Oooops

Just one of those days.

Nothing quite right.

Maybe tomorrow.

The flower beckoned but I could not capture the invitation.

And CJ, too, in his design study, almost got it right, but not quite, in Tangier Gardens.

Try the story @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv

 

 

Mountains Are Mysterious

They take lives without mercy.

The closer you get to them the more diversified, dangerous and threatening the topography, forests, cliffs, ravines and rivulets become.

Mountains make clouds do things.

Under the forest cloak, the mysteries become all-consuming.

Then how do the mountains turn into something marvellous?

This is landscape.

And this is what Christopher Janus explores in Tangier Gardens.

Try the story @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv

April Showers May Flowers

We had April showers and we found May flowers. Modest pleasures. But roses are so much more.

CJ was not so fortunate, but he did find transcendent pleasures in Tangier Gardens. Read a free Amazon sample of my novel–lots of plants, gardens and landscape adventures–via a safe, clean, secure and direct link @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv.

Switzerland: The Real Music

Mountains so alive with energy they breathe clouds—in and out… in and out…

Animating so many levels that I can sense… and so many more levels beyond my senses.

Remarkable solar energy exchanges stream through patches of blue sky to electrify the landscape.

With exuberant displays, creeks dance through fields and gush down mountain cliffs exploding with  excess energy into bubbling mists of white foam… all the way down… down… down…

To the valley bottom where they join lively white rivers rushing over boulders, winding through steep mixed forests, chartreuse deciduous and deep dark green conifers, rubbing against each other and bursting with an exquisite energy I can feel, I can see, I can hear.

But I can sense the sadness in older people, the farmers, trudging about daily homestead activities burdened with melancholy memories how it was 70 years ago… compared to the invasive, fast moving trains, packed full of ‘bucket-list’ tourists racing on to their next destination before their vacation is over. 

And alas, I too, am just one of those tourists… in Switzerland.

But CJ, in Tangier Gardens, Curious Tales, Orient Espresso and Dubai Sands, thought he wasn’t a tourist. Little did he know. Check it out @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv

A Losing Battle?

In Tangier Gardens, CJ had so many losing battles—but in the end… Read a free Amazon sample of my novel–lots of plants, gardens and landscape adventures–via a safe, clean, secure and direct link @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv.

Or just buy Tangier Gardens NOW!

Squeezed at the edge

In my last post, I referred to winter towns squeezed between the mountains and the lake at the shore line. Upon closer examination, they are not squeezed–they just fit. Like we’d all like to fit…and not be squeezed, not be forced.

Squeezed

I think, winter spring, summer or fall, I would have fun walking this village, don’t you agree?

I crossed the line

Late December 2020 in the northern range of the Swiss Alps.

I crossed the line.

What? Which line?

Did I stop wearing a mask?

Did I stop supporting local populism?

Did I walk the wrong way on a one-way-street?

No.

I stopped seeing winter as cold, naked and heartless. I stopped seeing winter as death to be abhorred.

Crossed the line

No leaves? No problem. No sun? No problem. Huge landscape? Big time. Mountains, sky, lake. Along the shoreline in the middle ground and background, the big landscape squeezes three towns into mere nothingness. And, by God, I saw beauty. I had crossed the line.