Free me from this frozen prison!
Loose theses bindings layers of wool and down.
Let me feel the warmth of the Sun in place of icy winds.
Show me green leaves and let me breathe in the scent of rose.
Kindle a fire deep in my soul and set this prisoner free.
I’m Setting here in my recliner with my dog and we’re dreaming of warmer temperatures. The Arctic blast has turned my mountain into an icy prison. We’re looking forward to the smell of the moss covered forest floor and a game of chase in the yard. On days like this I like to go into my archive and pull out pictures of warmer times. The image of ground pine here was taken in August at Carnifex Ferry State Park in West Virginia. The trail that leads to the Gauley River passes through a stand of virgin timber. It’s been a little over a decade since I was all the way to the river. Perhaps when winter is over I take you dear readers on a virtual tour.
Nighty-three percent of communication us non-verbal. Out of that non-verbal percentage our hands do a lot of talking. It’s our hands and hearts that forge our reality. One of my favorite images was this touching moment between my father and my nephew. “C’mon paw paw. It’s time to play.” Was the words spoken but “I love you ” was the message.
There’s not a whole lot I have to say about this image other than the icicles make the rocks look like they have fangs. The past few days have been then coldest days in a few years. Winter is on and making up for lost time 
Stay warm friends!
It’s a new day in a new year in the Three Rivers area of Gauley Bridge West Virginia. This is my first published image of 2018. We are creatures of the moment. It’s so easy to get lost in tomorrow’s plans that we miss the moment. It wasn’t until I got serious about photography that I began to appreciate the here and now. The moment you are in is more precious than gold and its so easily lost to sands of time. Once it’s gone it’s gone and looking back means you’re going to miss the next one coming. We are constantly on the edge of a moment. We can choose to stay in one place and let the moment pass or we can step on to the bridge and become a part of the moment. It’s all about observation, action and choice.
Back in the 80s I read a book that implied that seeing through the eyes of God meant that one could stop time and observe patterns in past, present and future. While actually freezing the space-time continuum and casually making notes about the nature of the universe isn’t actually within our grasp there is a way to enhance our perception.
I call it Rippling. When you drop a pebble into a calm pool of water it produces concentric rings. The waves travel outward in a even pattern. We’re very familiar with this because of the thousands and thousands of pictures on the internet. But there’s more to the event. Those ripples don’t just go out. They also interact with the edge of the pool and other ripples. Eventually they form patterns that an active observer can read like a map. It’s said that back in the day a Polynesian sailor could lay down in the floor of his boat and find land that was out of sight just from the pattern of waves.
We know that the ripples have a source and with practice we can learn what direction they come from and the size of the event that caused the ripples the moment is identified. Once we have mapped the event it becomes part of a larger map and so on. It becomes easier to predict the next event by the previous ripples and whether or not we want to step on the bridge and become a part of the moment.
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