There is One In Love with YOU! And does this Unconditionally! How cool is that?

           

                               There is One In Love with YOU! And does this Unconditionally! How cool is that?
                                                                                  by
                                                                     Mark William Darus.

                                   Please listen to this song/video as you read this:
                                     A Little Longer.

                 Ohhhh, dearest Lord, how many more areas of your love, understanding and tenderness can you share with us, the weak, addicted, narcissistic, ever growing numbers apathetic to those around them and more keyed in to texting friends that sit a tables length across from them at a Denny's?  You give many shattered, wasted, and those feeling hopeless something to believe in. Jesus,  you do this effortlessly, (I assume, though you once in Hooman form, must feel, cry periodically and shout in joy as another finds you.  If I just Broken-Femur, err, blasphemed, opps, I am Hooman, sorry. Hey, your pops and you gave me gifts at birth, realized off and on over my lifespan, granting me points of safe harbors to grow with as you had me do what I did.

                 Hey, Jesus, you and your father gave me both gifts and curses! You gave me an ability to reach others, and at the same time, piss off so many nearest me. them stepping away from, excluding me from their lives.    I no longer ask why this is so, though i have done many times over the last 3 decades, I know you and your dad have a reason and plan for me. I hope I never stray from that path,
                                               
                       
                                        I was given these things to share with all off you. Maybe not the best of photography, but as Jesus loves you freely, I toss these to you from in the same vein.


                                         Bird looking at Moon. How cool? As so many of us see the moon, how often do we see other animals looking at it?

Sunset.

This is Frodo, Gretchens and my dog in a shot that was used in book from a site: I can Has Cheezburger (or something like that..., It is from there I refer to 'humans' as 'hoomans'. Yeah, i am out there. lol Thank God for that!!!! :) 

                                           

                                                         other sunset.
                                                 

shot from figure skating.

                                                               

                                                               RhinoBaby and Mother. I have loved Rhinos for so very long in my life. Their children romp around like several hundred pound puppies. jumping, running, losing balance as they grow so quickly.              

                                   
                                              Edgewater State Park: The first summer I wandered back into photography after many decades away from me. Christ nudged me down another avenue to share with others when writing Psychopathy: Another Life grew very dark, ugly, and incredibly heavy on my mind. Jesus,  the Lion and Lamb hit me in the heart, not to mention my ill bank account, He told me, I know you see the beauty given, I know your heart better than you. You write your blog as my father says you should, but consider this... It was then I, on impulse, bought a Kodak EasyShare camera from Big Lots for less than 50 bucks and began posting on Facebook.  Talk about blessed? It was from then I was given a balance of life to write truth uglier than fiction in our world as it wishes to destroy itself  AND  share simple, everyday events of  beauty, wonder and hope for better things in your llife.
                           Sorry for swearing, but: HOW FUCKING AWESOME IS THAT?!?!?!
                      Got this shot at EdgeWater State Park.  Sunset, no colour editing used.
                                                                         

                                         
                   
                                                        Baby goose...
                                                     

bigger goose. Caption: Aflec?!?! Nuts! Toss me corn!!! Check out his teeth! Wow.

Caption: Look me square in the eyes and tell me how my kind is less deserving of space for you Hoomans? 

Uh, we're having who over for dinner, Honey????

Sept: 2012. Riverside Cemetery, Cleveland Ohio, USA. Viewing headstones, mind wandering into areas wondering about the men that sculpted such with hammer and chisel, making art that most would view as such. My hat goes off to those that created these!

I had been to this cemetery many times as my grandparents and mother and father remains are there. On that day, after tossing a lit  L&M and spilling coffee on my parents headstone, Odd ritual, yes, but  felt in my heart.

               I spoke with them, my parents, grandparents. Periodically wishing my own death to only be with them once again, Missing them. Denied! "Consider us, Mark. You have much to share. Your heart is hard now, but over time that hardness will erode in time, believe this, " my grandfather, Orlon J. Sturdivant nailed me.

And, while crying, this caught my eye. A Sculpture so amazing, her eyes bore into mine. 

Though, being a believer, granted free will, I found other things in my walk.

Caption: .... never mind. You fill in the blanks on this shot. :)  I thinks he likes her... boooooo

Hoomans, what are you doing???

First Lightening Capture. 

I close this now, wishing you all a great day, lovely morning and blessed sunset wherever you are. 

        I am thankful for an ability to toss my ass out before all to see. And to do so willingly without fear of what others might think of me as my faith makes me bulletproof. 

I cannot thank you enough, my wonderful Jesus.

I hope this entry makes you, my lord, smile. Besides writing and photography, you gave me another gift, didn't you? I'm sure you and dad regret that.

