The Avant Guard

The tunnel under the train tracks in Alexandria, VA always looks damp and forbidding.  I’ve walked past it many times and it always seems to draw my attention.

River To The Sky

Sunrise on the river is one of my favorite ways to start the day.  When the water is calm it’s hard to image a more peaceful place.  Approaching the river fills me with a sense of wonder and a profound appreciation of what lies ahead.  Soon I’ll be out there among the herons and geese.

What are you looking at?

This Southern Toad lives among the ferns and Hostas in my yard.  On a recent evening it was hanging out on the patio waiting for the lights to draw dinner in.

Flying Along The River Bank

Great Blue Heron’s never hang around long once they notice you’re paying attention to them.  I paddled past this one at a distance and ignored it until I got close enough to snap a few pictures.

Making The Mandala

I normally post a single photograph at a time but today we visited the Virginia Holocaust Museum where a group of Tibetan monks was working on a mandala.  It was an inspiration to witness the patience, concentration and precision of the monks at work.  To give you a better feel for the whole scene I decided to post a series of photos.

The Tibetan Buddhist art of mandala is a practice in which the participants create an elaborate, beautiful mosaic of colored sand.   They work on the mandala for many days, adding little bits of colored sand to fill in each section.  The sand is added slowly and precisely to create crisp, clear lines.  When the mandala is finished the monks sweep up the sand and discard it in a river.  The process is both meditative and a practice in impermanence.

This monk was working alone when we arrived.  His concentration was remarkable.

Despite the crowd of people watching, the monks remained focused on the task at hand.

One of the monks gets more blue sand to add to the mandala.

Up to three monks worked on the mandala at a time.

Here you can see some of the vibrant colored sand used to create the mandala.

I’ll leave you with a classic Buddhist wish, part of the metta bhavana, or “loving kindness”, practice…

May you be well.

May you be happy.

May you be free from suffering.

Morning At The Huguenot Bridge

Canada Geese preen and sun themselves on rocks below the Huguenot Bridge early one August morning.

Pink Cattleheart, I

The Pink Cattleheart is a large, black butterfly with striking red, pink and white markings.

Little Brown Butterfly, I

I haven’t been able to identify this butterfly.  It was at the Butterflies LIVE exhibit at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden so it may not be native to the United States.  If anybody knows the species I’d appreciate a comment.

Tiger Longwing On Coneflower

I recently visited the Butterflies LIVE! exhibit at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.  This photo of a Tiger Longwing on a red coneflower was one of my favorite shots from the trip.  If you’re in the Richmond area Lewis Ginter is definitely worth a visit.

Eastern River Cooter

This small Eastern River Cooter was basking on a sunny log in the Rappahannock River as a paddled my canoe past it last July.  I don’t know much about the turtles of Virginia so I may have misidentified this one.