Category Archives: Joy

Weekly Photo Challenge: (Shipping and Garden) Containers (of Local Favorites) 3

Famous Quotes, Gratitude, Hawaii, Joy, photography • Tags: ,

A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for. — William G. T. Shedd

 

We gardeners are healthy, joyous, natural creatures. We are practical, patient, optimistic. We declare our optimism every year, every season, with every act of planting. — Carol Deppe


I’m grateful to have the company of my dogs as I work in my garden.

 

Food, in the end, in our own tradition, is something holy. It’s not about nutrients and calories. It’s about sharing. It’s about honesty. It’s about identity. — Louise Fresco

The containers on the right hold crack seed. Cracked seed is a variety of dehydrated and preserved fruits originally brought to Hawaii from China and later customized for local taste buds. The favors range from sweet to salty to sour. Li hing mui, one local favorite, is a salty dried plum that has also been turned into a power used in other foods including shave ice.

Can’t wait to see what others are posting for this week’s challenge:

From “Don’t judge a book by its cover” to “Don’t look at the jug, but at what it contains” (an old Rabbinic saying), we’re constantly taught that the contents of things are more important than the vessels, wrappers, and boxes that hold them in place. This week, let’s give outer shells their due and focus our lenses on things that contain other things. — Ben Huberman

Weekly Photo Challenge: Split Second Story of Craft, Sorrow, and Healing 1

Compassion, Healing, Joy, Kindness, photography • Tags: ,

A_Stitch_In_Time

The AIDS Memorial Quilt is a tribute to lives loss during a troubling time in our nation’s response to a health crisis. It also is an amazing tribute to the craft of quilting.

A 2012 trip to Washington, D.C. coincided with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the quilt and with the thirty years of life with AIDS. I had wanted to see the quilt since I first heard about it in the late 1980s.

No, I do not directly know anyone with AIDS, but I was still a hospital nurse when the crisis started in the early 1980s. I still remember the first young man who died from it on my floor. I remember the fear some health care workers had when they had to care for him.

I am sad to also report that I remember a comment made by a respiratory therapist that the disease was God’s punishment. I responded that I don’t believe anyone deserves to die that way. Anyone dying a horrible death deserves compassion and kindness; not judgment. And, back then it really was a horrible way to die and there was little that helped. The medications are better now, but there is still no cure.

Yet, despite the sad reason for its creation, the quilt is beautiful and a joy to behold. I hope it helps those who experienced loss due to this illness to heal. I’m glad I finally had a chance to see it.

This post is inspired by The Daily Post weekly Photo Challenge where Shane Francescut asked us to capture an image that tells a full story in a single frame. I can’t think of anything that tells a full story better than this quilt. Can you?