#capturcalgary

[toknowbeauty]

🎅🏽 #capturcalgary #calgarysunset #shareyourweather . What a strange day it ended up being. The day remained so overcast that it almost felt like the sun had forgotten rise properly. Then all of a sudden, it dipped below the Chinook arch and suddenly everything was flooded with streams of sunlight. Brilliant beautiful daylight that quickly transformed into a spectacular sunset. Colours that lingered in painted clouds - the colour of an autumn bonfire. While wild geese followed the sun across the sky to the pink and gold horizon. A spectacular ending to an otherwise, unremarkable and gloomy #winter's day. . I had just come home from my Sunday afternoon walk in the park ... only today ... the pathways were surprisingly busy ... heavily crowded with too many maskless joggers & walkers for me to feel at ease. So I opted for the relatively empty sidewalks of the nearby neighborhood instead. . The Christmas decorations have been up since early November. I appreciate the cheerfulness that they added to today's venture. I debated if it was worth it to put up my own tree or decorations The pandemic makes Christmas a rather muted affair. A nonexistent celebration restrained by #COVID restrictions and a general sadness from all that has been so hard this year. . I did put up my tree and a few decorations. And I found today's sunset to be a poignant reminder that even in this dark place, beautiful light is possible. Today was a happy day - despite the winter chill and the steady darkening of our days as we approach the solstice. This is a pandemic year - a hard year - but there is definitely still room for #Christmas - for beauty - for the magic found in today's dramatic transformation of the oppressive clouds into the breathtaking beauty of a #sunset sky. _______ “Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” ― Robin Wall Kimmerer . . . #calgaryalberta #calgary #dailyhiveyyc #explorecalgary #christmasdecorations #winterwalkers #yycsunset #calgaryviews #calgaryweather (at Silver Springs) https://www.instagram.com/p/CIMxGsFBUSZ/?igshid=1jam1ozeuwsha

[toknowbeauty]

#capturcalgary #sunset #winter . A couple of sunset photos that have been lurking on my phone. I get hit pretty hard with SAD in the lead up to the solstice ... and this year has been tougher than most. Even though I try to get out during the day for some sunlight exposure ... with the shorter days ... more often than not ... I find myself walking at sunset ... catching the last desperate rays of sunshine before the long winter's night sets in ... pretty with its Christmas lights and snow ... ____________ "I belong to a generation that has often felt abandoned by God and betrayed by mankind. And yet, I believe that we must not give up on either. Was it yesterday – or long ago – that we learned how human beings have been able to attain perfection in cruelty? That for the killers, the torturers, it is normal, thus human, to act inhumanely? The answer, of course, is up to each of us.  We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children, between the ugliness of hate and the will to oppose it.  Between inflicting suffering and humiliation on our fellow man and offering him the solidarity and hope he deserves. Or not. I know – I speak from experience – that even in darkness it is possible to create light and encourage compassion. That it is possible to feel free inside a prison. That even in exile, friendship exists and can become an anchor." — Elie Wiesel (Holocaust survivor) . . . . . . . . . . #shareyourweather #calgaryalberta #calgary #explorecalgary #dailyhiveyyc #winterwalkers #calgaryviews #beautifulsky #yycsunset #CalgarySunset #skyphotography #calgarylife #calgaryweather #outwalking #StayHomeStaySafe #stayathome #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthmatters https://www.instagram.com/p/CIDwRIdhILt/?igshid=qp9v8depfex2

[toknowbeauty]

❄️ #shareyourweather #winter #capturcalgary . The days are so much shorter now that I have to make a conscious effort to get outside before sunset. Although, on days like this it doesn't really matter. A foggy, magical day in Calgary. The white light seems to strip everything of it's colour. The breath of winter - tiny crystals - a veil of ice - face and hands - skin cold - the freshness of this winter's white day. __________ "So you mustn’t be frightened ... if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall." — Ranier Maria Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet . . . . . . . #winter #calgaryweather #yycweather #parksofcalgary #yycparks #trees #calgary #calgaryalberta #explorecalgary #winterreturns #winterwalkers #snow #dailyhiveyyc #calgaryviews #fog #naturephotography #naturelovers #outwalking #comewalkwithme (at Calgary, Alberta) https://www.instagram.com/p/CHtrE0Khtpn/?igshid=z2nw8cnugtt8

[toknowbeauty]

🎃 #HappyHalloween 👻🕸️🧙🏽‍♀️🦇🎃 . It almost feels like we need to skip over #Halloween this year — life is scary enough as it is. It is hard not to get caught up in all the desolate machinations of the world — all fraught with so much anxiety and fear — a steady loudness that is both painful and terrifying. And yet, I think that even in moments like this ... it is important to choose JOY. . Perhaps foolishly ... stubbornly ... naively ... but also consciously and consistently choosing to turn away from the darkness ... even if for just for a brief moment ... to choose joy ... #ChooseJoy 🧡 ______ "Choose joy. Choose it like a child chooses the shoe to put on the right foot, the crayon to paint a sky. Choose it at first consciously, effortfully, pressing against the weight of a world heavy with reasons for sorrow, restless with need for action. Feel the sorrow, take the action, but keep pressing the weight of joy against it all, until it becomes mindless, automated, like gravity pulling the stream down its course; until it becomes an inner law of nature. If Viktor Frankl can exclaim “yes to life, in spite of everything!” — and what an everything he lived through — then so can any one of us amid the rubble of our plans, so trifling by comparison. Joy is not a function of a life free of friction and frustration, but a function of focus — an inner elevation by the fulcrum of choice. So often, it is a matter of attending to what Hermann Hesse called, as the world was about to come unworlded by its first global war, “the little joys”; so often, those are the slender threads of which we weave the lifeline that saves us." — Maria Popova . "So few grains of happiness measured against all the dark and still the scales balance." — Jane Hirshfield . . . . . . . . #capturcalgary #dailyhiveyyc #calgaryalberta #calgary #explorecalgary #comewalkwithme #outwalking #winterwalkers #halloweendecor #halloweendecorations #covidcoping #calgaryviews #shareyourweather #calgarylife #halloween2020 #weekendvibes #sunset #yycsunset #calgarysunset #trickortreat https://www.instagram.com/p/CHApQgiBxNs/?igshid=k42mh75l2zh4

[toknowbeauty]

🛑 #defendabparks #yycsunset #calgarysunset #capturcalgary #lawnsigns . A quick update on the lawnsigns that I come across on last night's #covidcoping walk. There are a lot more showing up which is peculiar for a non-election year. I live in a very conservative-leaning neighborhood — so this does not bode well for Jason Kenney and appears to be a repudiation of their failure to deliver on their promises to Albertans. . The #dontgobreakingmyparks signs are EVERYWHERE. Kudos to @cpawssab for an excellent campaign to protect our wild spaces from the UCP. . My first encounter with the #shandemic sign. With our #COVID numbers rising, I choose to support our amazing healthcare system #abhealth and doctors #abdocs4patients. #Shandro disagrees ... . The #stopkenney sticker is also new. With more layoffs announced at Suncor, Shell, TC Energy and others — I think Albertans feel like the $4.7B taxcut gifted to O&G last year has not yielded the promised results. . #FireTheUCP _________ "We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness." — Mary Oliver . . . . . . . . . . . #sunset #calgary #calgaryalberta #calgaryviews #explorecalgary #calgarybuzz #yycbuzz #dailyhiveyyc #mycalgary #calgaryparks #calgarylife #yycliving #abpoli #winteriscoming #comewalkwithme (at Calgary, Alberta) https://www.instagram.com/p/CGFpm_ahUDk/?igshid=1hxonbbjz34xo