Category: Picture the Holidays

Today's prompt was "simply divine."  I see the divine, the beautiful grace of the universe, in many places.  But there  are two things that always make me feel closer to the divine--the ocean and the sky.  I wasn't able to get to the ocean today, so I took some sunset photos.  I was hoping to get a sky full of stars tonight, but clouds have rolled in.  Still, the sunset photos from my studio seem right because I often sit looking out the window at the sky and the clouds in the west, and I always feel that expansion in my heart that comes from communing with the divine.  I still haven't decided which of these I'm using for the project, so they appear here in the order I shot them.

 

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.  ~e.e. cummings, 1955

Today's Picture the Holidays prompt was "express yourself."  The post mentioned self-portraits.   The whole thing made me a little twitchy.  My hair is awful today--I'm weeks beyond needing a cut.  It needs coloring, too.  I'm feeling tired and have dark circles under my eyes.  I don't photograph that well on a good day.  Today?  No way was I taking a picture of myself.  So I worked on writing some things about what being me means to me.  Who am I?  What am I?  What is important to me?  What makes me me?  I thought maybe I would do a quick collage or art journal page.  That's self-expression, right?  And then I could just take a photograph of that.  But this didn't feel right.  So I let the thoughts simmer all day.  And then I knew.

I'm a writer.  I'm a lot of other things, too, but it always comes back to words for me.  Books and writing and pens and journals...those are the things that are nearest and dearest to me, at least in the inanimate categories.  And then I knew.  A self-portrait was exactly the right thing.  Here it is:

Today's prompt is about finding or remembering the things that help you slow down and feel calm, peaceful, relaxed.  This is something  we should all take some time to pinpoint, really, so that when we're feeling frazzled, frantic, and generally out of sorts we don't have to try to figure out what to do to help ourselves.  If we know the things that soothe us, we can just turn to them when we need to.

Here's my soul soothing photo:

Today's post is about love.  And hearts, because hearts and love go hand in hand, right?  So here's my photo:

This is Jack, one of my two kitties who are one the biggest sources of love in my life.  I chose Jack for this prompt because I always think his little nose looks like a heart.  He was just made for this prompt, wasn't he?

Here's one more, because I'm sure you want to see more of that adorable nose:

See you tomorrow with more photos!