View #29

Jewel in the night... How many light bulbs are burning in this scenery; how much electricity being used; Times Square must be bright as day right now. And yet, all the electricity in the world doesn't light up the sky like the sun. One sun does all that.

View #28

Yesterday's high winds blew all the bad things away, and there is a real quiet stillness to the day... Stock market is bounding upwards after a slight downturn - seems to be the post announcement pattern.

Heard this today: I don't know what tomorrow holds but I know who holds tomorrow. (Hint: It's not Ben Bernanke... or the Senate for that matter.)

View #27

Don't let the seemingly static, solitary cloud fool you - this is turning out to be a spectacularly windy day (the river is less deceiving with all its rippling ripples). If only there was such a wind for the market - a sort of Kamikaze to blow the bears away... Less than 2 more hours 'til the FOMC announcement.

View #26

A damp, cloudy morning - nonetheless beautiful. The market could go either way today; sort of like a child at Christmas who doesn't know whether what he did this year amounted to naughtiness or nastiness - will it be a toy train set or a lump of coal...

The market always can go either way - the market reminds us of this from time to time.

View #25

A brilliant fire of a dawn this morning. Will today's Primaries in Florida affect the market...?

Thought of the day: It is the same sun that to us appears different each day depending on weather conditions.

View #24

Dawn of a new day; markets set for a negative start; globally stocks have gone down except in Europe where the ECB had decided to keep prices in check by not lowering interest rates. January-February are historically slow months for the market anyway; perhaps it is a good time to let the various counter-recessionary measures to take effect. I doubt that the FOMC announcement this Wednesday will move the markets too much.

Thought of the day: we each are small and the universe is infinite; somewhere within each of us is a connection to the infinite.

View #23

Bathed in the glow of the setting sun. Ready for another week - of market turmoil...?

Character isn't something you put on and off like a mask; resolve to be a person of character in all situations no matter how hard the going gets, is part and parcel of what character (and character-building) is.

View 22 Face in the... Cloud

This morning the clouds look unreal, almost mimicking the drama of human life that appears in miniature beneath. Nature is amazing - so changing and yet constant in a way that we can only be with people we love.

Thought of the day: don't try to get out of the day more than is there; what you are seeking is most likely something from within that you are trying to avoid looking at. 'Face' it.

View #21 ... and the sun goeth down

The Manhattan night view - a bit dark; earlier would've produced a better photo while the sun still illuminated from just beneath the horizon.

Why do we assume that toiling and laboring is the way to achieve...? We think that if we endeavor with 'fight' in our hearts, we achieve what we have set our hearts on. It doesn't work that way, though.

Thought for the night: when we resist what is in order to chase after something that is not, we lose the very thing we are after - and lose our self in the process also; we cannot change what is already there; we have to first accept what is - it's futile to fight what already is - then we can do what we are able to now to make the next moment how we want it; honor the things of today, chasing after the things of tomorrow will not make the todays of the future any better.

View #20 The sun also rises...

6.50 am. Morning blush. City looking beautifully tired - it would be after such market volatility. Hope we are through the worst.

"Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any rememberance of things that are to come with those that shall come after." (Ecclesiastes: 2 -11)

There is much wisdom in Ecclesiastes, much foolishness and madness under the sun...

View #19

It is a wonder how the sky changes from day to day - humanity would be so lost without its landmarks and signposts... Sky has cleared, and the market seems to have stabilized for the moment; of course that doesn't mean storms aren't forthcoming on the meteorological or economic front. The economy can go either way at this point - we forget that it always can go either way and become either complacent or entrenched in our optimism / pessimism.

Thought of the day: Go with the flow.

View #18 Dark Clouds...

Dense, dark, fast-moving clouds over Manhattan, minutes before market open. Will the 75 basis point cut in the Fed Fund rates keep our markets from going the way of markets worldwide or will panic take hold? Apparently, a lot of the selling pressure is from forced selling - i.e., on margin calls - and not just on pure panic. We shall see how we survive until the FOMC meeting a week from tomorrow.

Thought of the day: the markets will go where they will; don't resist it, do what you have to do.

View #17

A morning silhouette on MLK Day. Aptly, I quote from his 'I have a dream' speech:

"But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force."

View #16 More fairy tale clouds

Did I say today's sunset wouldn't be as beautiful as yesterday's... how wrong I was. The fairy tale clouds are still darting across the sky; this one could be a very illustrative one with lots of animals appearing (and chasing after one another) - musicians of Bremen or even just the rambunctious song 'Old MacDonald'?

There is a poverty in me that says that what I have now is all I will ever have, and that tomorrow I will have less (or that there will be more to give a sort of general inflation); and I am happily proven wrong time and again.

Today is always better than yesterday, better even than a thousand yesterdays...

