Day 95 – Equal Opportunity

March 14, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

Mother Nature does not discriminate. Just ask those in Haiti or New Orleans or Vanuatu. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. No matter how unfair that seems, that’s the way things are.

Walking in the rain in my backyard, I am drawn to drops of rain hanging from bare tree twigs, brittle leaves and coiling weeds. All living things need water and have equal opportunity to it. Drops hang indiscriminately from my defoliated Japanese red maple as well as from a pernicious weed, which will try to choke my good plants as the growing season begins. 

But right now, regardless of how that weed will soon behave, the rain crowns it in beauty and reflections--the same as the red maple, crepe myrtle and holly. I see the same things reflected in the drops, regardless of where they hang; I am reflected in weed drops as well as holly drops.  
  
My gift today is aqua-reflections.
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> DAY 96 Slats of Time

You can read my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 76 – Cygnus

February 23, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

I found a small glass swan in my curio cabinet; I do not remember why I have it or where it came from. Its smooth hard curves feel soothing in my hand as my fingers glide over its contours and my eyes notice the way it reflects light and color. Soon I exchange the lens in my eye for the one on my camera. I can control the reflections by changing background, angle, lighting and lens aperture.

Like this swan's dance with light and color, I too have choice in how I receive my mind’s reflections and in the way I reflect with others.

Internally, I can choose to think with an open mind, allowing unconnected thoughts to flow and entwine until a new metaphor is born. Then I can embrace it, blend it with other thoughts and ideas, and build new understandings. 

How I relate to others depends on how we reflect one another’s light and color, how we trust and share and how open we are to receive those reflections. Just as the colors curve along the swan’s neck, I can allow my interactions with others to flow naturally with the light. The background in my photo is the paper that wrapped a recent present from my friend Shirley. Today it becomes a colored background interacting with a glass bird--part of today's gift.

My gift today is curving reflections.

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> DAY 77 Parking and a Snowman

You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html