Weekly Photo Challenge: FUN! and Booty Shaking

August 12, 2016 by scillagrace

I gotta admit, I am a more (ahem!) serious photographer. Nature close-ups, landscapes and the like are hardly the stuff of Booty Shaking shots. And when I’m in the midst of having fun, I usually don’t have my camera out. It’s a relatively big one, a piece of equipment that represents an uncharacteristic birthday splurge for me. So, it’s not like I’m popping shots from the hip while out clubbing. However… my kids came to my birthday party and danced in the living room once.

And then there was that New Year’s Eve we opened some Christmas Crackers…

My brother’s wedding reception was a great dance party!

Yeah, I’m a pretty mellow kind of person, but I do like to have FUN in my own way!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Good Morning!

August 5, 2016 by scillagrace

It’s all about the initiation. The beginning. The sun rising in the east and making the western sky rosy. The fog lifting. The commencement of new sound breaking out of silence. The birds, the frogs, calling back and forth. Another day, a new opportunity for life.

Looking at the effects that nighttime sunlessness has left on the world and realizing that other changes are still to come. The frost will melt. The air will warm.

It’s all about the sun. It’s come back again. Whatever we wished or feared, held in hope or anxiety, we have been given another day to work, to play, to love, to dread, or to be free. Continuation is the gift…or maybe the rule. What will you make of it?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Narrow, but certainly not Straight

July 29, 2016 by scillagrace

I have a thing for paths and journeys.

I like walking along, single file mostly.

I’m not a 4-lane highway kind of person, by any means.

I like to meander…

…though I’m a bit more efficient and direct than my partner, Steve.

When he feels that I’m being too driven and not aware enough of my surroundings, he says that I’m “doing the train”.

Okay, I get it. So we tend to travel narrow, but not too straight. I like it that way.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Over the Top

July 22, 2016 by scillagrace

Lately, the world seems to have fallen to new depths of misery. I’m sure ten examples have just popped into your mind. Into this awareness, I want to insert illustrations of the fact that at the same time, the world is more awesome than we can imagine. You’re having an experience that is very pleasant; you’re smiling; you’re happy. Suddenly, something happens that kicks it into another level. For example, my brother’s wedding reception. It takes place at the Winchester Mystery House, which is already very interesting and fun. Then, the Hora Loca begins to play and a new element is introduced….

We were not expecting that! Or that my 80-year old mother would join her on the dance floor. Here’s another…

I was working 5 different part-time jobs when I was offered a job as the Administrative Assistant at a conservation foundation. That meant that I would work in a farmhouse with just one other employee (the Executive Director) and help protect the natural environment. I took my camera to the top of one of the hills on our lands. It was the first day of June last year. The weather was perfect. The vistas were lush. And I was getting paid. Then, this swallowtail came by to welcome me.

The goodness of the real world transcends suffering, I have found. But you have to be open to receiving it as such. A simple, new breath can be the cherry on top of everything. Breathing in, I am alive. Breathing out, I am grateful.

Weekly Photo Challenge: In the Details

July 15, 2016 by scillagrace

I’m with Jen. I love Nature in intimate detail. So much beauty! You have to slow down to find treasures under a leaf…

…or on top of a flower.

When you take your time to look at details, you can change perspective and admire Nature from different angles.

Awareness leads to appreciation. The world is fascinatingly intricate and beautiful.

Soon appreciation becomes an attitude. You see everything for its intrinsic beauty. Eventually, this attitude of wonder and respect gets converted to action.

May we all act peacefully and do no harm.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Opposites

July 1, 2016 by scillagrace

There’s a jazzy Jim Henson Sesame Street song about this…

That’s the first thing that popped into my head. ‘Near’ and ‘far’ are opposite concepts. Concrete things are rarely exact opposites. More often, their differences are about contrast and juxtaposition. Here are some examples:

This complex world is full of interesting differences. My hope is that these contrasts become areas for exploration and awe, not areas for fear and hatred. You know what I mean?

Peace, friends. 🙂

Weekly Photo Challenge: Partners, Buddies and Pals

June 24, 2016 by scillagrace

When did you learn cooperation? When did you learn give-and-take? Who taught you? Your mother or father? How did it make you feel?

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Did you have siblings? Besides sharing parents, did you share a room? A closet? A bathroom? Did you share your emotions?

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Susan and Josh

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My three daughters

Have you ever had a partnership with just one very special person? How long did it last? How did you manage that?

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Partnering isn’t easy…but it isn’t hard, either. It takes concerted effort, for which humans are actually well-equipped because we have quite an advanced way of communicating. It gets more complicated with more partners involved, of course. I think the rewards are increased in the process. Wouldn’t it be great if we could enjoy the partnership of all living things? After all, we share one planet.

Small World

June 24, 2016 by scillagrace

“There is just one moon…

…and one golden sun…

…and a smile means friendship to everyone…

…though the oceans are wide…

…and the mountains divide…

…it’s a small world after all.”

My thought is that since it’s a small world, we ought to stop competing over it and start respecting it and each other. Stop playing Tug of War; join hands, stick together, and play nicely. Children figure this out. Why can’t adults?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Dangerous Curves

June 17, 2016 by scillagrace

The environmentalist in me immediately thought of the graph of carbon emissions from “An Inconvenient Truth” with Al Gore up on a scaffolding trying to get across the frightening point of our increasing threat to our planet. But I don’t have a photo of that. I do have symbols of how man-made things are eclipsing the natural. I have playground curves with a very small moon…

and outdoor art thrown up against the sky…

and wheels, which have dominated the environment for about a thousand years now.

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Finally, I have a symbol of Natural grace, curvy and sharp and wild. A yucca plant.

I think the most dangerous curves are the ones we humans impose.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Pure, Pristine Wilderness

June 10, 2016 by scillagrace

Untouched, virgin wilderness is perhaps an impossibility on Earth these days. Are there any places that haven’t been touched with acid rain, air pollution or light pollution? Not likely, even if they have never been trammelled by human footsteps. Still, wilderness is an idea worth supporting and fighting for. Pure may only exist in our imagination, but it can have an impact there. What would the silence of machines, the darkness of the night sky,

the solitude of a forest mean to you?

Pure delight or pure dread?