Tessera

When the dark becomes a canvas for the #moon. #WeekDforDark #AlphabetChallenge #Loveland #Colorado

Nighttime photo. An almost full moon shines brightly in a band of clear sky below heavy dark clouds which stretch across the top of the picture. The edges of the clouds glow with the light of the moon and a vertical lens flare dissects the scene. The foreground is black except for the soft yellow-orange light coming from a house in the distance. A roof-line and deciduous trees of different shapes are silhouetted against the moonlit sky.

LisaLisa@lisalisa42.bsky.social · last wk.

Here's the entire interview that goes with this Rick Steves quote. It's a year old, but may be more pertinent than ever.

Everyone’s Favorite Travel Writer Says Trump Is Borrowing From the “Fascist Autocrat’s Playbook”

In a wide-ranging interview, Rick Steves sounds off on Trump’s assault on public media and the disturbing historical echoes of the current administration: “Every time I read the news, I think, Well, t...

vanityfair.com

And the spineless GOP congress just letting it happen.

Stoical Geezer@stoicalgeezer.bsky.social · last wk.

This poem by @stoicalgeezer.bsky.social struck a chord with me. Sharing with ALT.

Poem from @stoicalgeezer.bluesky.social.

An Ordinary Day

The morning's great adventure

was looking for the sieve.

The one
that rinses blueberries
before breakfast.

It had vanished.

Drawers were opened,
cupboards inspected,
accusations quietly directed
at yesterday's version of ourselves.

Eventually,
it was found
exactly where it belonged.

Entirely predictable.

I found myself wondering
how curious it is
that in our seventies
a missing kitchen utensil
can become
the day's principal event.

Once there were deadlines,
mortgages,
children,
careers,
impossible decisions
that echoed for years.

Now the triumph
is locating a sieve
before the coffee cools.

Should this make me grateful?

After all,
perhaps life has become
so free of urgency
that what the day brings
is enough.

Or should I worry

that comfort
has quietly narrowed the world
until a misplaced utensil
qualifies as drama?

Perhaps neither.

Perhaps this is simply
how later life
reshuffles significance.

The world grows smaller,
not always from loss,
but from having the time to notice.

Blueberries.
A sieve.
A quiet breakfast.
Your face
across the table.

Perhaps this is not
a shrinking life,
but simply a quieter one--
where the ordinary
has room
to be enough.

In later life, it is curious how the smallest happenings can become the day's principal event. Is that a sign our world has grown smaller—or that, free of urgency, we finally have time to notice what was always there? These thoughts led me to write this poem ... #poetry

Though displays were modest, holiday lights never meant more to me than in December of 2020. New to the winter darkness of the #PNW & fairly isolated because we were following safe Covid protocols, I found myself uplifted by the good cheer of the lights. #WeekDforDark #AlphabetChallenge #Gratitude

Neighborhood night scene from an upstairs window. The snow-covered roofs and yards are dissected by a slushy curving street. Colored holiday lights adorn fences and shrubs while roofs are trimmed with warm white lights.

Rae Radford@raeradford.bsky.social · last wk.

So true! Adding ALT: There are so many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all. (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis)

Absolutely 📖 #BookSky

Paul Eric@pauleric70.bsky.social · 2w ago

"What will your verse be?"

Step sway from the chaos that abounds within the tyranny and take a moment to consider the power of the spoken word from a man who wrestled and lost to the curse of the demons gave him the gift he used to share his remarkable talent with us. I’m reminded that we all have a metaphorical verse to

Izzy. Self-portrait in #glass. #blueskyartshow #Caturday #catsofbluesky #westcoastkin

Brown and white tabby cat has worked her way behind off-white vertical blinds to lie on the carpet in the sun in front of a full-length window. She is on her side with all four legs sticking straight out towards the window and her fluffy white belly fully exposed. Her perfect reflection in the window is accented by bits of green showing through the window from the shrubbery outside.

Kim @kim4thebabies.bsky.social · 2w ago

Nature is the most brilliant of artists. #glass #blueskyartshow #roaringforkriver #basaltcolorado #westcoastkin

Looking straight down into a mountain river with crystal clear water swirling over the green-tinged and brown rocks on the riverbed. The water is still in between the swirls, giving a clearer view of the rocks. Yet, even in the areas where the water is gently churning, it is translucent.

This I can approve. ktla.com/news/califor...

Big Bear bald eagles’ habitat saved after $10 million raised to stop Moon Camp development

There’s some good news for fans of beloved bald eagles Jackie and Shadow. Friends of Big Bear Valley, which operates the wildly popular nest live cam, announced Friday that the $10 million ne…

ktla.com

Meanwhile, somewhere over Oregon.... #WeekCforCurves #AlphabetChallenge #aerial #pnw

Photo taken from an airplane in late spring. A patchwork of farmland includes rectangular and circular field configurations in colors ranging from buff to brown to various shades of green. Several rivers and streams crisscross the scene.

