“Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that would have opened for anyone else.”
– Joseph Campbell
My summer assignment from the First Unitarian Church of Rochester falls into this thread. We are being challenged to go outside our comfort zones and stretch ourselves…and I take that as having the courage to follow my bliss. I plan to document my summer blissings here with plenty of pictures!
One thing I love to do that brings me peace is to go out and take pictures, especially flowers and other nature shots. My daughter Robin and I took a day trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario, Canada last week. I have always loved the little town with all its shops and flowers and theatre goers (the Shaw Festival is there).
If you click on the map, you will be taken to the Niagara-on-the-Lake home page.
So the first part of the blissful event was getting to spend time with Robin and Sean the evening before, and then she and I got an early start the next day. It was also much more blissful to drive along the Niagara River on the Canadian side by crossing the Peace Bridge in downtown Buffalo instead of driving across Grand Island to take the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls on the American side. Let’s face it… the American side is not a pretty drive.
Tuesday was a great day to do this road trip because I do not think we would have had the awesome parking and accessibility to the village if we’d gone on the weekend. The streets and shops were also not as jammed packed as I have seen them on Saturdays or Sundays either. One thing that really stands out is the sight of the beautiful gardens that line the streets.
This is an Angel’s Trumpet flower. I had never seen one before, and I absolutely loved the color. This picture really doesn’t do the plant justice.
I shot the inside of one of the “trumpets” and was surprised at the swirling star pattern of the petals.
These other flowers are also gorgeous.
This just gives a taste of what the gardens along the streets look like.
Part of following my bliss included stopping at an Irish Tea Shop for a “cuppa” and later sharing a picnic lunch that Robin packed at Dufferin Islands near the Falls.
My plan to continue with following my bliss is to get out in the world and bring parts of it home with me through pictures. I am feeling more active now and I want to celebrate the time I have left on this earth by being part of it and not my couch.
Amethyst Rose's Muses 