Weekly Photo Challenge: Delicate

Delicate – delicate fabric, delicate flower, delicate touch, delicate feelings….

Delicate is not robust, but sensitive, tender, and can be easily damaged. Yet delicate butterflies are strong enough to travel miles and miles to their destination point.

Delicate is vulnerable and fragile. The joyful side of delicateness is its delight. But it also can have a whisper of darkness – a fear of destruction and even death.

The flames of the candles that I arranged on my studio table are delicate and can be extinguished easily with a whisper of the wind—just like the lives of 20 children were extinguished with the deadly power of the gun in their school last Friday. Seven lives of adults where destroyed as easily. The fragility of life is no match for the power of a gun.

Tears like drops of water are delicate, but hold the vision of a powerful river if in numbers.

Let our tears fall, again and again, not into the pool of forgetfulness and acceptance but into the river of change. Let them unite us in a powerful movement with determination to change.

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Please take action at these links:

http://www.demandaplan.org/stories

Share your personal message of condolence with the families of Newtown, Connecticut.

You might want to read my earlier posts:

Violent Imagery Shapes Our Reality

https://alicjamann.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/violent-imagery-shapes-our-reality/

American Tragedy in Tucson

https://alicjamann.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/american-tragedy-in-tucson/

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Text and photos copyright © 2012 by Alicja Mann.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Changing Seasons

I was born and grew up in a country that has been celebrating the four seasons for centuries! Spring was always beautiful with little flowers peeking from under the snow, and so was autumn with nostalgia of the falling leaves in Warsaw. Majestic winter, generously spreading its white fluffy blanket, could beautify anything. But my favorite season was summer! It represented freedom from school and a lot of fun with friends on the Baltic shore. The warmth of the sun was unforgettable.

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My life in this country started on Cape Cod where I settled for “quite a while” raising my two sons and working professionally. All four seasons marked the rhythm of our life there. Again, summer was my favorite and compensated for the grayness of winter.

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It was on the Cape that I defined the color of my parachute. And that is how I landed in Tucson, Arizona, a place where summer never ends…well, almost never. Actually, there are some changes of season here in Tucson. And that is the point of this photo essay.

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Southwest plants are blooming all year round – just different ones in different (calendar) seasons. With the flowers, the blue sky, and the warmth of the sun, every day seems like a summer day.

 After the hottest days of June the monsoon season is greatly anticipated. Dark clouds signal its arrival. The heavy, warm rains are welcomed and celebrated.

Even in December the patio plants look as if it were summer.

I know it is winter when our neighbor, Joe, decorates his orange tree with large, colorful lights to celebrate the Holidays and keep the tree warm at night. That is the sign for me to be ready to cover our plants to protect them from the occasional touch of frost. It also is the time to hang the Holiday wreath and acknowledge the arrival of winter.

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Text and photos copyright © 2012 by Alicja Mann.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections

Surprisingly I have recently caught the “bug” for the Weekly Photo Challenge by WordPress.

Here are a few of my photo reflections:

From Cape Cod © Alicja Mann

From Yuma © Alicja Mann

From the Patio in Tucson © Alicja Mann

From the Road © Alicja Mann

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Text and photos copyright © 2012 by Alicja Mann.