Still, may I ask you: How do not smiles genuinely given  from my screwed up viewpoint tossed to others bring them less closer to you? 

I'm in love with you, my Jesus... 

My heart will always burn for you. I hope to bring more into the realm you have led me down roads lacking much, yet knowing greater be held in each and everyone of us. 

Thanks for reading,

Mark William Darus

Treasure Hiding.

                                                       

                                                         Treasure Hiding.
                                                                    by
                                                          Mark William Darus.

            Your shrieking alarm greets you, most annoyingly,  as you leave a peaceful place, perhaps crushing the sweetest of dreams with the deafening tones of DU-DU-DU-DU!!!!
             On autopilot, with well trained muscle memory, you reach out and hit the extension button to silence it for 15 minutes as you drift back to the gentle Otherworld of Half-Sleep.  With closed eyes, contented limbs you wander around there a bit.
              DU-DU-DU-DU-DU!!!!!
              You cut off the alarm,  at times grabbing it and sending it flying across your bedroom like swatting a bothersome mosquito.  If breaking another clock, I have annihilated many, you may curse your weakness for doing so. Fret not, you've kept others working by making us more Dream-Crushers, ie alarm clocks. See the upside?

              You get dressed while either playing music to fire up your morn or watching the latest bad news shown on CNN, FOX or avenues. Drinking coffee, tea or chugging a Pepsi Zero while you eat something to fuel your engine, you leave your dwelling while continuously wiping sleepers from your eyes.

              Grey NorthEastern Ohio clouds  paint a backdrop for your day as you enter your vehicle. Perhaps you wonder if you are stuck in an endless loop of living monotony. More robotic 5 days a week, governed by such ritual that life takes form of a series of reruns that runs, echoing on forever, forever, forevvvvvverrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

           
                    Well, think of  your eyes as cameras, your ears as recorders, and most important of all: give yourself the time to feel what you encounter instead of numbing it, belittling it, dismissing it as so many of us do in our rush to work, shop, cooking dinner, whatever. Take a moment of pause, relax, (and why is it so many of us can no longer just relax during a work week? To pass a few seconds in our lives to just give thanks for gifts given them?"  That's easy: Most do not allow themselves the downtime to just reflect on anything other than the demands of  chores being laundry, cooking, cleaning, making payments, sex with The One,  soccer practice, ballet practice, yoga, Me-Time and my personal favorite: "Look, man. I just don't time for such fanciful bullshit!"

                   There is Treasure Hiding for all of us to see. So, without further ado, allow me to present you a few things I have seen while going to and/or leaving work, shopping with photography,

                                      Do these two not look so much like the stoic black and whites on a Cracker Barrel wall from early days of photography? Love this capture as their background looks like a heart.
       

                             
                     Layers of colours from ribbing blades.  Made me wonder who placed a single seed to soil and wonder what they were thinking about while doing so.

\

             
                                                   Sooooo, Eighties, yet true: Discount Drug Mart saves you the run around, you'll find everything you neeeeeeeeeed! When I caught this while editing, besides laughing my butt off for the insight, I stepped, hit my keyboard to youtube and played the BeeGees! Oh, Yeah!!!! :)
                                                               

Happened on this one while on a stretch with Gretch. We found it on a park bench, (and why does this make me think of Jethro Tull's Aqualung?) 

                                                                             
                                                                   This shot from December 2013 on my way to work.        

           
                                                          Taken on Scranton Rd, Cleveland Ohio USA.  So many avenues in our lives are NOT A THRU STREET. I think a belief in Jesus can help with this issue...

                   
                                                                          This little critter was atop my BlailTrazer a few days before I got canned at Progressive. I got a many shot of this dude as I had not seen any in many years. Awesome!!!!

Edgewater Beach as fall clouds rolled in. I went there before work about two years, lost myself while doing so. Took about a hundred images. 

Lake Issac, Ohio. Granted, not focused. I have never seen so many DragonFlies in my life before stopping there before doing a ten hour day at work.  I, more often than not, was lucky catching this. 

After getting my days wake up coffee of a Dark Roast at the Speedway on Bagley and I-71, I normally awaken about  2pm, so as many of you think about ending your work day, I have yet to begin mine,  I walked out with my 15 year aging, yet trusted, battered,  and true 30 oz Goshen Dairy mug in hand. I looked up and saw this. I sincerely hope your Savior is as revealing as mine in your Walk.   I sincerely believe all I do with a camera is focus, set shutter speed and such menial task. I am thankful Jesus guided me toward this. 

Defiant SnowMan on a Spring day. 

