Leo & Luna...

It was a beautiful moon last night. Big, bright…full. Shining like a celestial stage lamp, spreading light and shade across night’s landscape. Seems fitting that it should shine so brightly in the reflected brilliance of the blazing sun. January’s Full Moon is positioned in the sign of Leo, a fire sign. Fiery and emotional Leo. Yep…that’s me.

I am a Leo. Under this particular moon I have felt a few things spark. Emotions and traits that reside within this shell. Loyal, creative, energetic, proud, idealistic, optimistic, spirited, anchored, concentrated. Of course, with the positive comes the negative. Everything is a balancing act. I can be stubborn, impulsive, quick to anger. They are all things that fit me comfortably into a position under the sign of Leo…but they all also make me human.

It is said that this particular moon phase carries a couple of prime influences. The first of the two is a strengthening of love relationships. That seems fitting as we continue to home in on the yearly day of love, Valentine’s Day. Seems the moon is getting people geared up for some expressions of adoration. There is one consistent effect of amour, and it comes in the form of a ride on the emotional rollercoaster. The moon is set to take us for that ride whether it’s linked to love or not. All relationships on any level are fair game. Watch out for falling drama…

The other prime effect is in the area of creativity. Over the last week or so I have definitely felt a boost to my initiative, and my creative juices. Granted I haven’t been in a place to start using those abundant juices until now. That’s okay though. My grey cells were working over design ideas in preparation. The Valentine’s Day theme is in the center of the mix as the art project I’m focused on is for a wedding anniversary that falls on that day. Here’s hoping I get it completed in time for mailing…(knocking wood)…

I have always felt my most inspired during night time hours. The moon is always at the center of that inspiration. Calm, peaceful, magically energetic night. Now is a great time for sipping the flow of energy, especially if creativity is in the mix. As I sit down to start sketching this evening, I’ll be having a full frothy mug of moon to help me get started.

Cheers to Luna…

Are You There, Winter...

(A pollen speckled Camilia bloom on the bush by the front door)

January is not quite over yet, and all I have to say is…what is up with our weather here on the Georgia coast?! It’s almost as if winter never arrived. Not fully. Autumn swung by. Made its presence known. Stayed for its usual yearly visit. Winter seemed to signal its approach, but it never really got here. The Solstice came and was celebrated, but I have yet to feel the actual complete transition. We had a few really crisp and chilly nights that got down there on the temperature scale. Around 40, or so. Then this last week was like spring had prematurely sprung. The temperatures lingered in the ‘60’s for a few days, and then the warmer days came. Warm as in the upper-70’s warm. No jacket necessary. T-shirt weather. Add to that the fact that when I walked out to my car to head to work yesterday, my Audi was covered with a yellow dusting of pollen (we had some rain in the evening which rinsed things off, thankfully). It seems that the trees are as confused as I am…

Eighteen or so years spent living in Los Angeles without any real seasonal shifts had me pining for the changing seasonal tides I grew up with. Now I’m back in my home state, in the ‘four season’ zone. It is a bit different here in the coastal town of Savannah. No ice storms to speak of like I experienced growing up in Atlanta. We have had extremely cold temperatures here, but not as bone chilling as the winter bite one gets deeper inland. Will winter finally show itself, and stick around for a spell? I don’t want to even hazard a guess. Of the unpredictable things in life, the weather seems to be in the top 10…at least. I just hope that the normal seasonal development of the local flora hasn't been messed with too much.

The latter half of yesterday saw the temperature take a dive into the neighborhood of 50 degrees. Today is also a jacket day. It seems winter might be making its approach again, and I hope this time it’s not just a ‘drive-by’. I really hope for a winter shift even if its a late one.

For now it looks to be jacket weather.  However, I’ll be keeping both my t-shirts and my heavier coats at the ready. To quote the Boy Scouts, I will “be prepared”…

"Snow White & The Huntsman"...

I finally saw a film I had added to my “I’ll watch it when it comes out on DVD when there’s nothing else worth watching” list. The only thing that kept me from passing it over all together is the fact that a certain Aussie actor is in it…the talented and fetching, Chris Hemsworth. A fave of mine.

The film as I am sure you have already deduced is “Snow White & the Huntsman”. The tale of Snow White and her seven short cohorts is a well-known and much beloved fairy tale. There have been a number of film versions ranging from a silent version produced in 1916, to versions featuring Betty Boop and the 3 Stooges, to a late 1990’s movie production, “Snow White: A Tale of Terror”, starring Sigourney Weaver as the evil step-monster. Different films often mean different variations on the theme. Not a bad thing in itself, but it is all in the execution.

