In Gratitude: Photographs for You

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is Thanksgiving Week, and though we don't have a Thanksgiving Day in Czech Republic, I would still like to say a huge THANKS to all of you!

Thank you for joining me here at The View through My Lens, I'm posting five of my favorite photographs from this year, 2010. Please take and copy any or all of these to your own computers, and share them with your friends.

In Gratitude, these Photographs are Gifts for you ...

Sailing at St. Gilgen, Austria

Ribbons of Summer Grain, Czech Republic

Poppies, Czech Republic

The View of Mala Strana from Charles Bridge, Prague

Prague Castle and Charles Bridge

An easy way to do this is to hover your mouse over the image, and right click. You should have a list of options before you. Choose the option that says "save image as:" and click. Then select a spot on your computer where you would like to save it. One easy place to find your image is to save it to the "Desktop".

To make this image (or any other) your desktop photograph image, right click while you are looking at your computer desktop, and select "save as wallpaper". Or if you have a different operating system, choose desktop background, and select the file you want as the background photograph.

I am so thankful for my family, our friends, our health, our adventures, and for the ability to do what I love to do: write, capture beauty with a camera lens, paint, and connect with so many of you here. Thank you!

Starting the Conversation (leave a comment below): What is one thing you are most grateful for this Thanksgiving-time? And, do you have a favorite photo from these five (they're all quite different)?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Celebrating: Two Blog Years

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates other."

-Nelson Mandela, in his 1994 inaugural speech

To shine!

I am having a blog party today here on the blog! -- to celebrate two years of blogging! I have loved connecting with so many here over the couple years. So, first, thank you!

My first blog can be found by clicking here. So much has changed for me in the last two years:

In 2008, we lived in a suburb in Ohio, and lived the normal family-of-five existence, had a normal house in a normal neighborhood, shopped at a normal Kroger store, went to a great church, had great friends, and drove to Florida for vacations. Oh-- and I was writing my third novel, glad to have a super agent.

Now, in November 2010:
We live in a village outside of Prague, Czech Republic, halfway around the world from Ohio. We live a completely different life as a family-of-five--much simpler than the run-around whirl of constant activities in the USA. Family time is rich and plentiful, and we're loving it.

Although our house in Prague is quite "Western", it also is not "normal" by US standards. Everything is on a much smaller scale, and our space involves mostly family space. Before we moved, we gave many of our things away, anticipating the shrunken space and total three closets for all of us (one is the coat closet! And no basement, no attic storage. What we have is what we use.). We live in a Czech neighborhood where few people speak English.

We shop at a few different stores for our daily food, all the size of a US 7-11 convenience store, and we mostly have home-church (which we all enjoy so much it's hard to admit) because of the restricted options here in a post-communist country.

Our friends here in Czech are from every continent, from many countries, and speak many languages, and our friendships have become the deepest of my life. I am so very blessed to have so many incredible friends here.  This is one of the things I treasure most, along with our family.

And, as we drive to places like Rome, Budapest, and Dubrovnik for vacations, we learn new currencies, new languages, and learn from many peoples. It is living a dream. We are so grateful.

Oh-- and if you read my blog, you know that I still love to oil paint, and play music on the piano and viola, and take photographs with my camera ... and most of all write. I'm currently writing my 5th novel. None have been snatched by a publisher yet, but we're close ... grateful to have the same super agent representing me and my work. And I'm loving it.

Life changes have been great changes for all of us. Again, we're so grateful. And we're savoring every minute ...

Though the changes in my life have been drastic in the past couple of years, one blogging goal has remained the same ... to just write, about things that strike my interest in daily life. About the daily adventure ... and how I'm learning along the way.

Many blogging folks tout new fast formulas for increased following or fancy new metrics for watching how many people are reading each post, or ways to write catchy titles and play the latest tricks to be the widest-read blogger out there. I think I could do that. But that isn't me. To me, I want to connect with people. And be me-- shine the light that is Jennifer Lyn King. That's it. 

So, I thank you for stopping by and celebrating with me about The View through My Lens reaching its third year of weekly posts. This is number 112! And I sincerely hope you feel more inspired to live larger, shine brighter, and take a risk to do something you love today, in this daily adventure of life.

Last thing, a Christmas shopping commercial: It's Christmas shopping season (again!) and I would love it if you felt moved to buy my non-fiction book, The One Year Mini for Busy Women. It's still on shelves at many US bookstores, and it's conveniently available at Amazon for $11.04, and it makes a great gift (so I've heard :o) ) because it is a daily inspirational for busy women, with one short reading for each day of the year.