Curves galore on this #Studebaker Champion. And that big curvy smile on my mom's face? I like to think it's because she knew that 7 months later she would be cradling her newborn baby in her arms. #WeekCforCurves #AlphabetChallenge #oldfamilyphotos #monochrome

Black and white photo from the early 1950's. A young woman sits on the front left fender of a light-colored late-40's Studebaker Champion sedan, her legs dangling in front of the front tire. She is wearing a plaid dress with white trim around the short sleeves, front placket, and pockets. Her mid-length dark brown curly hair is parted on the side and frames a radiant face with a big smile. The car is parked on a city street with a grassy area along the curb in the foreground. A brick building is partially visible across the street.

One last post for #WeekBforBehind. This is an old favorite of mine--our first born 'reading' the paper with his dad. Thanks, @sheena-mck.bsky.social, for your faithful devotion to #AlphabetChallenge. Who knew being behind could be so much fun? (I guess you did!)

Pictured from behind, a young father sits in a wood-framed chair with brown cushion. All that's showing of him is the top of his shoulders up to his head, which is covered with beautiful thick brown hair. He is holding an advertisement insert from a newspaper with both hands. A 3-month-old baby is nestled against his left shoulder--about 3/4 of the little mostly-bald head just in view above his dad's shoulder. The effect is that they are reading the paper together.

TizzyWoman@tizzywoman.bsky.social · last mo.

"We save us. We believe in the power of each other." #resist #pinks #USDemocracy #kindness

Watch this video & listen to the words of jasonbasanemec (IG). He’s written the most beautiful poem for the Obama family, & for all of us. It brought tears to my eyes. Change is not the work of one, but of all.

"A town of two hundred people in the far corner of Montana heard everything they were being told about who belongs here, and then they looked at their friend Roberto, and they chose him."

When a Republican Town Fought for the Immigrant Next Door

A small Montana community never thought the crackdown would come for one of their own. But for them, politics never mattered as much as a neighbor they loved.

open.substack.com

Menestune@menestune.bsky.social · 3w ago

This one stopped me in my tracks.

#Sunrise on a beach in northern Oregon. The ocean is just behind me as I'm facing East! #pnw #oregoncoast #love #nature #nokings #marinelife #photography #goodmorning #eastcoastkin

Sandy, wet beach with tidepools. Large headlands/dunes with trees and sun rising behind. Much is reflected in tidepool near rocks on beach.

I got a kick out of seeing grass #growing into a spikey coif on the top of this fence post as we hiked up to the #capemeares lighthouse. And the view wasn't bad either. #blueskyartshow #oregoncoast #pnw

Expansive view of the Pacific Ocean from a trail above Cape Meares on a sunny, blue-sky day. In the bottom right corner of the foreground, a round wood fence post is topped with a clump of grass that has grown up in the degraded wood.

Hoodlum 🇺🇸@nothoodlum.bsky.social · 3w ago

"We have to know - as a duty."

In 2001, Walter Cronkite appeared on the David Letterman show and shared his thoughts.

Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition @bearsearscoalition.bsky.social · 3w ago

Bears Ears is an interconnected living cultural landscape. Its significance cannot be reduced to individual sites because the relationships among its waters, plants, animals, and sacred places give this ancestral homeland its meaning. Map courtesy of The Wilderness Society.

As photographers captured the view from the front, I was above and behind our daughter & about-to-be-son-in-law just before their "first look," with the twinkle light reflections in the window adding a bit of magic to the moment. #WeekBforBehind #AlphabetChallenge

View from above and behind, where the reflections of mini lights in the window superimpose themselves on the scene. A bride in white has just walked out into a sheltered garden area where her groom waits for his "first look." He stands in his dark blue suit, facing away from her with his hands clasped behind his back. In front of him, wedding photographers have their cameras up to capture the moment.

@rprobbins.bsky.social · 3w ago

Brilliant! Adding ALT: OK hear me out: instead of all of us having to become extremely knowledgeable on a new infectious disease every 3-6 months, what if we got a large group of experts together and just put them in charge of giving us easy to understand health recommendations. They could also

Facts, plain and straightforward 💯🎯

Liz Anderson@lizanderson.bsky.social · 3w ago

"Books give so many more people the chance to dream big, see new possibilities and find their own path."

OMG I couldn’t love Haaland more www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

Erling Haaland holding a rare Norwegian history book he bought and donated to his home library in Bryne, Norway.