Photo Monday

Dogwood flower floating in water
Amy McCarter
April 2011
Surviving the Day Everyday


Grief can be isolating. Grief sometimes makes me feel as if my days are spent circling around, never moving from the place I was. Occasionally even the most vibrant Spring day can feel devoid of color and light. Grief leaves me searching for something I can not find, something just beyond my reach. But on other days grief bestows beauty and courage. At times being alone with my grief I find a kind of peaceful solitude. I see all this in the black and white photo of the single dogwood flower floating in circles within the small birdbath of water. - Amy

:::

Endless
Rachel
Digital photograph, unaltered except the addition of sepia tone.
Curls O Fred

Having been born and have mostly ever lived in landlocked states, the ocean presents itself as a very powerful force to me. It's vast and seemingly unending, much like the grief I have after my daughter's stillbirth. Both the ocean and grief are ever changing...some days more raw and unrelenting, and at other times more calm and subtly washing over me. - Rachel

:::

Untitled.
Kara Kohr.

My submission for Photo Monday is a photograph taken on our son Matthew's first birthday. He was born still on Sept. 8, 2007 at 21 weeks. We were shocked when we learned at 20 weeks that he was very sick and would not live. On his first birthday one year later, we bought a sunflower for each member of our family: my husband, our first and only child, Matthew, and myself. We threw each flower into the lake in our neighborhood and we released balloons into the sky. It had been a terribly hard year for us after we lost him. And, very fitting, it rained very gently and quietly the whole time we stood at the lake and watched as our flowers floated away and our balloons disappeared.


about the photographer.
Our first child, Matthew was born still on Sept. 8, 2007 at 21 weeks. We were shocked and heartbroken. After genetic testing and an autopsy, the doctors could only tell us that they thought it was a fluke. We then struggled for almost 2 years to conceive again. After months of infertility treatments, we became pregnant 2 years and one month after we had gotten pregnant with Matthew. At our 12 week ultrasound, we learned that our second child, Gracie, was sick as well. 14 weeks later, Gracie was born still at 26 weeks. Our second pregnancy was excruciating, filled with many appointments, extensive genetic testing and overwhelming hope for a miracle. It wasn't until after an autopsy was performed on Gracie that we learned that we are both recessive carriers for a very rare, fatal genetic condition. There is a 25% chance that any child we conceive will be affected. There is no chance that any baby will survive pregnancy if s/he is affected. We are now 24 weeks pregnant with our third child, a boy, who our doctors are confident is healthy and see no reason why he won't join us this summer. - Kara

:::

Sideways. 
Julie Cozens.

Grief still does this to me. It knocks me sideways. Some moments of some days I feel as though I have to have a life jacket to survive it because I am too exhausted to swim anymore and I feel like I will drown. I don't understand why people who are standing on the edge are still just waiting for me to reach safe water. - Julie

Notes from the Guest Editor: Theme Challenges and Community Poem

Hi to all my friends, fellow babylost community and artists.

I would like to say thanks to Angie for letting me come onto still life 365 to be a guest editor for the month of April. Angie has selflessly offered this experience to me, so that I can know what it is like to be in every day contact with such amazing artists and supporters. I am having a great time already, and its barely even started. I am having lots of email contact with Angie and I can't help anticipating all the inspiring work that is going to flow into this sacred space this month.

I love still life365, I can't say it enough. I am such a big fan. I love seeing the photos arrive on Photo Sunday, as a group we all contribute a photo that expresses our perception of the theme, for me it's like seeing a piece of your soul, being invited to look out from your window and see your world. I love the secretness of the group poem, because everyone submits something individual but no one sees the lines that others are submitting. The group poem always takes the temperature of grief in our community, even though each portion is so deeply personal and straight from the heart it all fits together. And I love the questions that Angie posts, so many contributors have posted that their exploration of the questions have prompted something unknown to rise to the surface, things that have been lying in the depths.

Speaking of depths, this month I have chosen water as the theme

I personally connect with the analogies of grief and water. Ones like "grief is as heavy as water", or it feeling like an unnatural state "exhausting as walking through water", and the very commonly stated "waves of grief rolling in".

We all use water everyday, for most of us we have very constant and unremarkable contact with water. I mean do we call up our best friend and tell them the story of when the water came out of the tap and into our sink? Of course we don't. We flush it, wash in it, drink it, we do countless other mundane things with it. It's just ordinary.

