Autumn's Healing Beauty

Vermont 2020

 

Imagine the number of leaf peepers multiplied by the number of times they gasp in awe of the beauty of Autumn foliage. New England, and Vermont (where the photographs were taken in past years), has a unique foliage beauty due to the climate of the area.

Scientific American, "How the Brain Responds to Beauty"

Psychology Today, "The Healing Power of Nature"

Ideas for fall fun:

• Create a leaf atlas. Photograph, identify, paint a watercolor of various trees and their leaves. Note the location and date.
• List local diners in your area within 50 to 75 miles. Photograph and note what's on the menu, including prices.
• Make a photo album journal of the places where you like to stop, roadside farm stands, fall festivals, country stores and such.
• Journal about your walks and hikes during the autumn
• Find a large maple tree you can sit under. Invite family and friends for a foggy morning coffee and pumpkin bread. Listen to the birds, the wind, Nature.

Voter Registration Purges

 

The Voter Purge Project, State Score Cards

Brennan Center for Justice, Voter Purges

Voter purging is when a registered voter is removed from the voter registration list where they vote. It keeps the voter registration lists up to date. 

In Vermont, for example, if you don't vote in 2 consecutive general elections, then your name is removed aka purged from that voter registration list. 

I've been voting in Vermont for decades. This is the first time I remember my voter registration being purged. I've missed elections in the past, but never that I recall purged because of it. I re-registered online.

This is a Very Important election year.

Please, make sure you are properly registered to vote.

Update, Monday:

Today I received a confirmation email from Vermont dot gov.

My re-registration over the weekend has been received and approved by the city clerk. I am a registered voter!

Wild Apples & Creativity

Wild Apples

    

Are they though? Wild apples, I believe, grow outside an orchard or in somebody's yard. Along the roadside you can see shrubs that you know must have been planted by a house, but there is no house. The same is true of apple trees in a group. Then there's the issue of wildlife carrying the apple seeds into the woods by various means.

    One morning on a slow walk the sunlight was catching a bunch of wild apples just right to make their rotting shapes look lovely, almost ripe again. I took a photograph to paint from. The canvas has been hanging around. The photo hasn't. There are folders labeled, ToPaint, that I use. Once in a while though, a picture becomes lost. Like the apples, it has gone wild.

    Autumn is a season of reflection, I feel, more than the other three are. We harvest our knowledge, our memories, our expectations of where we have been and where we are going. 

    I'm thinking that way because I've been painting again, regularly on a few canvases at a time, old as well as new images. Depression isn't selective. It mows down much of what we enjoy doing in life. Being an artist that doesn't paint is not comfortable for me. The irony is that when I am in a severely deep episode, art is where I retreat from the pain. This time, however, it is the resolve to be Artist, not pain that brings me to pick up a brush.

    I feel that there are times in life when we don't need to figure out why. It is better, when it happens, to just enjoy our creative selves.