The Evening Grosbeaks returned earlier this year than last, which was in March. It is great to see the gregarious flock come flying in. They are usually in a group of 6 or 8, playing with and feeding each other. During this visit they descended onto the maple trees to enjoy the whirligig seeds.
Gallery Two – Life Paintings
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These paintings are part of a gallery series ( click here ).
Copyright for the work on this site: 
The work by Frank Kliewer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at ArtAndZen.com
If you are going to copy it, copy it right!
Thank you very much.
We are like children building a sandcastle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of coloured glass. The castle is ours, off-limits to others. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sandcastle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.
Pema Chödrön
We were blessed a few days ago with a message from a special contributor to arrive at a time we are all moving forward with our work for this year. We want to share the words she attached to her message…the words of Mother Teresa.
Frank’s brother Bill visited with Mother Teresa at her Home for the Dying in Calcutta and was blessed by her dedicated compassionate work. Here is the writing of Mother Teresa, in memory of her work of caring for those most in need:
ANYWAY
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway!
If you do good, people will accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives.
Do good anyway!
If you are successful, you will win
false friends and enemies.
Succeed anyway!
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway!
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway!
What you spend years building may be
destroyed overnight.
Build anyway!
People really need help
but may attack you if you help them.
Help them anyway!
Give the world the best you have
and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway!
Written by: Mother Teresa
(Picture of Mother Teresa by © 1986 Túrelio (Wikimedia-Commons) / Lizenz: Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-2.0 de)
THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
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In the 23” x 20” framed acrylic on wood painting below, Frank gets whimsical with some Asian characters, have two stick figures joyfully jumping a hurdle together, ripping through the fabric of space and time. This piece is part of an infinity bubble series.
Finding a realistic and sustainable joy is often easier with a trusted partner or group.
Today’s post features a painting hanging in the Art and Zen Sanctuary.
This work is painted in acrylic on a hand-crafted custom wood panel, painted around the 1.75″ edges and measuring 96” x 24” with rounded corners. This art is now employed as a mirror imaged background for the composite header now at the top of each page, along with our enlightenment frog sitting as a guide.
The significance of the lotus flower in the Zen tradition is about beauty rising out of the muck where it grows. This is similar to freeing our minds through meditation, rising above the mess around us in the world today.
Bless you all as you deal with task of finding the best space to elevate your consciousness.
There is no death when stars implode
A stream of atoms coalesce in some temporary terminus…
A planet, a person, a life.
We are made of stars yet blindly grope
For fame and immortality, for hope.
If we could only see our brilliance
Or that we are the true alien wanderers,
That we are one and never alone
And already home,
We would find our place in infinity.
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Mary E. Fleisch
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Reassess our measurement of time:
“Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays.
Man alone measures time.
Man alone chimes the hour.
And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.”
― Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper
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Our vow: Be where we are, require nothing…accept everything. Easier said than done, but keep at trying, that is all we can do.