Aura

Although it cannot be seen in the poor quality image seen below, there was a visible glowing ring around the moon when I arrived in the park when I took this picture. Looking up as I stretched out my legs before walking (yes, I am that old), the light formed a circle around the moon perhaps twenty times its' size, emanting out in all directions. I wouldn't sat that it illuminated the nearby stars (because light near stars tends to make them harder for me to see), but rather created a buffer of blue-black before the stars reappeared to frame the round glow.
   As I looked up at that light, I kept thinking of a dull light bulb, even though what I was looking at was nearly otherwordly.
   Sometimes, the ways that I have been so thoroughly socialized saddens me.

 

There's an aura there, I swear!

Feather out of place

   I took this picture because I found the way the feather stuck out from the body of this Muscovy duck beautiful. I felt an immediate warmth towards it.
   Even though I already had sympathetic feeling towards these animals (having seen them and watched their interactions with one another regularly during my daily walks around Stow Lake), there was something so endearing, so real to me about this particular one.
   As I thought about writing the word 'real' above, I felt badly about the choice, like there was another word, or something else that I was really trying to say but could not find a better way to say it.
   I almost wanted to write human.
   What I was trying to convey was that the errant feather, figuring so prominently, acts for me as a kind of invitation to enter the animal's world. Where there is visible imperfection, I also see a door that I can exit my own experiences to a degree that I can better perceive others'.
   Where the unfinished business of living is most obvious, the presumptions I have about living things have the best chance of becoming obsolete, at least temporarily.

Is my humanity is sticking out?