Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Fences

Fences? My first reaction was that I avoid fences in my photography, and now that we’ve moved into a neighbourhood without them, I will not be able to participate.  Then, I revisited old photographs, and what do you know?  Fences! The featured image is a garden gate at the Butchart Botanical Gardens in Victoria, B.C. The […]

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V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #15: Irony

Is it just me, or is there irony in the idea of a museum of tolerance – as if the concept itself, now defunct, has been mummified for perusal? Life is full of ironies, and sometimes it takes an objective view to find them.  As a kid, I found it ironic that my father would […]

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Finishing Foundations

I turned to God when my foundation was shaking, only to find that God was shaking my foundation. – unknown I’ve carried this quotation with me since my early thirties, a time when the bottom fell out of my life and I fell into a deep abyss of depression and mental breakdown (or breakthrough, as […]

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What Do You See? Wings!

I used to think that the relentless ache between my shoulder blades was from missing wings. We are meant to be angels on earth, I believed. And then, I forgot, so caught up in the details of life, consumed with ambition, and then facing the daily struggle of chronic illness. Until  I saw this image. […]

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Building a Foundation (with help from wikihow.com)

 Choose the type of foundation to build.  I want a foundation strong enough to carry me through hard times, yet flexible and able to adapt in the moment.  Something sustaining, and solid, but not rigid.   Set your footings 2 feet across.   Two feet on the ground, firmly planted, well balanced, not alone, but interdependent, both partaking […]

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V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #14: Foundation

“What about my marriage?”  a naive, much younger me once asked a psychic. “The foundation is firm,” the woman responded hesitantly, “but not without cracks.” Cracks?  It was more like gaping holes.  Easy to see now, in retrospect, but at the time, I was convinced we were rock solid.  The suggestion of anything less insulted […]

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Continue to Question

Inquiry is a trait teachers hope to instil in students – the ability to not just take for granted that which they have been taught, but the curiosity to question evidence, and to research beyond what is given. Questions form the basis of a reflective life. This week’s challenge was to think about the questions […]

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V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #13: Questions

What will come from all this suffering?  Why do I keep repeating old patterns?  Where is this journey taking me?  How can I be a better person?  When do things get better? A Question by Robert Frost A voice said, Look me in the stars And tell me truly, men of earth, If all the soul-and-body […]

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Enough Personification!

This blog post almost eluded my attention – the trickster. We’ve had company this week, and are still in the midst of settling, so I lost track of the days, and here it is Sunday already.  To be honest, I am happy to done with this challenge and move on to the next.  Focusing on […]

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V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #12: Personification

I confess, I frequently personify objects, apologizing to walls that I bump into, asking my iPhone where it got to, and apologizing to the milk I left on the counter, as if they have the capability of feeling bumped, slighted or abandoned. Personification is the practice of imbuing inanimate objects with humane characteristics.  It is […]

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