Lens-Artists Challenge #234 – Messages

My friend Donna at Wind Kisses is debuting this week as one of the presenters of the Lens-Artists Challenge, one whose thoughtful, lyrical words complement her lovely photos. “Messages” is the challenge she’s chosen, offering us a plethora of possibilities.

Sometimes messages are simply words, words that can be humorous as in these signs I saw recently.

In the natural world, a bright color can be a message that says: “Danger. Stay away,” the same message of the apple in “Snow White”, surface beauty hiding something deadly.

The cliffside at El Morro National Monument, New Mexico is filled with over 2,000 signatures, dates, messages, and petroglyphs carved by ancestral Puebloans, Spanish, and American travelers, allmessages from the past. I visited on a chilly fall day, almost the only person to immerse myself in the carved autographs of the past. It was magical, both historically and in the physical beauty of the park.

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive. ~Eleonora Duse

The passage of dawn to dusk reminds us to make good use of our time but also to enjoy the beauty along the way. This beauty is one that animates part of my life, a part that brings joy, wonder, a deep thankfulness for God’s goodness and creation.

Messages are often personal. Do these footprints say we’re not alone, that everyone needs someone beside him/her, or something else altogether? The answer is an emphatic “YES.” 🙂

Life can get overwhelming, wearing us down to the bone. Is that the message? Nah! I don’t think so. I think the message is just relax and laugh!

Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man. ~Rabindranath Tagore

What’s the message here? Pure and simple: lovin’ my grandson!

Bright and colorful…but deadly

The last time I was in France, we came across a plethora of these beauties, but despite their colorful beauty, they’re deadly as seems to often be the case in the plant and animal world.

Life in Colour: kaleidoscope

This orange is not for eating!

for Life in Colour: orange , Past Square: kinda (“kinda” poisonous!) and circle, and Six Word Saturday

Monday walk…around the lake 2

We’ve made it halfway around the lake.  Let’s finish that walk.  Bring your cameras and relax.  We ended the first part of our walk with a lupine photo, but I love them, so here’s another.

A wet spring also puts fungus amung us.  🙂   This one is beautiful but deadly and there were quite a few of these around.  Although poisonous, the amanita muscaria has been used as a hallucinogen as well as for other purposes.  Click the link to read more, but I prefer to simply admire, not eat.