Category Archives: Photography
Weekly Photo Challenge: Vibrant in Color and Shadow
How much color is a “Woman of Maturity” allowed to wear, anyway? Mother Nature gets away with quite a lot: yellows, oranges, reds, purples, blues and greens of infinite shades. For the better part of the year, she is clad in the most spectacular array of rainbow hues.
And in some parts of the world, she spends months at a time wearing a shroud of monochrome, showing her age and her unique gravity. This hints at perhaps a serious contemplation of the energy it takes to be fecund and exuberantly colorful.
Don’t let this muted color palette fool you. The ol’ girl is just as vibrant as ever, and her maturity shows in her ability to exhibit her shadow side with just as much style and grace as she displays on her sunnier face!
May we follow her example and not be ashamed to show our true colors in their full spectrum!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Optimism is a Choice!
Good things are on the horizon. There’s a pink dawn behind the frost on my second story window.
I feel hopeful that the new day will be fair.
I believe we can always try to do better, that we don’t arrive, we practice.
With hard work and perseverance, we CAN clean up a mess and get things in better order. (I’ve lived here with Steve for 5 years; for the first time, we have all our clothes stored out of sight.)
I believe that ‘obstacles’ and ‘obligations’ are simply the wrong terms for ‘opportunities’. (My daughter quit her job and went back to college this week!)
I am an optimist, an idealist, and proud of it! The glass is waiting; FILL IT UP!
Weekly Photo Challenge: The Alphabet
A is for Art, B is for Bernie, C is for “Comming Soon”…. and I didn’t follow this prompt to the letter in constructing my gallery. However, it raises some interesting questions, such as:
How many letters are in the Post Office in Embarrass, Wisconsin?
What does “Recombobulation” mean, anyway?
What do you make of the printed word?
And finally, what will be written on your grave marker?
Weekly Photo Challenge: Weight and Gravity
Things that are not weighty can be significant nevertheless. What is greater than a seed on the wind for the future of a plant?
What is more important than light that lifts the soul in the dark of winter?
And something as weightless as a feather is essential for a bird to soar.
We are wise to take the ethereal seriously: the death of the canary in the mine, the evaporation of a pond, the butterfly that will not migrate. They tell us vital things.
At the same time, we must examine the gravity we feel about death. Is it really such an enormous thing? It is altogether common and expected.
And even mountains move – eventually.
The cosmos is forever dancing with the forces of gravity. The stars are light on their feet; they twirl and twinkle, smiling their whole lives long. We are made of star stuff. Let’s lighten up! After all, what could be more meaningful?
Photo credit: Carol Toepke
Remember this post when you feel like you’re doing too much heavy lifting. 
Weekly Photo Challenge: The Circle of Life
I see life in the miracle of the spherical –
of the cycle, the whole, balanced circumference – 
of endings that beget beginnings, the disappearance that creates an opening that begs a new adventure –
of gestating generations.
Life encircles all around. Literally.
May this year bring you the peace and joy of Life – wherever you may see yourself in the circle. And thank you for including me in the embrace of your life by your visit!
Weekly Photo Challenge: The Present Moment – Now
Beneath all the superimposed hype of culture, politics, economics, religion and whatever else may be influencing your perception of reality, there is a simple place called Now. It is unique and bravely wild each time you visit. There may be familiar elements, but they are new every moment, like water that may be solid, liquid or gas and may change at any time. To enter fully into this Now, bring no expectations, no ‘shoulds’ or ‘ought to be’. Be open and aware of what is around you. Your attention, appreciation, and gratitude are welcome. You may notice a profound joy arising within you the more time you spend in this Now. This is the Present, a free gift.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Gathering My Group Shots
I do notice some predominant elements at gatherings with my nearest and dearest: big smiles, big hugs, goofiness and a glass of something. Looking forward to having more of these…in this year and in the next.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Oops! Fun Fails
Walking along the Ice Age Trail in June can take you along the tops of glacial formations like kames and eskers and drumlins. It can also take you through kettles and boggy meadows. Wisconsin in June is often wet. We are blessed with abundant fresh water in the Great Lakes region. It’s a glorious thing to watch the greening of the landscape each year because of all that water. Things certainly bust out all over here. The tendency to misjudge the depth of water on the path is probably a pretty common “oops” for many hikers. But what a delight to pull off your soggy boots and socks and run barefoot in the new grass!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Eye Spy the Green Fire
Headlines today are full of accounts of killing. Too many people are spying through cross-hairs; that’s very scary to me. Looking into the eye of life – seeing living, sentient beings for what they are – is a sacred experience, I believe. Here is an amazing written account of that, by Aldo Leopold as told in “Killing the Wolf” from A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There:
We were eating lunch on a high rimrock, at the foot of which a turbulent river elbowed its way. We saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent, her breast awash in white water. When she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail, we realized our error: it was a wolf. A half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang from the willows and all joined in a welcoming melee of wagging tails and playful maulings. What was literally a pile of wolves writhed and tumbled in the center of an open flat at the foot of our rimrock.
In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. In a second we were pumping lead into the pack, but with more excitement than accuracy; how to aim a steep downhill shot is always confusing. When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg into impassable side-rocks.
We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes—something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.
May all beings be respected. May the green fire be rekindled in our time.
Eye Spy
scillagrace 