Innocent child on an Easter Egg hunt maybe three years ago. 

Amish Country Ohio. I was so in awe when I reviewed the several hundred shots I took that day and found this one. Knowing I was merely a button pusher, feeling blasted out of the water when I saw this digital capture. I can only thank Jesus for showing me this, graciously giving me an ability to share it with others. 

My eldest Daughter, Rachel a couple of years back.  No flash used. I seriously dislike flash photography as to me, is just not real to the eye.  Little blur at such a slow shutter speed. a God send truly  so. 

FEED ME, MOMMA!!! a babe in nest beckons full throttle. I got this one just walking about.  Yeah, just something I do, and am grateful for spending time while the sun and I coincide. 

             JESUS GIFT ALERT!!!! View this shot from a tree ripped apart by lightening strike. What do you see as unique, precious, and amazing?  Yeah, I have witnessed many a Cloud Painter gift (and always take their images into my heart and give praise, but this was my first Sculpture  capture.  

My message to you: Go Off-Trail and see what there is to see. Please mind poison ivy when you do with wearing sandals and shorts. 

Caught at Steelyard Commons. These fires from a company know known as Acelor Mittal Steel  not a United States based company, but from somewhere in India. (I am certain I screwed that company name quite bad.) Oh Well. Got this image shooting its firestacks for EPA requirements.  I titled this: God of HellFire!  My dearest Lord, you give me so much to see, take into my life, and freely share with others.  Could this be, (and I so freely blasphemy here, I not knowing your will or plan, ask this: Did you give me a glimpse at corporate greed? Okay, maybe I got windy on that, yet perhaps not.... 

Hey, you think your street is potholed? Really?!?! 

I love my Nikon P520 and my former P510 that passed a bit ago. No Tripod used when taking our Memory-Moon. (as a geologist pointed out to me: Mark, all life on this planet, be it dinosaurs, fish, plant life see the Moon as we do now. -C Clement.  He's right.

I wish and charge you to see and take into your life something different than your last day. Each and every day we are given is a chance to learn and grow.

I love all of you.

MWD.

An Intro to A Long Walk off a Short Pier..

                                               

                                                    An Intro to A Long Walk off a Short Pier...
                                                                                 by
                                                                     Mark William Darus.

                Hey all! Hope you are doing good in your Earth-Journey today.  I hope you are feeling a sense of awe, delightful wonder and inspiration at least one moment of your day as true beauty surrounds  us.  With every glance from tired eyes, audible laughter heard down the road/up the hallway with throbbing ears and/or a sniff of fresh made waffles greets you while you can only see a world of  Isis decapitations, Evil-Speak from elected official and a world spiraling down the toilet of insanity.
           
                "Earth Journey?!?! Damn, here he goes again getting all windy and whatnot!" one might say, running slender,  tensed fingers through her frayed hair.

               "Evil Speak? Dude has watched Blade Runner waaaaaaaaay too many times!" states a portly well dressed man, toking endless cigs while downing a blood pressure pill.

                Well, in my mind, while we reside on our Blue Marble, what other journey could we have? We ain't dead yet, right? What else is there besides day to day drudgery  at work and endless mental reruns at home while doing wash, making dinner and watching the Telie?

                 .....wait for it....

                Evil-Speak, give me a bit of latitude on this one. Yes, very much in a vein of Blade Runners character Gaff and his City-Speak. I simply have no faith in elected officials. Period-point-blank.  Best quote I ever heard from a politician was this: "Hey, I'm an elected official. When we're not kissing babies, we're stealing their lollipops." Does this sound accurate to you as it did me the first I heard it?

                ...again, wait forrrrrrr iiiiiiit....

               Just a few more moments, grant me please...

               "Get on with it!" an exhausted housewife in New York city yells as her dish washer is doing a Lawrence Welk in her kitchen, spewing shiny bubbles  to the hardwood floor, causing her three kids with different daddies to laugh and play with them.

                "Tired. Bottle the ends, Mate?" a sweaty, highly muscled and balding Iron worker in Perth Australia asks. When he left work he was greeted with an inconvience: A Roo was giving birth in the back of his rusty Ford pick-up.

                Hmmm, did I ever tell you about the time when I was seven and navigating my Big Wheel down a sidewalk on Scranton Rd in Cleveland Ohio, USA as the Indy 500 was being watched by father on a hot late summer day? No? Well, let tell you-

                 "Owwww, Sweet Gentle JeSUS, not that story UH'gain!" a flowery sundress clad woman in Alabama cries out.

                 Okay then.

                  Here we go.