“Snow White & the Huntsman” is a slightly different variation from the classic tale. The Huntsman has always been a key element of the story, but here he is more prominent within the story. The seven dwarves do make an appearance, but it’s later in the storyline. The Evil Queen is indeed evil, literally sucking the life out of innocent young girls to keep her beauty and youth intact. She has a brother present in this version who acts more of her lackey, bringing her young victims and whatever else she commands. (I read in more than one place that the first time director of the film, Rupert Sanders, gave interviewers the impression that “SW&TH” was going to be very tongue-in-cheek…uhm, not so much.) The evil ‘Ravenna’ (who turns into a cloud of ravens when she magic’s herself away), is played by the very able actress, Charlize Theron. She brings a life to the character that oozes venom. Ravenna comes into the life of Snow White when her father, King Magnus, saves the beauty from captors oblivious to the danger he’s in. He falls in love with Ravenna and the two wed. Ravenna murders the king with a knife on their wedding bed…a bit more brutal than the usual poison method. The queen then imprisons Snow White in the dungeon until she is a young woman.

Around the time that the queen learns that Snow White is the key to both her immortality and her death, SW escapes from the dungeon with the aid of helpful bird guides and a white horse that meets her on the beach. (Convenient, eh?) The horse takes her into the dark and evil forest, guards close on her heels. The queen orders her brother to find a guide to take them into the forest to find her valuable yet dangerous escapee, and to kill her.

Enter the Huntsman, an embittered drunkard who knows the forest better than anyone. His deceased wife is the cause for his dive into despair. He is dragged (literally) into ‘working’ for the queen. His payment? Ravenna says she has the power to bring his wife back to him from the dead. Hemsworth puts in a good turn as the Huntsman (not surprisingly), being suitably grimy and gruff. Leading Ravenna’s men and her brother into the forest, he makes quick work of tracking Snow White down. The Huntsman quickly finds out how deceitful the queen’s brother is, and he decides to not allow her to be killed and saves her instead.

The rest of the film has the duo encountering various characters and creatures, all which leads back to the queen and the big showdown between her and Snow White. Interestingly enough, the seven dwarves don’t really figure as strongly into this version as they do in most others. We do see them during the last section of the film (cinematically shrunken actors-Ian McShane and Bob Hoskins to name a couple- rather than actual little people), but they didn’t really need to be there for the amount of time they are given onscreen. The film ends with Ravenna being destroyed and Snow White sitting on the throne.

What’s that? I haven’t mentioned the actress that plays Snow White? Well, I am about to. Call it saving the worst for last. Actually, I am going to ask a question…can anyone tell me why Kristin Stewart keeps getting cast in big budget films? She has all of the emotional expression of a dust bunny. Any hope this film had of being good was killed by her presence as the key figure of Snow White. By the time she bites the apple that seemingly kills her, I was wondering why we couldn’t have been spared the agony of watching her up until that point by having her ‘bite it’ from the get go. It would have improved things. I would have been more entertained watching Theron and Hemsworth play chess for two hours. The film would have been so much better with an actress that can actually produce different facial expressions. Even TWO facial expressions would have been an improvement.

I feel for the movie goers who shelled out money to see this dud in theaters. I will admit that a part of me toyed with the idea of seeing it on the big screen to see Hemsworth, but I couldn’t bring myself to pay the inflated movie ticket price because of K Stew-movie killer. The person I feel the worst for is Hemsworth. Of all the actors in the film, he spent the most onscreen time with her. Chris was good in the movie, which speaks to his acting chops. I can’t imagine how it was for him acting opposite her. Granted I am not an actor, but I was a member of a theater company for a number of years and know and have worked with some fine actors. Acting is very give and take. Especially in scenes that should be emotionally charged…something Stewart just doesn’t deliver on. They could have cast this cardboard standee of her and gotten just as much emotional range. In a scene where emotions are high, actors should be able to feed off of one another. Chris was on his own as Stewart…well, she can’t act. I know I am not the only one who has noticed this about her. What gives Hollywood? Oy…

Chris Hemsworth does a good job in “Snow White & the Huntsman”, as does Charlize Theron, so if you are a fan of either of them, see it. You’ll have to tough out the abysmal acting of Stewart, but it can be done…I did it…as painful as it was...  

A New Year...

It’s a New Year…2013. This past year seemed to drag on at times, but when the end came I wondered where the time had gone. I can still make out the holiday season of 2012 if I turn around and squint, but as Christmas no longer has much meaning to me it didn’t really register when I was in the thick of it. The retail job I was able to snag carried me through in a cloud of ‘bustle’, but aside from that my yuletide time was fairly low-key. I did decorate my rather thin fake tree I paid less than $10 for last year, and I hung the fake wreath I have on the front door. For me it’s either fake tree, or no tree. I dig trees way too much to put a dying tree in my living room. I’m not necessarily including my current tree when I say that there are some really well done fake trees available today. I enjoyed mine…cheap as it is.