Starting the Conversation: What blogging tips to you use and follow? And what practices do you find on the Web that bother you as a reader? I'd love to hear what you think-- and if you have suggestions, I'd love to try them out! Thanks!

Why Create?

"Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement." 

~Golda Meir, (Israeli Founder and Prime Minister, 1898-1978)

Happy November! One of my favorite months of the year -- because it has Thanksgiving in it, one of my favorite holidays. Also, November is officially the National Novel Writing Month, in the United States, and beyond the borders. NaNoWriMo, as writers call it, also is an organization that encourages people to write a (short) novel during the month of November. They have an official website that helps track progress, and a network that helps to keep participants encouraged along the way. Click here to see my writing goal.

Reaching the goal (here above the tree line, in the Austrian Alps)

This year, I am participating in NaNoWriMo. Why? For a few reasons, really ... but it all comes down to the fact that I love to write. As with the title of this blog, I share the View through My Lens, but if you've read my bio, you know that my passion is writing. Writing novels. 

As with all of the arts, the writing world is a tough place to break in ... or get a publisher for one's work. But just as someone can't walk up to the London Symphony Orchestra and say they want to join and learn how to play a violin, a person can't walk up to a publisher and say they want to use a computer and have their book published. (Well, with self-publishing, technically people can. But that also means the product could be about the same quality as if a novice violinist opened for the London Symphony.) 

The only way to break-in to the Arts is to work. Work more. And keep working through until the quality of an artist's work is of the highest quality. Then, that artist, if it is their time, their hard work will pay off. Their dream will come true. Until then, the term "starving artist" applies well, because it usually takes years. Of work. To get there.

This novel I am writing now is my fifth. And though my last novel was within a breath of being published, it was not. It wasn't the time, yet. And so I work ... and work more.  Well, I also write because I will continue to write, regardless; it is what I deeply love to do.

It is for this reason that I am participating in NaNoWriMo. I've been spinning this novel in my head for the past few months, plotting and feeling the characters come to life inside my head; it was ready to come out.  Creativity takes courage. To create something is to say, "I have something inside to offer, to give, to share." To create is to be fully alive.

I think that comfort (or inaction) is the enemy of reaching our dreams. It is much easier to make ourselves too busy for the sake of being busy so that we don't have time to work toward a goal. But, we can make time. We can clear the schedule. We can realign with our goals. For me, NaNoWriMo is a great kick in the pants. It happened to be the perfect time to pick myself up and move ahead, keeping my sight fixed on the next goal.

Creating something, pursuing a dream, becoming all that we were created to be, and using the gifts we have been given -- none of these are easy. But to achieve something worthwhile, something that resonates and satisfies, we have to trust inner compass and step ahead, in the direction of our dreams. 

Starting the Conversation: What holds you back from pursuing your dreams? How can you begin again, moving in that direction?

Photography: Being There

"The glory of God is man fully alive."  -St. Irenaeus

"Regenbogen" (Rainbow) in the Austrian Alps

Continuing on the topic of photography, and sharing a few more of my favorite photos from my recent trip to Italy ... this is the fourth week on the topic of photography. Click here to read #1, #2, and #3.

I love photography for many reasons, but probably the primary reason is the ability to step out of time and capture an image that I see in my everyday life. Somehow for me, those images are art. And a camera feels like the most rewarding way, with its ease and portability, to be able to make visual art. Don't you agree?

Also, for me, there is something about the ability to live and be in the moment, without twisting back into nostalgia or sprinting forward with worry. When we are fully present, where we are, we can be fully alive. 

A moment with a wisp of fog (Italy's Cinque Terre)

So many times, I have discovered "being there" to mean that I see something meaningful that I may have missed in the ordinary busy-ness of everyday life. Sometimes "being present" means to mark out what haunts us from yesterday, and to dismiss what nags at our thoughts for tomorrow. Then the now is all there is. And it is all we have, really. There are no guarantees. Tomorrow's sunset will not look the same as today's. Time today to spend with others may not come around again. There is no formula for whether tomorrow will be like today. We can enjoy today for what it is-- the present, a gift.

When we notice what is around us in the present moment, we may discover all kinds of gifts.


We may notice things we may not have seen before ....

A moment with a pasture full of sheep wearing clanking bells (Tuscany)

A moment when the setting sun painted the distant mountains with brilliance (Alps)

A moment when the sunrise began to lift the morning fog (Tuscany)

If we have done a bit of preparation and can rest and relax in that moment and have our eyes open wide, we will be able to see and experience what is there, in that moment. And many times it is breathtaking ...

Starting the conversation: Have you taken the time recently to slow down? What did you "notice"? Does having a camera with you help you to slow down and see?

