Tag Archives: WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge
Weekly Photo Challenge: A Good Match
A “satisfying pairing” you say? Oh, so many come to mind…
There are, obviously, the many combinations of happily mated people:
As well as deliciously married flavors, like cheese and truffles or herbs:
And then there are the natural cooperations of plants and animals, like the monarch butterfly that feeds on milkweed in the larval stage and then benefits from that toxin as an adult that is distasteful to predators and pollinates wildflowers:
Sometimes, though, it’s just as satisfying to put two things together that don’t seem to have much in common – just for the hell of it:
Even if you never liked all those essay questions you answered in High School that started with “Compare and contrast….”, you probably learned something by thinking about them. What I hope to learn in the Match Games I play is appreciation — because the world is full of fascinating examples of A Good Match.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Against the Odds
What are the odds of marrying your High School sweetheart and keeping your vows “until parted by death” in the 21st century?
What are the odds of having open heart surgery at age 31?
What are the odds of having the love you have, the life you have, the family you have, the memories you have?
Well, I don’t think the odds mean anything. People don’t live by the numbers. We live by the moment. Don’t you?
Weekly Photo Challenge: Shadow
The shadow side is dark but not evil.
It may look like a negative, but it is not bad.
A shadow presents a contrasting view.
And may highlight something you might otherwise have missed.
So I try to appreciate the shadow side as well as the sunny side. After all, we need both in order to see the richness and depth in life.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitude and Wilderness
The Wilderness Act of 1964 established a means for our nation to set aside large parcels of land where the human presence is temporary. Among other valuable things, this provides for “outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined experience” for those temporary visitors who enter its space and leave it “untrammeled”.
Why is wilderness and solitude important to the human soul? I would argue that it is vital to our perception of our place in the Universe, a place of humility, not dominance or mastery….
…and a place of natural social freedom.
Solitude is instrumental in developing self-knowledge and strength of character.
When we seek solitude, it is often because we are looking for a greater level of honesty,…
…a greater level of awareness.
To defile these areas of wilderness and solitude is an act of violence that attacks our own freedom and causes us to be unnaturally enslaved. I think it’s imperative that we protect the places in our country that still exist as wilderness and to restrict the encroachment of human development and over-population that threaten them, not only or even primarily for our own benefit, but because any real understanding of humility demands it.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Repurpose
I love this theme! The mission of getting stuff out of the garbage system and back into useful circulation is part of the vision of Scholar & Poet Books, our home business. We don’t sell just used books but lots of other things we’ve picked up at estate sales and other places along the way. Valuing these castaways goes along with having an endless curiosity and a passion for treading lightly on the planet. You might say that we look at these things as artifacts, the world as a huge museum.
But for clever, I have to defer to my daughter. She and her husband are proud nerds and bibliophiles. She decided to make some of the flowers for their wedding decor and bouquets out of the pages of well-used books that had lost their covers.
The overall effect was perfect, and perfectly suited to them.
Remember: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Re-purpose, Refuse! (for more great information about reducing waste, see The Story of Stuff Project).
Weekly Photo Challenge: The Nature of Grace
This is the challenge of a lifetime. Grace is my middle name – for reals! I have been striving to live gracefully ever since my parents explained to me what that name means, hence the blog motto above. I find subtle differences in the nuance of the definition now that I’m learning Buddhism and leaving the Christian world view that I was raised with in my background.
There is something of elegance, but not a worldly elegance.
There is an element of casual generosity, an unearned favor and abundance.
The Buddhist perspective lends the flavor of ego-less-ness to it; it is beauty without attachment, as ephemeral as frost.
To live a life of grace is to open yourself mindfully each moment to being in the flow of the kindness of the Universe, in a way. To walk in harmony with my surroundings – people, places, things – and to be a living benediction is my aspiration. It sounds pretty lofty and ethereal, like a cloud, and I don’t claim to be doing the metaphor justice. But I might as well aim high in my practice.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Ambience (or Ambiance)
This week’s challenge reminds me of that old joke, “Why are there no restaurants on the moon?”
“No atmosphere.”
So, what’s my ambience? or ambiance? (seems there are two acceptable spellings). It’s Wisconsin. It’s January. The light is distant, southerly, and often behind clouds.
The air is dry, sharp, and very cold (even in my living room!). 
The mood is stark and immediate, like survival, but it brings a certain excitement to the senses. We are alert, light on our feet.
There’s a certain pride in the folks who are out and about in this weather. 
They are hardy and happy, eager and resilient.
There’s something in the silence of snow – in the wide, white spaces – that brings out a solitude from which we derive a certain strength.
Welcome to Winter Wisconsin. I find it refreshing. 
Weekly Photo Challenge: Names
“What’s in a name?” Some symbolism, some ego, some remembrance…
A name is just the container, perhaps an identifier; it is not the Thing. The reality goes so much deeper. The story is so much more than the title page. 
Weekly Photo Challenge: Path
I can totally relate to Cheri’s picture of taking a boardwalk path through a fragile eco-system.
I can also relate to my personal path changing dramatically in 2016. I, too, moved to a new place – to be closer to my job – and then experienced an abrupt twist in the path when my boss resigned. Paths can always lead to the unexpected, even a path you’ve traveled many times before.
scillagrace 