                  I have in my life seen so many disgusting, violent elements of humanity that impacted me profoundly so. When I was 18 and working as a delivery driver, I saw pack dogs going bonkers around a dumpster. Christ making me endlessly curious, I had to see what they were wanting. After tossing several large pieces of brick from a recently collapsed building at them, they scurried off. I walked toward the dumpster, cocky as any 18 year old long haired punk would do hearing Van Halen's Unchained blaring from my 1965 Dodge Darts AudioVox 100 watt tri-axials. I opened the dumpsters fading black lid and found the body of a dead newborn.
    >>Authors Note: I will not go into further detail. I will not subject you to that. Sorry. if you truly wish to know, email me a request and I'll think about it. Okay?<<<<
            I freaked, go figure. Found a payphone (remember those?) on the corner of West 25 and Lorain Ave and hit '0' for operator to reach the Cops. Keep in mind, 911 and cellphones were a Star Trek episode away in the future then in 1981. And yeah, there was no internet. Reaching Police, I told the Cops what I found and they dispatched. As they arrived my car was blasting Van Halens Running with the Devil, and they politely asked me to turn it off. I gave them what I had on how I found it and went about my day. I told my boss why I was late getting back, a great man/great boss, and he and the staff hugged me for having a rough after school day on the job. I went home, called my girlfriend Tammy and told her about my day. She got sick, endlessly echoing over raspy corded Ohio Bell phone,  's-s-sorrrrrreeeeeee, m-m-m-Mark! I-i-iiii, l-l-luh-V U! URRRRRRG!!!'

                  Yeah, a ride that would last in a lifetime of images had begun in me. But keep in mind this simple truth, one I will go into in with further detail a ways down this walk off a pier. Briefly stating a year and half before this event I went on a Methodist Church bike trip camp that took a weakly, shy and passive 16 year old and showed him a world when opening heart, reaching out and forsaking fear led to huge things far greater than expected. For this Trip I was with 5 total strangers from all areas of Ohio, USA. I Went from Introvert to Extrovert in 10 days. Christ was my friend even then, tugging gently at my heart, my parents giving me Instamatic 110 camera film to catch things with...

                             Let's keep the rest of that for later, shall we?

                   I know too well corporate greed and how for the sake of share holder confidence thousands  of families get destroyed at the stroke of a pen as CEO's and their ilk PUBLICLY state  as they "do the right thing for GM, Nestle and their quest to control the worlds water supply, steel makers, and every company that, lacking souls, Souled out American Jobs for cheaper labor costs and quality standards across an ever shrinking Blue Marble to make their friends wayyyyy more richer.

                     It is so easy to fall into depression and a massive sense of futility in your life. You work as hard as you can, go into work with fevered forehead, dizziness, churning stomach just to keep food on your table because calling off would cause those around you to suffer. The disdainful glances from bosses and coworkers greeted you on a day back at work if you had called off the day before. Your ears catch murmurings, voices sharp as knives, cutting like a butcher,   from many about 'how bad it was that  someone called off yesterday' the day before. Hurtfully nailing you squarely in the cross-hairs, looking down on yourself, scarcely willing to face your own image in workplace bathroom mirror, you hunker down, suck it in, and do what's best for your family sake.

                  There is a better way to see things as your life seemingly becomes little more than a drone in  the cogs of a wheel of an angry master that only wishes for you to make them RICHER.

               It is now I wish to welcome each and every one of you to A Long Walk down a Short Pier and What it led me to.

               This world is  such a manacled place controlled by others as we are lead by the media  and agenda'd politicians to believe in their decisions ,  Feeding a sense of despair, anguish and  futility as so many of us just wish to make it through another months rent...

               Know this in your life: Regardless of what you are lead to believe by those in power, the news you catch on many media avenues,  harsh words on shop/cubicle office jobs, standing in line at a local grocery store overhearing things disgusting you: Like anyone really wants to know how bad your boyfriend messed up a meatloaf dinner with your family last weekend  as you ignore the patient,vastly underpaid  teller before you in a check out line she asks for you to reswipe your card FOR THE THIRD TIME.

             Nerves get fried, and may I ask you when your brain goes fried? When did anyone give you any personal , albeit politically correct option for Regular or Extra Crispy?

             Starting something new here, so I beg your patience with me. I am having issues with how it looks and shares with you. I ask patience with you as Jesus has never failed with me,

             I thank you for enduring this first post here. I have much to work on to make it easier to view.
             May your day be blessed by whatever higher power you hold close to you.
             I can say I love you and mean it. I can hug you with arms never reaching  your back nor fingertips coursing your shoulder blades and  know it so reaching out.
           
             Welcome.
            -Mark William Darus (only a pisspoor typist really. I know where the words come from and am happy to serve.)