The 4th of July is a celebration of our ability to grasp and experiment with a new idea. The new idea, in this case, was democracy.
The Founding Fathers remain our best role models for courage, innovation, and getting a big job done in spite of savage personal rivalries and a lack of history to guide the effort.
I did not get any sense of that from my studies in school those many years ago, but now my library is blessed by the addition of books. They include A Leap in the Dark; George Washington’s War; Washington’s Crossing; and Jame’s Flexner’s abridge biography of George Washington, simply titled Washington.
These books are but a small sample of the literature now available that makes the Revolutionary period as fresh and interesting as your favorite television action show. Kids these days have an embarrassment of riches available to them if they care to take advantage of it.
Speaking of riches, there were these fireworks on the 4th of July. This year I got some usable photographs of the fireworks display at Huntington Beach. I discovered that it works pretty well to set the shutter at 1/10 of a second. It seems to catch a pleasing amount of blur. You can decide for yourself if you agree. You can a few images on my web site, or see 62 of them in my Picasa gallery.
Watching fireworks brings to my mind a number of lines of thought. The explosions look like stars. They make me think of what I might experience in deep meditation. Some of them look biological, jelly-fish-like shapes hanging in the black sky.
I will probably get the one you see here enlarged to hang on my wall. Oh, yes, it also reminds me of a dandelion ready to reproduce.
It’s always nice to hear from you. Let me know if any of the images speak to you.
Gorgeous.
~Michelle