iridium: (penguins!)
iridium ([personal profile] iridium) wrote2006-10-05 11:57 pm
Entry tags:

brief cemetery photojournal

I went a-wandering this afternoon, down to the Mt. Auburn Cemetery on Piedmont Avenue, down the street from my house. The stones aren't old by east-coast standards, or by Spanish-mission ones either, but there are names from all over the world. It's a lovely place to go, winding roads and sidewalks spiraling up little hills, strange names and stranger monuments, and big old redwoods and magnolias.

The other day, [livejournal.com profile] pumapreysize and I found an old grandmother-willow tree there, leaning over a little pond they made, with rocks to sit on by the tiny waterfall running down the slope. This time I went aimless, walking upwards, up one steep little hill and around, over and up again, looking for the highest point, looking up at the brown hills behind the watered grass. I found a narrow tilting stairway of weathered concrete, all the way up, and at the top turned and looked out: there are the fall-trees, and Oakland stretching down to the port, the shipping-cranes like huge graceful grazing-animals at the edge of the bay. And beyond that, the city, the hills, the fog just beginning to curl around the base of San Francisco's alien radio tower. The Bay Bridge on one side, and behind it, turning molten in the sunset, the Golden Gate.

This is a beautiful place.


A few others, from the cemetery. (And yeah, they're all taken with the cheapass camera in my phone. Maybe one day I'll have a nice camera, but not yet.)

an intricate stone celtic-knotwork cross:


for all your Gothic Chapel needs:


and finally, this is one of my favorite gravestone-angels. he's just hangin' out on the pedestal, legs crossed, with a book in his lap, and one wing curled underneath him...


...and as i left, the huge ice-white nearly-full moon lifted up above the hills, between two tall redwoods.


and, entirely unrelated to photojournalling, i've aquired a couple of new icons.
*summons crack team of stealth penguins!*
nacht_musik: (Default)

[personal profile] nacht_musik 2006-10-06 07:18 am (UTC)(link)
The celtic cross is really lovely. I like the way the sides are the same, but the top and bottom are different from both each other, and the sides....

[identity profile] tamnonlinear.livejournal.com 2006-10-06 06:54 pm (UTC)(link)
When I was a kid and would ride my bike around my home town, I'd take a path through the local cemetary to get from my development to the town. There was no shoulder on the road so I never had any choice. I come from a long-settled area of Pennsylvania, so there were some old graves there.

My favorite was the Millers, Joseph and Elizabeth, who died in the the late 1800's. Their gravestones had both tilted to the side, and leaned against each other, very much giving the attitude of support, of reaching to each other. It was oddly sweet.

[identity profile] deyo.livejournal.com 2006-10-07 07:03 am (UTC)(link)
Heya. :)

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