Starry Night

Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah...

Well your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya...

Portion of Hallelujah -by Jeff Buckley

I was driving home from a Christmas tea - and listened to this song on repeat - it was a version on a Starbuck's CD - Lifted (preformed by Rufus Wainwright). It is on repeat now.

This portion of the song is such a strong visual for me. I pictured the moment, like I was writing a film.

A scene in a movie - a lonely, emotional King David - pondering the stars. Glancing over to Bathsheba on the roof - perhaps she bathed there every night. On her roof. This time, the full moon shone - revealing her. A private moment - soaking in the stars - she worshipes the stars, the God, missing her husband - a husband she didn't even know. She stares up at the moon, the stars - floating in a tub - a pool, alone. Not knowing that cataclysmic love/lust was in a seed form, about to change her life and end a life.

Was she so enraptured with the moon and the stars that she was didn’t notice David looking on? What did was she thinking about as she stood revealed, under the moonlight?

The stars have been such a powerful force for me.

A picture of God. A photo of wonder: The stars from Mt. Hood as I stood on my ski’s, the moon reflecting off the snow; The stars from the beach – standing on the edge of the pacific – in Oregon, in Costa Rica – different stars – different skies – but the same feeling – of peace and of longing for more as the stars reflected of the ocean; The stars as I climbed Mt. Sinai on a camel- like a Christmas postcard with silhouette’s of the camels against the sky in front of me.

On my last trip I was at a Bedouin dinner in the desert of the Sinai Peninsula. I wandered away from the fire, the candles and the group. I walked away - and stood staring at the stars. Alone.

I wish I could have taken a picture that would have captured the way the sky looked that night. The stars covered the sky. The desert hills in the foreground, silhouette against the still night. I felt so small and was captivated. Time froze, my mind wandered. God, love and hope felt real and tangible. For a moment, I felt peace.

Is that how she felt?

Under a sky like that, it seems as if anything could happen. It seems ok to be alone, it seems fitting to stand still with no one else around.

This is why I travel. I travel to leave the land which is so bright with its own light; you can never see the stars. I travel to visit lands where you can look up and see shooting stars. Where I can be anyone I want – and where life seems a little more profound.

I wonder if she stood on her roof, bathing in the moonlight – in one perfect moment, one moment of peace before her world was turned upside down and inside out – and prayed? Were her prayers answered?

Did she know that everything was about to change?

It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelu...
Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelu...
Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah

Portion of Hallelujah -by Jeff Buckley

Red Sea

Poster Girl for Team Zizzou

Click on the above picture to go to a slide show of my Red Sea Snorkeling experiance. Taken by Big Blue Diving. I almost died.

Egypt

Click on the picture above for a slide show of my trip to Egypt. Because I lost most of my pictures, (see post below for details) most of these are from my friend Sarah Nashif. To find out who took the picture,during the Slide show you can click on a picture that will take you to a page that shows you the details of the picture - if on the left hand side the tag says Sarah - then she took it. If nothing, then I did.

I will seriously post more about my trip, but in the meantime, I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Ciao!

I'm Home!!

I'm home and working on recovering the rest of my pictures.

I will post more about my trip in the coming days. But the dark day of the trip is what I call the great erasement of 2006, when I accidentally re-formatted my memory card and erased 423 pictures from the first 2/3'rds of my trip. This was a dark day.

The darkest day was the day I returned and found out that if I would have used my other memory card I could have recovered all the pictures. My friend is still trying for me to see if he can get any of them.

Until then you can find some of my pictures on my flickr site from the last 1/3 'rd of the trip.

I'm still praying for the rest.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/flyingwaitress/