But, there are times when water becomes something else, especially when it gets bigger. Like a lake or a stream or a river or the sea. Being near water becomes a spiritual thing, we feel closer to the source of our beings, we feel a connection with the universe, our creator. Things are more intense and more intimate when we can hear see or feel water.

In Australia we are so focussed on water. It surrounds us, there are thousands of miles of it between us and just about everyone else. We have a very fragile existence because of the lack of water, many parts of our amazing country cannot be inhabited by the ordinary person because they would just die of thirst. We have just had a 10 year long drought which was broken by an extremely rainy and tragic summer. Huge tracts of land disappeared under water and caused the most catastrophic consequences from the top of our nation to the bottom. Some of that land is still under water, or it has been flooded for the second and third time this season. In Australia it seems that there is either too much or not enough. Of course it's not true

Our babies were all protected by water, they floated in an climate controlled amniotic fluid filled sac while they were alive.  That sac of water was one of the lifelines that our body gave to protect their life, for every single one of our babies. For some the water was too much and for others too little, and that signaled problems. For me that is where my journey with grief became coupled with water. 

This month I would like you all to create art using water as your theme.

Please send in any submissions that relate to water at any time, especially if you created something because of the prompts. Angie has been calling for submissions over the last week or two weeks, so if you are not sure please send it to Angie and she will forward it to me and one of us will reply (because I still have my training wheels on) with encouragement and love. I know that I personally have art that has never been published here, so I will take my own advice.

We are trying something a little different this month, instead of posting the community art challenges on Sundays we are going to do them on Mondays.

The publication dates and deadlines are:

Photo Monday 11th April and the deadline for submissions is Saturday 9th April at 8pm

Community Poem 18th April and the deadline for submissions is Saturday 17th April at 8pm

Visual Community Poetry Project 25th April (Easter Monday) and the deadline for submissions is Thursday 21st April at 8pm (because of Easter)

Please send your submissions to stilllife365days(at)gmail(dot)com. And use the submissions type (photo sunday, community poem, visual challenge) as the subject. Next Monday will be Photo Monday, and you have less than one week before the deadline. The challenge with Photo Monday is to take a picture that explores your grief using the theme of water. If you find you are having trouble getting a creative visual idea, post a help message in the comments section of this post and we can all help out with ideas.

I love the Community Poem, I think I already said that. It is going to be the following Monday 18th April.

About the Community Poem. This month I would like you to write two lines of prose exploring your reflections on water and grief. I am posting two lists of words, please use one of the words from each list in each line of your prose. So that is one word from list 1 written into Line 1, and one word from List 2 written into Line 2

Here are the lists,

1.

aqua,

awash,

baptize

bathe,

damp,

dehydrate

drench,

drool,

dry

flood,

hose,

inundate,

irrigate,

moisten,

saturate,

soak,

souse,

spatter,

spray,

sprinkle,

steep,

submerge,

wash,

wet,

2.

flood,

deluge,

rain,

ripple,

storm,

stream

tidal,

tears,

waterfall,

I did a poetry workshop last year sometime and there were so many wonderful individual bohemian type people there who wrote some very amazing things. One thing I remembered from the guest poet (Drew Dellinger) was that poetry was essentially "memorable speech". So I will attempt some memorable speech to explain where I am going.

I will use the words bathe and ripple.

First, I try to collect phrases and words that come to mind that relate to the word bathe;

stepping into, foot first, hot ankles, naked, prepared, wash, pink, heat, anticipate, bubble

This is how my two lines read;

Awkward weary steps in fear spreading

wraps grief ripples round ankles unused to bathing in death

Here is the second part of this challenge which I am calling the Community Visual Poetry Project. Its a visual project because we are going to see your written art take the form of visual art.

I would love to see your handwriting, in this technology age we rarely see handwritten things. Please try to use your natural handwriting, so that means the language and the style that you would normally scribble a note to yourself is perfect. I would like you to please write your lines in circles like the ripples that raindrops make in puddles. Then scan or photograph it and send it to stilllife365. I will create a visual project from everyone's lines to post on the third Sunday in April.

This is how I did it, I drew circles on a piece of paper with a black marker. I put my sheet of copy paper over it and wrote my lines using the black marker circles as a guide. This is how it looks. I am sure yours will be wonderful and together it will be amazing.

Happy photo snapping and poem building my village.

Love from Australia,

Julie

Photo Sunday: The End.

 












The End.
Julie Cozens.

about the piece.
Solid footing ends,
my innocence ends.
Grieving takes over,
Like water, heavy.
Life continues on
And on, always on.

