“You have to create space; you have to remove something; you have to break something down in your life, in order to bring in the new.” —Kathrin Zenkina

“It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world.” —Mary Oliver.

“The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?” — Jack Kornfield

“Sometimes we get stuck in patterns or reoccurring themes in our lives that require a shocking epiphany to give us the opportunity to see new possibilities and notice the obstacles that keep us from moving on.” —Kat Lahr

Week 80 of 209 Weeks: “So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world.” —Mary Oliver, from “Mornings at Blackwater” Photo Notes: This photo was taken with Ilford SFX, a near-infrared film, at Vermilion-Soudan State Park in October 2025. This…

Week 79 of 209 Weeks: “I am not that air, I am the pattern that it assumed, temporarily.” —Ted Chiang, Exhalation Photo Notes: This photo was taken at Vermilion-Soudan State Park in October 2025.

Week 78 of 209 Weeks: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” —Wendell Phillips Photo Notes: This photo was taken at Vermilion-Soudan State Park in summer of 2023. This grasshopper hung around for a very long time, long enough that I could go get more film!

Week 77 of 209 Weeks: “There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” —Rachel Carson Photo Notes: This photo was taken in Waubun, MN in July 2025. I think the floret in the seedhead might be evidence of a disease or infection.

Week 76 of 209 Weeks: I love you. Let’s be family. Photo Notes: This photo was taken at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in 2020.

Week 75 of 209 Weeks: “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” —Dorothy Day Photo Notes: This photo was taken on the University of Minnesota campus in Spring 2019. Apparently it’s the only known “shoe tree” in Minnesota.