Our April was full of Maliea and Me time—Easter—school days—beach days—surfing—bonfires—field trips—a feeling of freedom—playfulness—accomplishments—setbacks—friendship—family—alone time.

Photos of me were taken by Maliea. Maliea’s custom dress (on the bike) and tunic (at the beach) by courtneycourtney.

What is art? Nature concentrated. -Honore de Balzac

Recently I was so, so lucky to tag a long with my very dear friend, Aggelige, who runs the inspiring shop in the airstream trailer-Organic Designs by Aggelige-at The Camp in Costa Mesa. She is moving her planting space to a greenhouse so she can continue to make her amazing artistic creations rain or shine. We had a fun time playing in and out of her beautiful new workspace. I can’t wait to go back and see it full of life.

Aggelige’s friendship is that crossover area in two worlds of my life’s Venn diagram. She is my own personal art consultant, realist and accomplice to all things essential.

Looking for the above quote, I ran across this interesting perspective on art is nature. All the more reason to let her designs in to your life.

“One of the implications of The Origin of Species is that traditional
plant and animal breeding are fine arts. In the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, writers, philosophers, and plant breeders speculated about this
kind of art. [2] Edward Steichen, who devoted much of his income from
photography to plant breeding, exhibited hybrid delphiniums at the Museum of
Modern Art in 1936. He believed that this exhibit confirmed plant breeding
as a fine art. [3] However, the traumas of World War II and the Holocaust
reduced genetics to the more-or-less exclusive property of medicine,
science, business, and government, and for four decades no artist that I
know of experimented again with plant breeding as an art.”

“Most of us, and especially children, are fascinated by
plants and animals. According to the biophilia hypothesis this may have a
genetic basis. [9] While the structures and ontologies of our bodies
accommodate technology, first and foremost they are tuned to savannahs,
forests, and the sea. Anyone who wants to know more about themselves would
do well to spend more time with plants and animals – wild, domesticated, and
genetically engineered as well.”

A daughter may outgrow your lap, but she will never outgrow your heart.
- Unknown

To our very dear friends Ami Marie and Gavyn. We miss you so much.
-the Riddles

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

I’ve seen many amazing and beautiful things in this world: the setting sunlight catching the ridges of the mountains in the Sangre de Cristos (thus how they got their name), the wild cloud formations in the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, the steaming sulphur-smelling crater at the top of Volcan Popocatapetl just months before it began erupting again but I have never seen anything so harmonious and design-like as this Murmuration a couple of kayakers witnessed recently.

The patterns the starlings make in this video are mesmerizing and awesome. This video is a beautiful reminder of my friend Cindy who was taken from us in a float plane crash in Canada almost two years ago. I still can’t believe she is gone. She is still with me every time I do something related to photography, yoga or surfing which is the better part of my life away from my family. I think of her every time I see laundry on the line or exotic travel photography. I think of her when I hear Coldplay. She could have easily been one of these women kayaking and filming this.

We had a connection that I didn’t realize was as important to me as it was until she was gone. Now I thank every moment I had the opportunity to share with her in my life. Every single one. I remember the details about so many of them. Taking walks during lunch when we worked at a pro lab together, hikes into the Sierra Nevada, surfing at Trail 4, talking about building our fine art photography portfolios.

It’s always God’s way that tries to make us realize the importance of things. It’s our way to either listen or not.