The next picture doesn't say anything about falling.

 :::

The End of a Season... The End of a Mum.
Amy McCarter.

about the photograph.
This photo was taken in Liam's garden during the first snow of the season.
December 4, 2010

:::

The End of the Road.
Sally.

about the piece.
This was as the sun was setting on New Year's Eve, 2008. The last day of the year she was born. The last day we were able to grieve in her birth and death year. The year that was the end of our innocence and naivety. It felt like the end of the road for us, as I was not sure how I could possibly keep putting one foot in front of the other in a brand new year. But it also felt like a new beginning, as we were desperate to to put the year behind us and try and move forward in to a new year that would hopefully include more happier times. And it did. -Sally

December Theme: The End

December's theme is The End. December will be our twelfth and last community poem of the year. Exploring the idea of the "The End" means exploring time. The end of the year. The end of our happiness. The end of our grief. The end of our future. I just think there are so many literal and figurative explorations with the end, and it also might be a good way to end the year.

DECEMBER 5: Community Poem
For this month's community poem, each contributor is asked to explore "The End". I am asking each contributor to submit no more than two lines about the phrase, "The End", or what immediately comes to mind when you hear "The End". I will compile it into a poem on Sunday.

Community Poem is going to be published on December 5th, so please submit by December 4th.


DECEMBER 12: Photo Sunday

Taking the theme further for Photo Sunday, please take a photograph either representative or literal about shadows in your life. All photos must be in by December 11.

DECEMBER 19: Mid-Month Challenge

Mid-month challenge is explore this theme in art, music, poetry or craft. All work must be in by December 18th.

:::

I have come to a really hard decision about this space into the next year. It has been an amazing year and I am grateful to everyone who submitted and shared work and writing here. I am in awe of your creativity and expression.


I have decided to take the every day element out of this space. So, there will not be the urgency of having to drum up work every day. If you have work to share, I would love to post it and share it with others. I hope to continue posting work between Monday through Thursday. I'd love for it to be four days a week, but I am not going to solicit in the same way that I did, so basically, it will be like a regular blog in that when I have work, or am moved to post, I will post. I'd love to see what happens with this space. So, please do continue to email art and poetry to me at stilllife365days(at)gmail(dot)com. I still want to continue the community aspects of this space. But in terms of creative prompts and community poem, I am taking January off to regroup and see where I am at without the constant work.



Thank you. I appreciate your love and belief in what I have tried to create here.

Photo Sunday, Shadows

Shadows.

Jessica.

Walks With Frost

about the photo.
One night my daughter Hadley was blowing bubbles on our back deck.  I took photos.  As I watched her, and looked at the images coming up, I liked the shadowy effect.  It looked like she was putting on an old-fashioned shadow puppet show for me.  I feel like I have always looked into the shadows of things because they hold secrets.  I began to think that every time one of Hadley's bubbles popped it was her little brother, Frost's hands reaching out from the shadows to play.  He was helping us to see the secrets of where he had gone.  -Jessica.

:::

Untitled.
Amy McCarter.
Surviving the Day EveryDay.

:::

Shadow Belly.
Ceil.

:::

Shadow Steps.
Julie Cozens.

about the photo
I participated in the Walk to Remember in Melbourne last weekend. For me, this picture tells the story of the walk. Literally it is a picture of one footstep, it's my foot and my shadow. Figuratively it tells my grief story. I carry the shadow of Thomas' death, its connected to me and I carry it everywhere I go, even on the days it's not visible. I did the walk alone, in a crowd of a thousand, sadly this picture also tells the story of my loneliness in grief. -Julie

:::

Shadow.
Holly.
Momentum.


about the photo.

Just enough strength to stay afloat
I await my turn to find a glimmer of light
A momentary escape from the shadows
Which hold my soul captive.
-Holly


:::

 

Naked and Alone.
Audrey.
Glutton Button.

:::

Shadow.
Kieran.
Radar of Chance (Kieran's wife Louise)  

about this photo.
I am Laura's Dad. I considered writing something about Laura's shadow over our lives or such, but that's not what this image is about. I take photographs for all sorts of reasons; but mostly because image-making is how I define myself. I continue to make images, even after Laura, because I don't know how not to. This shadow lives near my house and only comes out at night. -Kieran

:::


Thank you to everyone who participated in still life 365's Photo Sunday. Photo Sunday is a regular monthly feature of still life 365. On the second Sunday of each month, we will showcase photographs taken around the monthly theme. Monthly themes are announced and explored in various weekly creative challenges. See the sidebar to explore more of November's challenges. The goal of Photo Sunday is to highlight the art of photography and help explore different aspects of grief through the camera lens.

