“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”
Isaiah 60:1-3

I created this for Easter, but it's also appropriate for Christmas

From Handel's Messiah
O thou, that tellest good tidings to Zion (Arise, shine; for thy light is come)
For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth

“When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools”
—King Lear

I had been to an opera, and one of the acts opened with these multicolored spotlights and three lanterns. I decided to recreate a scene like that for April Fool's Day, and the colors made me think of a harlequin or jester's motley costume.

A simple Christmas desktop made in Vue. I like to reuse my abstract designs as textures, so the sky texture comes from Chaos Tie-Dyed, and the red and gold balls from Rubies & Gold.

The celestial orchard where stars and moons are grown. Created entirely in Paint Shop Pro. I'd had the idea for this image in my mind for a while, and finally got around to making it. I got a lot of practice with the pen tool, and these tree shapes might show up again.

“‘Down there,’ said Golg, ‘I could show you real gold, real silver, real diamonds.’

“‘Bosh!’ said Jill rudely. ‘As if we didn't know that we're below the deepest mines even here.’

“‘Yes,’ said Golg. ‘I have heard of those little scratches in the crust that you Topdwellers call mines. But that's where you get dead gold, dead silver, dead gems. Down in Bism we have them alive and growing. There I'll pick you bunches of rubies that you can eat and squeeze you a cup full of diamond-juice. You won't care much about fingering the cold, dead treasures of your shallow mines after you have tasted the live ones of Bism.’”
— C.S.Lewis, “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair”, Chapter 14, “The Bottom of the World”

This peaceful landscape was originally for a 3D Environment competition. I didn't win, but it was the first time I felt that I could make an image worth entering. The competition didn't allow for any postwork, but afterward I edited it to give a watercolor effect.

Frodo and his friends are leaving the Shire secretly by going west into the Old Forest, instead of north to the road. The Forest is reached through a break in the Hedge used to keep the unfriendly trees out of the Shire …

“It had walls of brick at the sides, which rose steadily, until suddenly they arched over and formed a tunnel that dived deep under the Hedge and came out in the hollow on the other side.

“It was dark and damp. At the far end it was closed by a gate of thick-set iron bars. On the far side was a faint path leading up on to the floor of the Forest; but it vanished as soon as it brought them under the trees.”
— The Lord of the Rings, Book I, Chapter 6

I took this photograph at my grandfather's Christmas tree farm, off the Blue Ridge Parkway near Fancy Gap, Virginia. It had been a rainy, foggy day, and the sky was still grey, so I replaced it with a Vue-generated one. Here's the original shot for the curious.

Lake Nojiri near Nagano, Japan. This is where my family used to go on vacation in the summer and sometimes winter, and I took this picture there, probably around Christmas of 2000. Although it wasn't cold enough to form much ice on the lake, because it was in the Japanese Alps there was usually a lot of snow in the winter.

This photograph of the morning sun shining through the trees was taken a few feet to the right of Fertility, but on a different morning. I didn't often have time in the mornings to look at the view, but I always enjoyed when I had a chance to watch the sunrise.