The last most beautiful thing

by erratic

is back, and Your Faithful Diarist has lately been Wading in Beauty! He is currently queuing up a youtube playlist of his obsessive favorite songs, the ones he's listened to for hours on end, going back to the days when that required rewinding the cassette after each song. What are yours?

But that's not necessarily your Last Most Beautiful Thing, and it's not mine. Mine was a sweet environmental victory! I stood up at a government hearing and spoke in support of preserving some historic meadows, that were threatened with a plan to put in a 100 car parking lot, and 2 soccer fields. It was a terrible waste of one of the few remaining meadows in the area, and the days before this hearing, it seemed like the bulldozers were inevitable. But I've fought worse fights with stronger opponents, and I went into this hearing expecting to be one of the outnumbered few speaking in support of the meadows. I'd helped queue up some allies, had walked the site and met the current owners, and I knew that this place was worth fighting for.

continued at Daily Kos....

On a warm San Franciscan night... (a photo journey)

by citisven

The last two days have been truly gorgeous in the City by the Bay. Warm, almost balmy November nights. Not completely unusual, but after a relatively cool summer and early fall, this has been an unexpected treat.

Now I know that there are a lot of problems in this world and that life can be incredibly difficult at times, but there are those moments when all the heavy burdens fall away and I'm just in awe at the stunning beauty of the planet we live on and how blessed we are to be alive.

continued at Daily Kos....

The Last Most Beautiful

by erratic

Well, fall's here, it fell on me this Sunday while drinking beers at a street concert in Annapolis. There were a few hard-core frolickers who kept dancing when the wind and the rain set in, but I got all cold and shivery and dragged my co-partiers inside where it was warm. Sunday started in sun and ended in cold, and since then, I celebrate each luxury-moment of sunwarmth I find. I regret all the wasted moments of Summer 2010 and vow to scramble like that squirrel from the Ice Age series to savor every last moment of sun before darkness and death set in for the winter.

So much for beauty! Admittedly, I'm SAD. I have had to reject my Canadian origins and live with you Sunlanders, in the interests of my sanity. Which also requires celebrating moments of beauty. So help me out here, what was your last most beautiful moment?

continued at Daily Kos....

Spinning fire on the cliffs

by erratic

There's a Wilderness Area I've been visiting for over a decade, a beautiful place, with cliffs overlooking a steep forested valley. Sometimes I camp on the cliffs, walk out to watch the sunset, the sunrise, the night's stars spinning slowly. Or I hike down an old road to the river, and spend the day playing in the rocks and pools and waterfalls. The water's clear and cold all year round, and there are few things more satisfying than jumping into a cold deep pool, and then splashing out to dry in the sun on warm rocks.

What I love about this place is that there's nothing but nature upstream - the whole watershed is protected. I've built up an intimate map of this place over the years, still remember  my first visits, remember getting lost and finding trails, remember the unknowns and discoveries, remember floods and storms and mist and mornings and seasons, remember cold nights and campfires, hunger and feasts, climbing cliffs and waterfalls, padding barefoot panther-happy over boulders, crow-calling echoes across the valley, remember fields of wildflowers in bloom, lightning and shooting stars across the sky. It's one of the few places i feel perfectly comfortable.

continued at Daily Kos...

The last most beautiful thing.

by erratic

So what's the last beautiful thing that you experienced? Here's mine:

I've been learning about monarch butterflies this year, actually took a class on them. They are fascinating and beautiful beings, and my next ambition is to start up a classroom-based monarch program, where kids get to watch monarchs go from egg through 6 caterpillar instars, to chrysalis, watch the butterfly break out, and set it free. The Monarch Teacher Network is a great resource for putting together a program, all I need to do is queue up a grant and partner with a school. Doable. But I am a lazy soul.

Almost too lazy to bother to describe all the things that make Monarch Butterflies so awesome. The 2nd longest insect migration in the world (they were recently preempted by a dragonfly in the Indian Ocean). All monarchs east of the Rockies overwinter in one small area close to Mexico City, which means that in September, the great-grandchildren of the butterflies that flew north in the spring, fly more than a thousand miles, back to a place they've never known. http://en.wikipedia.org/..., for the curious.

continued at Daily Kos....

The last most beautiful thing - Salamanders and Lightning

by erratic

I spent the weekend taking a bunch of inner city kids from DC camping. It was undeniably my last most beautiful thing, absolutely worth the hours I've spent tracking signups, permission forms, and camping gear, the last few weeks. We drove out to an Outdoor Ed center near Harpers Ferry, WV; set up tents in a field; did a low ropes challenge course; grilled corn, hotdogs, hamburgers and S'mores; had a talent show with comedy, R&B, and gospel; did a Night Hike: kept mostly dry during a 3am lightning storm and downpour; built a fire in the morning, did another hike, and drove home tired and happy.

What was your last most beautiful thing?

continued at Daily Kos....

The last most beautiful (monarch butterfly)

by erratic

moment - what's yours? We spend a lot of time and energy wallowing through the muck here at DK, witnessing and discussing acts of oppression and incompetence. The defilements are inexhaustible. I feel it's also important to celebrate the moments of beauty and pleasure, because we're never going to get to a place where everything has been resolved to everyone's satisfaction. Conflict is an essential and intrinsic part of the human experience, but so is pleasure.

My last most beautiful moment was watching a monarch butterfly feast on swamp milkweed blossoms, in a garden that I'd helped to plant.

continued at Daily Kos...

The last most beautiful thing

by erratic

is back. What was the last most beautiful thing that you experienced? I was just reading back through old diaries I'd written, and was reminded of how despairingly godawful I often felt during the W years. So that was pretty beautiful. And it was beautiful to read all these old comments and discussions and battles, and remember how awesome the DK community can be. But also, how annoying. But my last most beautiful thing is after the jump.

continued at Daily Kos....