Laugh as much as you breathe. Love as long as you live. –Rumi I have a story about this photo–a funny story. But it forms a chapter in the book I’m writing, and I will begin posting chapters from my book with this one right after Christmas. So you’ll have to wait. In the meantime, smile at the incongruity of a tiny gold filigree-winged dragonfly serving as a fascinator for an alligator.

The Aboriginal people of Australia say the Spirit of All Life dreamed the world into existence, then passed “the secret of dreaming” to humankind. With a wealth of raw material with which to work, humankind has indeed dreamed into existence much that is beautiful and wonderful and worthy. I think of music, art, the miracles of modern medicine, the joy of global awareness and interconnection made possible by modern technology. But then I also think of the tragic facts that people die daily for lack of access to medical care and lack of food on a planet overflowing with food….

Bird (excerpt)It was passed from one bird to another,the whole gift of the day.The day went from flute to flute,went dressed in vegetation,in flights which opened a tunnelthrough the wind would passto where birds were breaking openthe dense blue air -and there, night came in.–Pablo Neruda

The first time I photographed this wall of rock, sand and dirt, it was bare–completely bare–from the top edge of the wall to the water’s edge. The layer of iron-rich soil at the top of the wall was a much brighter orange than it is today, after two decades of fading in the sun. It looked like what it was: a horrible gash in the skin and flesh of Mother Earth, carved by the hungry bulldozers set loose by humankind needing fill for a highway nearby. Today it looks pretty natural; that is, it looks as if it could have…