 Last week was a week of more senseless horrors (as we approach Halloween, no one needs to use masks and costumes to reveal scary, horrifying people and situations; there are plenty of those around already with some of the people who live among us—including many politicians). With little more than a week to go until the elections, we can help alleviate the horrors of our current climate by urging ourselves and each other to get out and vote and pay attention to and turn down the rhetoric in our own conversations.
 Florida autumn
Cooler mornings, drier, leaves on the ground: tan, or yellow mottled with brown (no oranges or reds, though) Paradisaical, without an accompanying melancholy-- because the season coming next has no freezing temps, no ice storms, no snow-- just Eden, day after day. (But then too, there will be no snow with fields of pure glowing white, no bracing air which is a loss).  We are at last this week supposed to be in the 80s, after a long, hot, humid summer. Relief at last. This also means our skies will no longer be filled with fascinating, ever changing clouds, but almost always a clear, crystalline blue. Beautiful in its own way, but not as variable. Day after day in "Paradise." This too gets boring after a while . . .
 "Sometimes to really see things the way that they truly are, you have to take a step back, and then another step, and then a few more." Greg Handy
This reminds me of Marie Howe's poem that I posted on January 12th. Both urge us to pay more and closer attention and to slow down.  Round Island Lighthouse, Straits of Mackinac Laurence Freeman: "A life without beauty is a half-life, tragically and dismally deformed in the capacity for self-transcendence and tenderness. So much of the malaise and the dangerous patterns in our global crises arise from these radical interior deficiencies . . . How can we extract ourselves from this spiraling crisis unless we remember what loving ourselves means and how can we love ourselves if we refuse to love the earth that nourishes us and reveals such beauty to us?"
 Yesterday morning, when I went across to the bay, the water was steel grey; I don't recall ever seeing it like that. The water was calm compared to the higher waves of the day before, when the water had covered a large portion of the beach. Still some clouds yesterday, but not dark skies like Wednesday. Compared to the terrible destruction wrought by Michael in the panhandle, we had little impact from the storm.  Wednesday, same beach.
Apalachicola dawn in July 2006. Lovely old Florida town; whatever passes for prayer for you, do it now for this town, and for Cedar Key, another quaint old Florida town nearby.
 Gregory Crewdson: "When somebody is looking at my picture, I want them just to fall into the world of the photograph . . ."
So Michael approaches Florida, storm surge and topical storm winds possible here tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday. Should be an interesting week.  David Duchemin: "Not once have I created a photograph with the first [and only] intention being that people like it. I hope for something more. I hope they feel something, see the world differently,, respond in some way more than simply liking it . . . If you like a photograph, the question . . . is why do you like it? What is it that the photograph is saying to you that moves you?"
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