Next Sunday is Mid-Month Challenge in which you can choose any medium, including photography, to explore the theme of Shadows. Also, next Sunday (November 21st) is the deadline for submitting a piece for the still life 365 printed journal. Please see this post for more information.

November Theme: Shadows

November's theme is shadows. Literal. Figurative. They seem to envelope us after the death of our children. We have shadow children-those parallel living children born around the same time as our own children died or were due. And shadows that haunt our otherwise sunny days.

Community Poem
For this month's community poem, each contributor is asked to explore both a literal and figurative shadow in two lines. So, use a shadow imagery to describe something figuratively shadowed in your life. For example, my lines are:

Cast off the small metal urn, the darkness grows,
Covering the small neighbor boy, the same age as my grief.

Community Poem is going to be published on November 7th, so all lines must be in by noon on November 6th.


Photo Sunday

Taking the theme further for Photo Sunday, please take a photograph either representative or literal about shadows in your life. All photos must be in by November 13th.

Mid-Month Challenge

Mid-month challenge is explore this theme in art, music, poetry or craft. All work must be in by November 20th.

Ten Questions

Ten Questions will be posted on the day of the Community Poem.

Please direct all questions to the comment section of this post. I do hope this theme is interesting to all of you.

Photo Sunday: Rituals

Candles.
Sally.
Tuesday's Hope.

about this piece.
We have many candles for Hope, but I don't light them nearly as often as I should. When the mood strikes me, or on significant occasions such as Christmas, I dim the lights and light her candles. I am always amazed at the sense of peace I seem to feel when the candles are burning. -Sally


:::

Flowers.
Sally.
Tuesday's Hope.


about this piece.
We take flowers to her grave the week of her birthday. She's had two birthdays since she passed, but we have never been in town to visit her resting place on the actual day. We always take daffodils as they bloom just before her birthday. Daffodils are the marker to my season of grief. -Sally


:::

Cards.
Sally.
Tuesday's Hope.


about this piece.
I collect things. People kept giving us beautiful, delicate, precious things after we lost her and every so often, I would buy something new myself. I can't bear to pack any of it away, so I have it all stored on a small alter for her in the middle of our house. Amidst all the blue, boy stuff I have around the house now with my living son, it is nice to look here at all the pink and the reminder that yes, I did have a daughter once. I do have a daughter. -Sally

:::

Heart.
Taken 10/4/10
Altered with Picasa
Amy McCarter.
Surviving the Day EveryDay


about the photo.
I bought the red stone heart this year for Liam's 3rd birthday because it reminded me of the memorial tattoo I have on my wrist. -Amy


:::

Birth Sampler (in progress).
Jill.
Only a Whisper.

about the photo.
I started a cross stitch birth sampler for Emma when I was 34 weeks pregnant.Immediately after she died, I couldn't bring myself to work on it again. But, during my subsequent pregnancy, I felt as though I needed to balance the hard emotional toil of that pregnancy with continuing to grieve for my little daughter. Her cross stitch became my grief project. I wanted to finish it for her second birthday (14th October). I don't think that will happen but that's okay. I kind of like how the word "born" hangs unconnectedly in the centre of it right now. It feels appropriate. It will get finished eventually and, in the meantime, the rhythm of the stitching has become a ritual for me - "every cross, a kiss". -Jill

:::

Altar.
Megan
Four Ravens.

about this photo.
A photo taken of my altar with four candles, one for each of my son's. -Megan


:::

Hope.
Girl in the Dark.
Running Into My Life.


about the photo.
This is my picture of hope. I am 5 months pregnant now after losing 2 babies during pregnancy earlier this year. This baby boy is growing well and looking great. October 10th was my due date with the first baby that I had lost, so I did this picture in honor of that little baby. The baby that I carry now obviously wouldn't have existed if either of the 2 previous babies had made it. I don't know why it happened, but it brings me comfort to believe our two babies gave themselves so their little brother could come into this world.-Girl in the Dark.

