Cherry blossom season in Japan by Hisa
First sakura shot this year🌸
I don't regret the people I lost over time, but I regret the time I wasted with certain people, because people didn't belong to me, the years did.
— Carl Gustave Jung
BREAKING NEWS
a bird’s nest
unscathed
by a storm of cherry blossoms
-Basho
“Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world.”
— Pema Chodron
Deep Sleep
Ann Lewis, b. 1962
Lino cut, 1994; 14 x 40 cm
A peaceful sleep I wish for thee
Where cares and worries cease to be.
The mural is an example of “edicole votive,” small shrines or religious images found in public spaces in Italy, often intended for prayer and protection. The Feast of the Annunciation is celebrated on March 25th.
The votive image is a copy of a masterpiece by Orazio Gentileschi.
Courtship.
Great blue herons / garza morena (Ardea herodias) at San Pedro House, in Cochise County, Arizona.
For about an hour this morning I watched the male heron gather and deliver sticks for his mate. She would examine each offering, and if it met with her approval she would add it to their growing nest in the top of a forty-foot tall cottonwood.
Herons return to this same tree on the bank of the San Pedro River each year, and the remnants of previous year's nests are still clinging to the branches.
The female was apparently pleased with his gifts, and after some ritual bill clappering and feather fluffing and bowing they mated. These rituals reinforce their pair bond. Great blues are (mostly) monogamous for the duration of breeding season. They will share duties for brooding and rearing their young, but will select new partners in future years.