Inspiration: Croatian Sunset

“Happiness is a Swedish sunset; it is there for all,

but most of us look the other way and lose it." -Mark Twain

Last month, our family spent a week on the breathtaking Lapad peninsula jutting into the Adriatic Sea beside Dubrovnik, Croatia. I had never imagined such a place on earth existed: steep mountains colliding with a clear azure Sea, age-old fortresses perched along bleached cliffs, and three lighthouses blinking from humpback islands dotting the coast. One night, the sunset confirmed my thoughts-- this spot was pure inspiration.

 Happiness is a Croatian sunset ...

For many months, I have enjoyed working hard on writing a novel. And now, as I continue with the work of rewrites, I find myself tapping into art, images, and music for inspiration. The following image lingers in my mind, unforgettable, as pure inspiration. I return to it again and again. (I hope you enjoy it, too...)

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” -Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was right--the best, most enduring works come to be because of hard, hard work. When a piece of life--art, image, music, video--connects deeply, it can be the perfect fuel for a great work, the one percent needed to make the end product beyond excellent. It's worth shooting for, and soaking in art, to help inspire us beyond our limitations, toward creating something great.

Starting the Conversation: Today, what inspires you?

Claude Monet, the Water-Lilies, Paris and L'Orangerie

Our family traveled from Prague to Paris for a getaway in the West last weekend. Along with time walking along the Seine, the Tuileries Gardens, around the Eiffel Tower and Arc D' Triumph and Trocodero, and mass at the Notre Dame on Ile d'Cite, visiting the Musée de l’Orangerie in Jardin des Tuileries became the thrilling highlight for me. 

all photographs: paintings of Les Nympheas by Claude Monet from Musee l'Orangerie, Paris

As far back as I can remember, Claude Monet has been one of my favorite artists; his Impressionistic style has always resonated, deeply. Last weekend, on this first visit to L'Orangerie, my love for Monet's art has grown exponentially.

It is difficult to explain in mere words the substantive presentation of Monet's Les Nympheas (The Water Lilies) ... so I'm including several photographs, along with quotes from Monet, to better portray his masterpieces and their sheer beauty.

"It took me time to understand my waterlilies. I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without ever thinking of painting them." -Claude Monet

"My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece."

"I can only draw what I see."

"Everything I have earned has gone into these gardens." (on his gardens at Giverny)

"Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment."

"It took me time to understand my waterlilies. I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without ever thinking of painting them."

"I know that to paint the sea really well, you need to look at it every hour of every day in the same place so that you can understand its way in that particular spot and that is why I am working on the same motifs over and over again, four or six times even."

"It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly."

 

 

 

"Thanks to water, [Monet] has become the painter of what we cannot see. He addresses that invisible spiritual surface that separates light from reflection. Airy azure captive of liquid azure ... Color rises from the bottom of the water in clouds, in whirlpools."

Starting the Discussion: What art inspires you? Who is your favorite artist? Do you have a favorite art museum you go to for inspiration?

Beauty Is ...

"Beauty is not caused. It is."  -Emily Dickinson

Lately, as I write, and rewrite, and rework my novel, I have thought much about beauty-- in stories, in relationships, in the way things look and feel, and the way words sound when read. But beauty and achieving it is not something easily done. Anyone with a blank canvas and a handful of brushes knows that beautiful art is not easily created. Anyone with a keyboard and a blank screen knows that excellent writing cannot quickly be hammered out. But somehow, beauty is ...

Often, I turn to photographs for inspiration. I thought I would share a few with you, flowers I photographed in our former gardens.

Beauty is ...

one of my favorite combinations of garden roses in bloom

a beautifully-painted Black Swallowtail butterfly on Echinacea

the jaw-dropper of a daylily, about twelve inches wide

my personal favorite: Bellaroma rose dazzling in dew at first morning's light

"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting ... "  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Starting the Conversation (leave a comment below):  What do you think about beauty and art? Can beauty be created? Or like Emily Dickinson said so eloquently, do you believe that "beauty is"?

Finding Inspiration

"If we live to be 100 years old, we will have only experienced Spring 100 times” … if we’re paying attention.  –unknown

Sometimes, life takes our breath away.

Lupine field, Somes Sound, Maine

One July, while camping at Acadia National Park in Maine, I stood in silent wonder at the unexpected and magnificent beauty of a vast field of lupine edging up to Somes Sound. Whether it was the crashing of the ocean along the rocks bordering the lupine, the Bald Eagle circling above me, or the veil of fog filtering the summer sun, I don’t know, but somehow the experience impacted me. Profoundly.

