rotational mass

shadow mountain sunrise
Originally uploaded by schmarkolus

I think if there were memorable moments for me on this past trip ...it would have to be mornings on Shadow Mountain.....no hustle, no hurry, really no agenda...just muster my self out of the confines of the bag an off the deck of the RMS Ronald Reagan (a camping cot of extra large proportion) if I felt like it...but the pangs of the Grand kind of left me with a state of anxiety....I knew that this range of granite, rock, and glacier ( I think the dr referred that this glacier was more of a ice cube than a glacier) would be evolving into a myriad of colors, textures, hues and provide me a canvas that would be more of solitude, so the anxiety was being able to get myself up and out without missing any of the mountain kaleidoscope.

So with that I stumbled up the double track with camera and camp chair, blanket the g-dog....and the ball...and the stick....and waited for mother nature to perform her magic...once the sun began to crest the horizon on my back side the landscape on my front side evolved, re-evolved every minute or two. I cannot really recall how many frames I shot..But the horizon just seemed to be a steady stream of multi colored hues and textures, almost a 90 minute movie. The clouds billowed, dissipated, and became magenta and gold, lined with blue-black and mauve.

In retrospect I found these moments to have left my mind completely void of thought, of things at home, work, any of life’s demands and the world.

I do believe this was a first for me. One, that none of the day to day necessities ever crossed my mind. Even with my eldest son on his backside from a kidney biopsy (I thought about him, my wife, but never worried, I just had a gut sense all was well)
I don't know why, I would love to be able operate like this daily…
but I know that the process cannot be sustained.

For the world does continue to spin....but for me it never spins in the same direction....I just have to learn how follow regardless of the rotation or just make my own way.

the still bottoms

the still bottoms
Originally uploaded by schmarkolus

well I’m currently trying to reacclimatize to the environs of my home, and my family.....granted I love my wife, children, family ....but life on the road regardless of amount of time away leaves me feeling saddened...the spirit that was liberated with total freedom for 6 days
has to be captured and retrained to the confines of the real world....I’m thinking not much different than a pet needing to be trained.....

it can be a really dark and painful time to reacclimatize myself.

yet when I look back at the time away...it ... reminds me that all mountain top experiences require the daily travels through the valleys of the mundane....

.the saving grace to all of this is I have my family of whom I love and
missed,

In a nut shell....3 years off the road....has left me out of shape traveling,

out shape in chronicling what’s inside my head....I need to
Poke it and let it out......it needs to be subject to regimented hard training lest it becomes all noodilly.....

So with much ado...not that I’m a goal oriented/motivated type....I need to push my inner being. A little harder...a little further....

Push the envelope. And live life to the utmost....regardless of how far or close to home I may be

So thanks to my family, and my good friends here and abroad for sharing there individual pieces of themselves......

texas rain lilly

texas rain lilly
Originally uploaded by schmarkolus

and then we were graced with rain, and with the rain came flowers.
i think this has to be one of the most humbling periods of drought i
have personally experienced, both as a human, and the world.....i have often deliberated why would both the world and man be put through such natural disasters....but with the rain everything has come of age, and renewing of the earth and the mind....thanks for the rain from the world and from my noggin...