(PS Did take my own advice and ventured out this morning into the city; took a walk - albeit very short - in Central Park eating brioche; the idea was to have breakfast walking through Central Park; it was so cold that I could barely coordinate the eating, but enjoyed every minute.)

View #15

Wonderful morning with fairytale clouds. A high of 27 degrees F is forecasted; these cold January days look so beautiful, enticing us out of doors to face the bracing, bone-rattling cold that so defies appearances.

Thought of the day: Be enticed. Leave heaven to heaven for a day; be the king of the molehill and play!

View #14

This is actually from yesterday - the sunset was so beautiful. The photo doesn't capture the full luminosity unfortunately. You still get the sense that the big sun (and it is big at the horizon) illuminates a whole city, which stands, basking in its light, waiting for another day...

View #13 Manhattan Fog

A wet, warm winter morn' - no snow, just fog obscuring the whole island - a reflection on the current state of the economy perhaps; except that once the fog lifts Manhattan will still be there; once the fog lifts over the subprime devastation (bond insurers being the newest danger zone), where will our economy be...?

Am noticing that when something goes wrong, we tend to over-focus only on what is wrong until our outlook is so contracted and narrow that we forget all the positive things that are still there with which to ride out the storm without taking an unnecessary beating...

Thought of the day: this too shall pass.

View #12

A frigid winter's morn'. If that doesn't signal imminent snow, I don't know what does... The thought for the day: weather isn't God; neither is it an act of God in the sense of punishment for human sins; it's just Nature (the law and nature of the material with which the universe is made). What is God, as I began to see in these views, is that unchanging stillness that exists through and beyond the changes and chances of the universe - which is reflected also in the spirit of the best and worst of us; the best and worst, perhaps that is a fit epithet for Manhattan .

View #11

First blush of dawn. The photograph is darker than how it actually looks out there; lights are still on in many of the buildings, and this orange luminescence, this vast, powerful light is appearing. Or, we are appearing to it - I really get the sense this morning that we are a small fringe on this enormous planet, that we are the reaction to the All that is there, that has always been there. If we could act in concord with this powerful All that there is, instead of reacting against it, how different life and world might be... I feel that this morning.

View #10

Dawn seems to be getting later and later. Took this photo this morning around 8.30. Love the way the golden glow is illuminating the clouds above. This side of Manhattan looks as though it is waiting, shivering, for the sun to come out fully; but the other (Eastern) side I know must look luminous with reflections from the rising sun.

What God does is so enormous - the sun lights and warms an entire globe even if we sometimes believe that it lights and warms us and us alone.

(I feel snow coming. Does anyone else see impending snow in the hitherto cloud progression ...?)

View #9

Was expecting snow yesterday; maybe today. The sky certainly seems heavy. Manhattan really does look rather small sandwiched between the vast, energetic, ever-changing sky and the vast (yes, vast) river; it almost looks like 'the little city that could.' No wonder God loves us - we are so small and cute...; all our vices and hubris is just so much 'little tyke acting big'.

View #8

Dawn of a new day. Same view, different sky. Still unseasonably warm, but the wind keeps the haze away. We really do live on a beautiful planet.

Thought of the day today is a rather long quote from James Naylor (sometimes spelled Nayler) a Quaker from the 19th century:

"There is a spirit which I feel that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exultation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be betrayed, it bears it; for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned, and it takes its kingdom with entreaty, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. "

I see this spirit in the Manhattan skyline.

View #7 Everything gets resolved into light

Taken in the morning on another hazy, unseasonably warm day in January well after dawn.

No thought of the day today - unless I think of one later on...

(Did come across something worth quoting in the correspondence between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Carlyle. Emerson says:

'Everything gets resolved into light.'

A beautiful quote, which the full text and context of which renders all the more poignant : he had recently lost his 5 year old son, and was expressing to his long-time literary soul mate of his inability to overcome his grief -'Doubtless the day will come which will resolve this, as everything gets resolved, into light, but not yet.')

View #6 60 degrees in January

Sunset on an unusually warm, hazy winter's day. Have been waiting for repair people to arrive. Sometimes, waiting gives you time to do things you otherwise don't schedule into your day.





Thought for the day:

Life is not a struggle but an unfolding.

View #5

A very January dawn. Came across this anonymous quote:



People don't care how much you know, they only want to know how much you care.

Does 'care' create this skyline? Somehow, I believe so, though it may not seem so from within its midst.

View #4

Taken at sunrise. What attracts all these people, all this activity to this tiny island?

Thought of the day: we may look good without our shadows but incomplete.

View #3: Another day another view

Taken at sundown. New Year's Day always has a 'day after' feel to it. My thought for the day:

For me, a day lived well has a serene, quiet quality about it. I would like to increase that quality of stillness and peacefulness in my life.

In fact, this will be my New Year's Resolution.