Frequently, I’m asked where I find inspiration for my writing, my painting, and my work. But the truth is I don’t often feel at a loss for inspiration. Life has kept me quite filled with a well from which to work, from which to tap to create, and to keep my mind fascinated with the beauty which can be found in our world. I am deeply grateful.

Have you ever had an experience that changes you? The way you see things? The way the world looks afterward? I love how this phenomenon is described in this great post by Michael Hyatt, on the healing power of beauty and art and an experience that changed him for better.

I once heard the definition of an artist as “a collector of experience.” Art then might be defined as the application of a collection of experience. Run-of-the-mill art might happen as a result of a collection of a lifetime of contained non-risky experiences. Whereas broad-sweeping art may be created from a lifetime’s worth of stretching—of opening ourselves to the wide collection of experience available in everyday living.

In my mind, inspiration comes quietly, in the serenity of a sherbet-colored sunrise, the sharing of stories over dinner, the crackling warmth of a fire, the bells pealing from a church belfry, or the bursting color of Spring—experiencing it all as if for the first time.

my daily inspiration, the Prague Castle

Maybe this week, dare to do something new, to go somewhere you’ve not previously gone, to sit and share and listen to the life of friend. Just for the fun of it—just for the new experience, try driving a new road, sitting at a different table at a restaurant, reading a new book, or trying out a new food. Perhaps when life takes our breath away, we can take in a fresh beauty, and can remember He made it all just for you, and me.

I think as we collect experience we are further inspired for our art and for creativity. But we also may be furthered as human beings to love more deeply and to live more richly, and to express our life and gratitude as its own work of art.

Starting the conversation: What inspires you? Can you remember a time when life changed, inexplicably, and the experience took your breath away?

The Hand that Paints the Sky

Every day, my breath catches at the incredible landscape surrounding our new home near Prague. Shafts of low light sweep across a vast field. The morning sun skims across the lingering haze from the valley below, where spires and buildings and the Castle rise up out of the morning mist.

Some mornings, the view has been rose-tinted with the waking sun. Others, the crescent moon hangs like a glowing hook hovering above the dark forest. On every occasion I find myself breathless at the scenery, I can’t help remembering the Hand that paints the sky.

In this life we’ve been given, the sweetest expression of gratitude for the gift of life may be in the full expression of ourselves through our art. Out of love, and an open heart, we can respond with our hearts in our work, in gratitude not only for the gift of life itself, but also for the treasure of freedom of expression we’ve been given.

The Wealth of Czech Culture

In a handful of weeks, our family of five will be taking the giant leap across the Atlantic to settle into a new life in Prague, Czech Republic. We are all very excited about the adventure that is sure to come with life in a new country and a new continent. In addition to the endless physical preparations, we are doing our best to prepare ourselves from within, as well. This week, we went through cultural training, which not only gave us points of cultural differences to prepare for, but also introduced many wonderful aspects of Czech life to look forward to living and experiencing during our time there.

Since I really didn't know much about Prague and Czech Republic until recently, I’d like to share a few key elements I find interesting.

The Czech Republic is a beautiful, modern country about the size of the state of South Carolina with a population of roughly ten million. The Czech Republic has been a member of NATO since 1999 and of the European Union since 2004, and is bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the East, and Poland to the north. Though the region thrived as an intellectual European center prior to 1948, the government fell to Soviet rule, and Czechoslovakia endured communist regime until 1989. In 1993, Czech Republic and Slovakia split into their respective countries. Amazingly, the Czech people have only been without communism for only twenty years.


Prague, the main Czech city, has long stood as a cultural center for much of Central Europe, hosting artists and musicians and intellectuals for decades. One of my personal favorites, Antonin Dvořák, musician and composer of the New World Symphony and many Slavonic Dances, lived near Prague in the late 1800’s. Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart resided in Prague and found tremendous inspiration there. Today, opera, ballet, and symphony perform regularly in breathtaking opera houses.

Prague is also well known for poets and writers, including Franz Kafka. And since original buildings exist throughout the city, Prague is known for its wealth of architecture: Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, Cubist, Renaissance, and Art Nouveau. On a practical level, the city's beauty is everywhere, brought to life in weathered plaster buildings, cobblestone streets, and brightly-colored geraniums planted in quaint windowboxes.

With castles and music and arts and natural and societal beauty, our time in Prague is certain to be a culturally decadent experience. As a writer, I know the rich surroundings of Prague and Central Europe will have a profound impact on my life, my living, and my art.

So much to learn, so much to enjoy, so much to savor and pass on … looking forward to the upcoming years of experiences in Prague, Czech Republic.

Looking forward to sharing it with you …

Enjoy Summer! -Jennifer