This Opened My Eyes

I have been aware of this progressive trance track "Open Your Eyes" by Russian trance outfit Aurosonic for a few years now. However, for reasons I cannot now fathom, I never felt like sharing it heretofore here despite its abject "epic-ness". This sublime example of progressive trance (the best type) was released in 2013 and features the haunting vocals of Englishwoman Kate Louise Smith. Crank up your speakers and listen, feel, and dance. As hauntingly beautiful as this is, it is also difficult (at least for me) to catch every word of these soulful lyrics, so I include them below courtesy of songlyrics.com:

It's dark out here
In the pursuit of love
Completely unabridged
This silent fortress

My mind escapes me
Feeling it in my bones
The ties that bind
Deny us this love

Open your eyes
Open your eyes
I started blind
But now they're wide open

Open your eyes
Open your eyes
The ties that bind
Deny us this love

And how it breaks me

In the pursuit of love
Completely unabridged
The silent fortress
My mind escapes me
Telling my story well
The ties that bind
Deny us this love

(Alt )

Open you eyes
Open your eyes (open open)
The story's closed
Our love has broken down
Open your eyes
Open your eyes
The ties that bind
Deny us this love

East Santa Margarita Lake Drought Spring

Today being an Easter vacation Tuesday I had no classes to contend with and thus I went out to East Santa Margarita Lake with my brother by another mother, Big Mike. There I observed many beautiful things and felt myself unwind from my hectic life. I also got some meaningful prayer-time accomplished out in nature. It was nice reconnecting with a place I used to visit weekly for years as I "found" myself and healed on the inside. However, it was a bit disconcerting to notice all the manifestations of the ongoing drought despite this being April with its now-mythological showers alleged to bring May flowers.The fuel load out there is crazy in places and much dry heavy fuels and ladder fuels were to be seen in abundance.
Check out HERE what I found in the path during this walk. 

Purple Lupine

Gnarled old oak tree.

Note dead standing digger pine and dead or browning standing oaks.

Tequila getting a sip...

I'm a sucker for ruins.

Looking back along the southern footbridge over the swamp.

Tequila strongly dislike bridges of all sorts but took this one on and won.

Looking back along the northern footbridge over the swampy riparian area.

Note the dead reed stands in this easternmost extension of a partially-dry Santa Margarita Lake.

A foundation is all that remains of this once-farmsite.

Path to the root cellar

A devilish design for a hole in concrete.

I wonder function this building once served.

In the background is some of the most awesome-looking fuel-loading I have ever seen.

Note all the dead-brownness.

The purple lupine and brown oak fuels look incongruous.

One of the most magnificent oaks I have ever observed.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

More Than Held Together By Gravity

Back in the 2000's I was really into ambient music to go along with my love of other forms of electronica, particularly trance and what would later become known as electronic dance music (EDM). The past few years I have not been as much into ambient for whatever reason. However, just this past day I came across this amazing ambient track by the Swedish ambient outfit Carbon Based Lifeforms. This track sounds quite a bit like Brian Eno's "An Ending Ascent" which was featured here a couple of years ago. Both tracks give one goosebumps and the timelapse imagery in this video is so absolutely, breathtakingly, gorgeous one is tempted to weep at the utter and complete rapturous beauty of it all. We so live in such an amazing world. We need not dream of exploring exotic alien worlds: we live in one now! These scenes must be merely hors d'oeuvres relative to what sights and experiences await us beyond this life if we know Christ.

Helplessly Headstrong

By now it should be obvious that I love trance music as well as breathtakingly beautiful timelapse imagery of outdoor scenes and the song and music video below delivers on all counts. In fact, the same artist, Headstrong, has been featured on this blog previously last March. Shelley Harland provides vocals to this trance masterpiece.

"May It Be" But Better

Crap, I need to go to bed but tonight! I discovered 16klu and can't leave their Youtube channel. On their Facebook page I found this 2012 trance track which is a goosebump-inducing remix by Paul Webster of Enya's 2002 goosebump-inducing track "May It Be" from the soundtrack of Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring. This is really, really good trance and it's new which gives me hope for the near-future of the genre. I also believe I'm audio-visually in love!

"Heaven's Academy"

All I can say is "holy shit this is beautiful stuff" and in reference to BOTH the track "Heaven's Academy" by Russian trance outfit Plexland AND the track's accompanying music video. As I trance snob I can tell you this is very high quality music for its genre in the context of how trance has evolved and where it is now. However, as a photographer of nature and a lover of landscapes and clouds and how they so often interact as well as being thoroughly addicted to thunderstorms not to mention being a native Californian this video has it all. In my view this video is absolutely without peer the most awesome and beautiful scenic trance video I have ever viewed and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do and will continue to as I keep watching it. 

2013 Wildflowers of Adelaida

Today I drove out to my friend Marybeth's property in the Adelaida, CA, area to work but we ended up just hanging out and getting some easier and pleasant intangibles accomplished like business strategizing, surveying parts of her property, retrieving some lost images of her late husband from my own Gmail account that were stored in a copy of a message I sent her over a year ago. This visit culminated in her taking me out for a birthday dinner at F. McLintock's Bar & Grill in downtown Paso Robles, CA. More on that latter part in my next post but here I share with you some images I captured today of wildflowers I encountered out on the ranch. As it relates to the severe ongoing drought, the lupines on this property are actually doing better than normal as a result of the suppressed growth of the grasses which normally are much taller and thicker by this point in the year.

Purple Lupine

Crimson Pitcher Sage

Coast Indian Paintbrush

California Poppy

Purple Lupine patch in Shear's Vale. All images by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Headstrong "Tears"

This extended Aurosonic remix of "Tears" by Headstrong with vocals by the surprising Stine Grove just blew my doors off just now. Not only is this haunting trance track amazing but this video accompanying it features some sumptuous scenes of the beauty of our world both urban and natural.

Picture of the Day - Field of Flowers

This past day I found this field of flowering sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus) along Turri Road in the Los Osos Valley area near the rear of the Morro Bay Estuary .  Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

The Charm of Old Town Albuquerque

Today my friend Dave and I took a break from our journey and had breakfast in Old Town Albuquerque. He remembered this cool eatery there he insisted I experience (Church Street Cafe) and since it wasn't quite open when we arrived (the neighborhood starts the day slowly) we walked around and I captured the following images. Of particular relevance in them are the scenes of the historic San Felipe de Neri Church and Church Street Cafe which is also located in an historic building.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).