:::

Four Photos.
Julie Cozens.

about these photos.
I have come to the conclusion that I like to light candles and release balloons in my baby's name. The Paper bag candles are at the beach on his anniversary, the bowl of candles and the red balloons are from Red Nose Day 2009, where families of babies who died, gather to remember them. There is also a picture of the candle that I keep in my bathroom window, it's the one I light to remember the passing of a soul. -Julie Cozens

:::

Mizuko Kuyo.
Jennifer.

about this piece.
This photo is of a Mizuko Kuyo ceremony that my husband and I attended for our Kai. -Jennifer



Thank you to everyone who participated in still life 365's Photo Sunday. Photo Sunday is a regular monthly feature of still life 365. On the second Sunday of each month, we will showcase photographs taken around the monthly theme. Monthly themes are announced and explored in various weekly creative challenges. See the sidebar to explore more of October's challenges. The goal of Photo Sunday is to highlight the art of photography and help explore different aspects of grief through the camera lens.
Next week's Mid-Month Challenge will be posted on Saturday, October 16th so we can accommodate the remembrance of one of our contributors, so please get your mid-month challenges in on Friday.

October Theme: Rituals to honor the dead.

I struggled with how to word this theme, even though I can see the idea clearly in my mind's eye. For some reason that felt possibly the most important part of this theme to communicate--that sometimes we feel concepts completely before being able to verbalize, make statements and commit them to language. Such is the relationship many of us have with death, especially when we lose our babies. We feel this importance, this gravity of spirit, without being able to communicate it to others. This is why ritual and art become so significant. They give us actions and means to tell our story without speaking.

When our children die, we suddenly touch our ancestors in the same moment that we touch our legacy. It is like time has folded in on itself.  I know when Lucia died I felt comforted by the knowledge that she may see or feel her grandfather in this place I couldn't visualize and state of being of which I was wholly unable to grasp, even as I wrestled with my own beliefs about life after death.  Most of us have our first experience of death from losing a great grandparent, or grandparent, but later when we lose our children, we bridge the experience of the "natural order of thing". I hate using the word natural, because death is natural, but what I mean of course is the early death of our children.

October seems to absolutely vibrate with the energy of the dead. Some people think of it as a magical time, or a time when the world of the living is close to the world of the dead. Halloween, maybe the most popular holiday, has its ancient roots both in the Celtic holiday of Samhain and the Catholic holiday of All Saint's Day. Samhain in its own right is still celebrated by pagans, and has the most vivid connections with the earth and harvest, the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darker half". As Wikipedia says, "The Gaels believed that the border between this world and the otherworld became thin on Samhain; because some animals and plants were dying, it thus allowed the dead to reach back through the veil that separated them from the living. Bonfires played a large part in the festivities. People and their livestock would often walk between two bonfires as a cleansing ritual, and the bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames." Latin Americans celebrate Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, on November 2nd (also All Soul's Day), which specifically honors those that have died. It is a celebration both outwardly and inwardly. People march in parade painted as skulls, but also create private altars honoring the deceased using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed and visiting graves with these as gifts. Many people associate the morbid skulls and images of the dead to mean Day of the Dead is a dark holiday, but for most Latinos, it is a bright, fun holiday and an important part of their lifelong grief after losing their loved one.

So this month's theme is honoring the dead, our ancestors, our babies, and rituals around honoring them. I will break this down by week:

Community Poem

This month's community poem will be about rituals you do for your baby, be it light a candle, create an altar, sing a song, read a book. Write two lines based on a ritual you perform--the ritual can be something performed everyday, or it can be something performed once, like a funeral, planting a tree, or a religious rite. I hope to weave these together in a coherent poem, so while specifics of the ritual are important, try not to use specific names. There is a tie that will bind all these two lines together, begin first of two lines with the phrase, "In your memory..."

All community poem lines need to be submitted by October 2nd, for publishing on October 3rd. Please send it to stilllife365days@gmail.com. Just note that our email address has the word 'days' in it. I know some people have sent things to another, more logical, email address, so if you have, please note the correct email, and try resending. I have attempted to contact the owner of that email address to no avail.

Photo Sunday

Taking the theme further for Photo Sunday, please take a photograph of a something that you have done as a ritual, or that someone else has done as a ritual honoring the dead. All photos must be in by October 9th.

Mid-Month Challenge

Mid-month challenge is explore this theme in art, music, poetry or craft.

Ten Questions will be posted on the day of the Community Poem.

Please direct all questions to the comment section of this post. I do hope this theme is interesting to all of you.

