I’ve just returned from a trip this July to Washington State for a nature photography workshop and Vancouver Island for a poetry retreat. I had a great time on the road driving through the mountains and forests to these two events and was grateful for my satellite radio and the CBC.

The photo workshop was in Olympic National Park and I took some great shots of sunrises, mountains, rain forests, waterfalls, beaches and sea stacks. The images in this newsletter are from that workshop. It was also nice to meet some Americans with an interest in nature photography and hang out with them at local restaurants and relax in the evenings while we were on the road. I was delighted to learn how friendly they can be.

After the photo workshop, I took the ferry from Port Angeles to Vancouver Island where I attended a poetry retreat with eminent Canadian poet Patrick Lane in Honeymoon Bay.  There was 20 of us in the group and we spent each day writing in response to our daily assignments and reading the resulting poems to the group the next morning. We also had one on one time with Patrick, who reviewed out drafts, and had lots of sage advice and wisdom to share. He’s an old master who really knows his poetics. I’ll definitely be back next year.

Now that I’ve returned home to the Vancouver area I am finding it difficult to keep the sense of contentment and excitement I felt in the woods and mountains of the Pacific Northwest, and am anxious to hit the road again on my next adventure.  Like always, my soul feels grand and centered when I’m in nature, and becomes anxious and narrow when I return to civilization. Indeed, it seemed all my old worries where waiting for me when I returned home to my apartment.

My work has always been inspired by nature, and I would like to invite you to check out my work at http://www.kloschinsky.com. Threre you’ll find songs, poems and photography that reflect the natural world as well as other themes such as love, melancholy and adventure. Your support would be greatly appreciated.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the summer.

In song and in spirit,

Paul Kloschinsky