In Which Hope Springs Eternal

There is something thrilling about watching the spring unfold. I'm talking especially about the time of the pinks and purples. Around here, they start around mid-April and continue through early summer, eventually fading into green.

I got around a bit on this day, which was very cool. I stopped in a few places I haven't been lately. I took too many pictures. But how can there even BE such a thing as too many pictures when things are so beautiful?

The main photo is a picture of a pink flowering dogwood tree that I took in a tiny cemetery surrounded by a white picket fence in Pine Grove Mills. I love it when springtime comes to the cemeteries. I take it as a personal lesson in philosophy: the rebirth of everything beautiful, after seeming death.

I adore graveyards to begin with, and the pinks and purples really make things sing. The sight thrills me. It seems hope springs eternal, even in the cemeteries. (Death does not win there, even though it may seem to; the pink blooms tell me this.)

I also made a few stops at some of my favorite photo ops in Boalsburg, including the military museum grounds, which are looking so lovely and green. I've included a shot in the extras.

Immediately to my left, not shown in the extra shot, is the wall of names I shot for a prior Blip. And so it is that pinky-purple flowering trees have spread their message of hope at the military museum. They reflect upon the waters and upon the list of the names of the fallen.

For the soundtrack, I'm including two songs I love. One is the Toni Childs hit, House of Hope, which you may remember from the film Thelma & Louise (which has an awesome soundtrack, by the way). The other is a song we sing at church on Easter morning: Now the Green Blade Rises. I can't resist including its opening verse below. And if it is done properly, you must sway almost unto dancing as you sing it. :-) At least that's how *I* sing it. :-)

Now the green blade rises from the buried grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth many years has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat arising green.