Struggling In the Moment...

I'm having a hard time recovering from jet lag after the time travel that overwhelmed me in opening The Box.  Things are stuck in my head, in my heart, causing me problems.  I was doing so well with my In the Moment experiment, too.  I need to get back in sync with this reality, so I'm going to do some manual labor, work out in the garden even though it's raining, find my way back...somehow.

The front garden looked really good this morning, Iris plants growing like crazy, everything so green and lush after a heavy rain during the night...

Because the front is doing fine, I'm going to concentrate on the slope in back, on the other side of the fence.  It's very overgrown with nettles and thistles and weeds.  I will no doubt regret this big idea, but maybe not...maybe groveling in the dirt will ground me, bring me home.

**********************************************************************************

Oh, and by the way:  I didn't have much luck with the eclipse the other day, though managed two pictures in spite of the weather.

This one looks more like Mars.  I had a red filter that I used over the camera lens.  It didn't exactly work out as planned--too blurry and overbright--though still, it has a cool weirdness to it.

The moon had nearly covered the sun at this point.  The clouds had just opened up, so I quickly put the camera on the highest ISO to take the picture as fast as possible, hoping I wouldn't burn out my lens by not using a filter. 

The photo looks like a half-moon in a stormy sky instead of an eclipse.  For a hand-held, telephoto shot, I think it's a real testament to how great my camera is that this is so clear and sharp.

I was disappointed not to get the full eclipse, but right after I got that last picture, the clouds rolled over the whole works and I missed the rest of the show.  I was really just happy to get what I did.

***********************************************************************************

Okay, off to get some dirt under my fingernails and the past out of my head.  Nettle stings will probably help with that...Nature's version of shock therapy.