And the silence prevails...

It's Memorial Day, so the newsroom is exceedingly quiet right now. It's odd to be working full time in the professional world. Kind of anti-climatic actually, but it is quite enjoyable here. I thought that I would miss writing, but a year and a half of copy editing has left me hungry for more editing jobs.

One thing about returning to this job, though, is that I have again become nostalgic for last summer. This, of course, has left me yearning for Morocco, one of the best countries to visit if you want to get a sense of Islam without getting shot at (a gross overgeneralization, I'm sure, but still a great country). And so I bring to the interwebs a few of my favorite shots from my time in Morocco. The first shot is looking Northeast along the coast of Morocco near Tangiers. If you look closely on the left in the distance you can see Spain and across from it you can see the part of Morocco that reaches out to touch it's neighbor across the Strait of Gibralter.

Lone Tree

And next, from the same place, looking southwest down the curve of North Africa:

Twilight Falls

Finally, here is a shot from a medina in Tetuoan. The medinas, or 'old cities,' of Morocco are some of the most wonderful places to visit. Not only are the alleyways tight and close together, but exploring them often means navigating a maze, with little surprises here and there. In this case, we turned a corner a found beautiful potted flowers decorating old, crumbling plaster that covered the walls of houses where people lived.

Where the Path Chooses You

Hopefully I will have more time to go on photography expeditions soon! But until then, I will continue to rely on old fodder.

Also, one of my current favorite poets, Gary Snyder, has been captivating me lately. A beat poet and buddhist, his poems leap off of the page with references to both his love of nature and his Zen Buddhist training. So here is a quick poem that thought I would share(unfortunately I cannot keep his same formatting, but I will direct you to a site that has a few of his poems with his unique formatting):

"Regarding Wave"
The voice of the Dharma
the voice
now

A shimmering bell
through all.

Every hill, still.
Every tree alive. Every leaf.
All the slopes flow.
old woods, new seedlings,
tall grasses plumes.

Dark hollows; peaks of light.
wind stirs the cool side
Each leaf living.
All the hills.

The Voice
is a wife
to

him still.

~Gary Snyder