Friday, June 17, 2011

Out from the In: Post 2

We all live part of our lives within our minds and to make external changes, we must also make internal changes. But if we pay too much attention to either our internal or our external lives, we’re neglecting the other, causing damage and building up hardened scar tissue that becomes increasingly difficult to soften and break through. Balance is essential for true, fulfilling success.

In looking back through our albums and experiences, Ben and I have been reminded how much we’ve accomplished over the seventeen years we’ve lived here on Muddy Creek. Often it seems we never make progress, but having our photos and stories has shown us what we have been able to do, mostly with the help of nature. We have a little more freedom than the average American because we’re debt free and we’re debt free because we built our own place here with our own sweat and labor. When we built, we sort of accepted our flaws, because we had built the place ourselves, but now that we’ve really seen how so many “professionals” around the area have built with greater flaws than we could have possibly accepted without ripping it back out, we’re pretty happy with what we’ve got.
It’s not perfect, but neither are we. And what is perfect? It’s nothing attainable in this world. It’s an unrealistically imagined standard always  higher than what is truly possible, designed by people who have more time than they should have and more to complain about than could ever be cured.
Our garden has weeds, we get winter damage on our trees and bushes every year, the studio needs painted more often than we can get to it, and the daily chores around here are endless.
But the cows are happy and getting fat, the chickens are producing eggs every day, and the crops in the garden are in and growing. And all this dreary rain we’ve had has turned the landscape so green we can’t stop staring out at it.

I’m posting some more of the free photos from flickr, since I’m a little short. I love pictures of nature. Unlike so many people I’ve known, I favor the natural world above cities and roads, manicured yards and manipulated environments. I’m partial to the “imperfections” of the world and I love when nature creeps into our artificial landscapes.
All of these pictures are from a photographer self-identified as Stefan74:

Stefg74 1

Stefg74 2

Stefg74 3

Stefg74 4

Stefg74 5

Stefg74 6

Stefg74 7

Stefg74 8

Stefg74 9

Stefg74

2 comments:

  1. Amazing quote at the beginning. Where is that from?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, Ashley. The quote is one of my own philosophical musings. All of the blue and purple quotes are my musings.

    Thanks for being a part of all this.

    Steven

    ReplyDelete