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 ...?)