Juggling my time between a job and life in general put a bit of a damper on my blog time. I have a list of posts that I need to catch up on. This post is tagged to start the ball rolling…we’ll see how it goes…

(I kind of have a 'thing' for "Thor"/Chris Hemsworth...I created the above to entertain my friends more than anything.  *grin*)

(I've always thought
Morticia is the coolest...she has
been my FB profile pic of choice
for awhile.)

As many people do these days I keep in contact with the majority of my friends through the avenue of social sites, Facebook being my chief site. As they are spread hither and yon, it is the easiest route. Last Yule I received the ‘Photoshop Elements 10’ software package. Up until the last month or so I had only been using it to clean-up my photos. ‘Elements’ has many functions, and the latest one I have been playing around with is pasting and layering elements into one photo. “Thor”/Chris Hemsworth, and Morticia Addams, have been two of my test subjects. Yule/Christmas and the New Year seemed as good a time as any to start playing. The feedback I got from friends was complimentary, so I appear to be doing well so far. I haven’t done anything too difficult yet, but I think that will soon change. I tend to push myself creatively, and I have been creating collages with my photos (predominantly my cemetery work). I see a Deviant Art page in my near future…figure that would be a good place for posting them.

Photography has been my latest passion.  “Latest” meaning within the last three or four years. It is such a creative art form. It really opens the eyes to a new and different perspective on things. As I have spent more and more time making excursions to various areas of interest (cemeteries being chief), I am finding that I look at everything in a different way. For me it’s a momentary thing. I don’t spend a lengthy amount of time framing things up, focusing the lens…I glimpse something, point, and shoot. I often surprise myself when I later review what I’ve taken. Not to toot my own horn, or anything. *grin* I’m just satisfied with my photographs, and my photographic sense…but then that’s why I take pictures. Because I enjoy it. No better therapy. Situated by the marsh as I am, with nature all around me, it’s all out there for me any time I need to go for a walk and get a dose of the sublime.

New Year’s Eve I walked to the dock remains near the cul de sac to take some pictures. My last marsh shots for 2012. As I snapped them off, my mind wandered to a Christmas many years ago. My dad had a farm in Duluth, Georgia, on 300+ acres of land. I was spending the Christmas holidays with him (my parents had been divorced a number of years at that point). It was 1974 (I was 10), and I received my first camera as a gift…a Kodak Pocket Instamatic camera. A cool little gadget, it was in the days of film cartridges and flash cubes. I was thrilled with it. I don’t know what happened to that camera. Kind of wish I still had it.

(To play this video, you can scroll to the bottom of the blog page to pause the music player.)
Having snapped my final marsh pictures of 2012, the dim light level of evening was waning fast, so I headed back in. It dawned on me that I have a few pictures that I took with that old Instamatic. After rooting through my boxes of old photos, I found them. To say that my picture taking “eye” has improved over the years would be an understatement. I obviously suffered from some serious framing issues back then…

Example #1 of my first photos with my first camera. The subject of this photo was to be my dad wearing the Stetson hat he got for Christmas. Well, at least I got the top half of his head in frame...

Example #2 was intended to be a shot of 'Bullet', my dad's new Blue Tick Hound puppy. At least I got part of him.  Oh, and the foot is my brother's...

2012 is over. Still trying to wrap my head around that. The oft used saying of "the older you get, the quicker the time passes" is so true. As I said before the past year had its plodding areas, but now that it's officially over it feels like it passed in the blink of an eye. Then again, if the Mayans had been right, we wouldn't be here at all now. *eyeroll* Did anyone really think the world would end on December 21st? Sadly enough, I bet there were at least a handful of dooms-dayists who did. I've had a rant or two on my blog about the supposed Mayan prediction of the end of the world...now that the day of doom has come and gone...well, nuff said.

So...what about 2013? As I look at the clock, we are almost 4 hours into the second day of it. There are a few things I would like to accomplish during the coming year, but I am trying not to put the cart before the horse. If I think too much about future days I stress myself out. Living in the moment...the now...that's what I'm trying to focus on. The past is history, tomorrow is a mystery. Living in the moment is said to get easier as time passes. It is proving to be an ongoing effort for me. An effort well worth it, but an effort nonetheless. I have some mental windmills I have been tilting at. Worries about things that haven't happened yet. They too shall pass, but for now...living in the moment.

I am hopeful for a peaceful, productive and prosperous year to come...for all of us.

Happy 2013.