull Canyon Park/Tilden Park
Castro Valley/Berkeley
Late Autumn/Early Winter 2006