Y: Yukon meditation

In 2012 I did a series of one minute films that I called “one Yukon minute.” The idea was to spend one minute in meditation, looking at a photograph…except it would be a living photograph, with movement and sound. Serene. Tranquil. Something to reflect on and calm the mind. A moving meditation, so to speak.

Taking a moment – even just one minute – to stop and mediate on something beautiful helps to bring balance to our lives. Each film is one minute long. Here are two of my favourites:

Filmed October 7, 2012. Sunset at the Fox Lake house.

and…

One month later, November 10, 2012. The beginning of freeze-up at the Fox Lake house.

YI’m participating in the Blogging From A-Z challenge.  One blog post for each letter of the alphabet, each day of April (except Sunday)

F: Firewood at Fox Lake

A couple of years ago I started making little one-minute vignettes. I called them meditative moments. A chance to sit and relax, rest your mind and gaze at a meditative moving picture.

Here is last November 18, 2012. Getting ready for winter at the Fox Lake cabin:

It’s so relaxing, watching else someone stack the firewood, isn’t it?

The sound you hear in the background is the generator. We had been using the splitter. I took a break to make this little film.

 

FI’m participating in the Blogging From A-Z challenge.  One blog post for each letter of the alphabet, each day of April (except Sunday).

Alaska Highway: Watson Lake to Fort Nelson December 3, 2013

Day 2 Driving the Alaska Highway

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Contact Creek Lodge just outside of Watson Lake:

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Contact Creek has the cheapest gas on the highway:

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Somewhere between Watson Lake and Muncho Provincial Park (if you’re viewing through email, you’ll need to go directly to the website to see the short video)

Bison on the road. They lay on the sides of the road like statues. Like big boulders. You don’t realize it’s an animal lying there until you’re passing it, sometimes!

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Caribou on the Alaska Highway in Muncho Provincial Park (if you’re viewing through email, you’ll need to go directly to the website to see the short video):

The drive through the mountains was awesome. A-MAZ-ING.

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A long and winding (but scenic) road that used all my defensive driving skills. The road is quite a bit narrower in the winter because of the snow plowed off to the side.  It wasn’t scary at all, but you do need to be alert and drive to the conditions.

I didn’t take any pictures of the road as it winds around the lake. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s sort of like driving on a flat roller coaster. Every corner is a blind corner. The road is about 1.5 lanes wide, and you can see what’s coming from several bends ahead, but you can’t see it coming right around the bend you are on. So you go slow. When you meet a transport truck, one of you has to pull off onto the side as far as you can, with a sheer rock wall on one side and the lake right on the other. Then you creep past each other with a wave and a grin before continuing on  your way. It’s probably not so bad in the summer, but in the winter the snow makes it even narrower. So you can understand that I didn’t have any attention to spare for my camera!

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All the mountain driving was tiring. Just when I thought I was through the mountains, I hit Stone Mountain Provincial Park. The road here was nice and wide, though, and other than a lot of climbing and descending, it was just fine.

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Alaska Highway: Whitehorse to Watson Lake, December 2, 2013

Day 1:

day 1 map

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the Alaska Highway: 037

At 10:45 in the morning my car’s thermometer is pegged at-30: as low as it will go. I do not know how cold it really is, only that it is colder than 30 below. After an hour on the road, there is still ice on the hood of the car and the clutch is still as stiff as tar. 040 042

I am driving East, into the rising sun, with everything I own. 032

when the road ahead
is drenched in molten gold
i know to raise my hand
in anticipation of being blinded
until the road slides west
and sunrise
falls

behind me.

044outhouse in December
some one has left the seat up
amber icicles

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driving east,
sarah brightman
eases the pie jesu
into the rising sun

as brilliant bursts  of liquid bronze and gold
splash champagne,
and shadows
chase the sweetness
of the melody
across the hillsides.

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telephone poles stretching
one after the other,
t-braces white with frost,
a thousand messiahs
with knees and feet of alabaster

and frosty brows bowed down,
connected by living wire,

carrying my whispered voice
from christ jesus
to christ jesus

until it reaches
your
ears.

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