Whither are we Journeying?!

Can you smell it?  Can you feel it?  Fall is in the area - a new season for us to continue our journey through life - with the camera and with quiet reflections.  I have always considered my time with the camera a photographic journey and a journey to self.  We notice the outer landscape and take the time to reflect on the inner landscape.  We always have choices but do we face them and act on them or do we consider ourselves victims to life's offerings?  I say NO WAY!  You know the old expression about when life gives you lemons - make lemonade!!    You can stay clean and pristine or get down and dirty and see what life has to offer.  Perceptions of reality!!
   Just yesterday I was called by the zinnias in the front garden.  Never did I realize that they turned as they withered yet stayed on the plant.  They have lost so much of the color yet retained a different kind of beauty.

They are a metaphor for Fall and the changes we experience - we never lose our beauty yet we ask to be seen in a different way!!  As I was standing there and looking, I heard a message to turn around and LOOK!  "Don't just look at the flowers Martie because there is so much more!! " The big old pine trees were asking to be seen - oh my goodness.  Look at this gift!!

Tall and straight and full of such unusual beauty.  Have you ever stopped to really look at the knots in the trees where the branches have been cut off?  Some of them look like blood and they are bleeding sap.  These trees had a zillion of these because our neighbors had cut off the lower branches.  Made me sad that the trees had been injured but ok that they were healing.  It's like how our body heals itself - sometimes while we are taking medicine and think it is the reason!  The photographic message - make sure to stop and be still and listen - then look and then turn around and look some more - up, down and all around.  There is beauty in the beholding.

It Don't Bother Me None!!

Meet some of the important women in my family - standing at the back - Gram - Kate - definitely a person who offered me unconditional love - someone I treasured in my life always - someone I could go to when I thought life wasn't "fair" - she's been gone from my life on earth since 1966 but never a minute away from my heart!  She always pretended to be a strong woman - and in many ways she was - but when someone hurt her in some ways, she always said, "It don't bother me none" as the tears were streaming down her cheeks.   Lately there have been strange happenings (to me at least) in relationships - and as I have been told it is not my problem but something the other person has to work through, I can say, "Sure it don't bother me none" but my issue is that I want everyone to like me - and me them - and when a person backs away - and really can't talk about it - well....

The other two women - front right is Gram's mother - Bubba we called her - Mary to others - didn't know her well but sure she too had an influence in thoughts and feelings in my heart.  The other person - front left is my mother's mother - Nanny - my memories of her - wew visited often and I even lived with them for a summer in college - is a kind person who did not share feelings/affection.  Two very different grandmothers each affecting my life - one affecting my father and his sense of caring - and one affecting my mother and her emotional withdrawal.  So it is genes or is it environment?  For years, I have straddled that fence and as I ponder it all - I am still there - it has to be a combination!!  Wonder how I am perceived??  To some, I am too emotional - to others - they want to be with my energy - to others - I am too intense - so in the perception and eyes of the other - the challenge is NOT TO JUDGE SELF THROUGH THE EYES OF OTHERS.  Accept and believe in our own wholeness and beauty!!  That's life!!