The wholeness of water in the desert
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The wholeness of water in the desert

I was fortunate to come across this open water near Tavasci Marsh at sunset, just when the world was golden. It reminded me how beautiful our planet is, in all its changing moods. Water and light, combining to bring joy in the moment. A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells…

Drawn by a giant
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Drawn by a giant

The constantly changing perspective of Alice in Wonderland delights me. First she is tiny and the world is huge. All of a sudden she grows immense and everything around her has shrunk. Her image has stuck with me as I take pictures, and it sometimes creates dizzying shifts of perspective. As I viewed this desert…

What if time is fluid?
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What if time is fluid?

Even with parts missing where the light shines through, the inherent beauty and grace of these ancient ollas, or water jars, is unforgettable. They are a reminder of our past as a human species. Our yesterday. But they could be part of our future as well. A new physics theory asserts that time may be…

A matter of perspective
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A matter of perspective

One afternoon I looked up to see two very different clouds. One was brilliant in the sunshine, each layer clearly marked with almost luminous attention. I reveled in its beauty. The second, almost directly overhead was dark, threatening, ominous. And then I stopped for a moment to reconsider. If I were under that bright cloud,…

Enter the resourceful agave
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Enter the resourceful agave

The sharp tips of the giant agave are there for a purpose–to fend off predators such as javelina and hungry cattle intent on a juicy meal. Too bad somebody didn’t tell the spiders, who found the spines to be perfect tent poles for their webs. Or the wind, who discovered the web to be a…

Tenacity of the vine
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Tenacity of the vine

This was such a cool discovery! It is both a model of design, with all those zigzagging textures, and the actual event, a wisteria vine too stubborn to quit. When the plant found itself blocked, it changed direction not once but several times. And it isn’t a young whippersnapper of a vine. Take a look at the…

The magic of being still
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The magic of being still

Every now and then, nature presents us with a joke, if we are only receptive enough to catch it. Here, I found a perfect bow tie in the middle of the Dead Horse Park lagoon. Just waiting for someone to turn it around and paste it onto a beautiful package. Or perhaps, it already was the ideal…

Sometimes what you see is not there
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Sometimes what you see is not there

At first glance, this appeared to be a tragedy: soft downy fuzz, longer tail feathers. Had an owl met its match with a bobcat? Oh, no! And then I took a second look. Not tail feathers at all, but rather, Eucalyptus leaves. Not down but cottonwood tree cotton. Whew! I like owls. And I like…

Stories in tombstones
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Stories in tombstones

When I visit in the eastern part of the country, I love to visit old cemeteries. So many old stories are contained in the family plots! This one interested me, in that all of the gravestones seemed to be tightly contained behind a walled barrier, as though saying, this is our plot, all ours, and don’t you…

Luminous reflections
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Luminous reflections

Who says shadows need to be hum-drum. Or even dark, for that matter. I discovered these reflections in an old building, where glass tiles threw a shifting pattern of light reflections on a dark brick wall. Their shimmering pattern of light delighted me! When we get locked into looking at an object in one way,…