For further inspiration, Mother Henna hosted an amazing Day of the Dead art swap last year and has compiled a book of the artwork for free! You can view it here, and while you are there, please check out her other amazing stuff. If you are looking to explore your grief creatively, I urge you, no, I push you, to take one of her grief home workshops, or connect with her for coaching. She inspires me everyday.

Photo Sunday: Trees

 













Broken.
Jessica Davis.
Walks With Frost

:::

Trying to Catch the Moon.
Julie Cozens.
Our Baby Thomas

about this photo.
This is a picture of my tree trying to catch the moon, that's how I relate it to grief. I am here, he is there, we are so connected it feels like he is within reach, but I cannot touch him. --Julie

:::

Nest.
Angie.
Still Life with Circles.

about this photo.
I am a terrible photographer, but I love doing it. I thought if I made the challenge, I should participate. I needlefelted this nest with three eggs in it earlier this year, each egg is for each of my children--Beezus, Lucia and Thor. I have painted, made prints, photographs and sketches of this tree in front of our house, which is a Japanese Maple that has been bonsai-ed into submission. That tree always is the first thing I see when I get home, and it just means home to me. --Angie


:::

Love, Broken Heart, Amputation Scar
Julie Cozens
Our Baby Thomas


about this photo.
This picture I call "Love, Broken Heart, Amputation Scar" That's how I relate it to grief. It's a tree that stands in the corner of the Carlton Gardens in Melbourne, at the corner of Nicholson Street and Victoria Parade. --Julie

:::

Iris' Tree.
Jess.
After Iris.

about this photo.
This is a photo of Iris' tree on her 2nd anniversary with the bunting and garland we made weaving through the branches. --Jess

:::

Can't See the Wood for the Trees.
Megan Warren.
Four Ravens.

about this photo.
Can't see the wood for the trees - In our grief we are so focused on the minute details that we can't see past it. Photo taken on the Koonung Trail in Melbourne. --Megan


:::

Tree Collage.
Amy McCarter.
Surviving the Day Everyday.

about this photo.
Here is a collage I made of a fall leaf (color) and tree landscape (black and white). I took both photos while on a hike last weekend. I like the ghostly feel the collage creates. --Amy


:::

Trees.
Rachel.
Curls o' Fred.

:::

Out of Focus.
Megan Warren.
Four Ravens.

about this photo.
This is a photo of a flowering tree in our garden. I was trying to take a close-up photo of the flower but it kept moving in the breeze. Like our grief, everything around us keeps moving and we feel like we are standing still. --Megan

:::

Tree.
Raquel.
Permission to Dance.

about the photo.
I took this photo in May on my husband's birthday. It's supposed to be spring, but in San Francisco, it's cold and foggy and the tree is still barren. SF has always been too cold for my taste, but when my son Sidney was stillborn this July, the grey gloomy sky felt right for the first time. Now I'm like the tree without my leaves in spring. I'm ready for spring to arrive. --Raquel




Thank you to everyone who participated in still life 365's first Photo Sunday. Photo Sunday will be a regular monthly feature of still life 365. On the second Sunday of each month, we will showcase photographs taken around the monthly theme. Monthly themes are announced and explored in various weekly creative challenges. See the sidebar to explore more of September's challenges. The goal of Photo Sunday is to highlight the art of photography and help explore different aspects of grief through the camera lens.

September Theme: Trees.

Community Poem
Everyone approaches grief differently. While there is many similarities in our emotions around loss, death and grief, we each come by it in our own way. I am constantly amazed when I pull together community poems how few overlaps of words there are. When, for example, I wrote last month's community poem, which was submit one word that you think other people would use to describe you or your grief, I thought I was going to get twenty submissions of "strong". That was the first word I thought of, but I only received two strongs, and that was the only overlap.

One of my favorite poems is Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens. Each of the thirteen stanzas is different approach to the theme of a blackbird. The minimalist style of each stanza, while influenced by the haiku, is not a haiku. I am linking the piece, because I want each of us to use that style in September's community poem. But first, I would like you to put your grief or death goggles on. Now, we are going to each write a stanza to thirteen ways of looking at an object through the lens of grief. Of course, that thirteen will change based on the number of entries I get. I really wanted the object to be unrelated to death or grief, even though I want each person to look at it through their grief. So, September's community poem will be Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Tree.

Start thinking about trees through the lens of grief.

Please direct any questions about this poem, or any section of this month's theme, in the comments section of this post. This month's community poem will be published on September 5th, so all entries need to be in by September 4th. Happy poeming!

Photo Sunday.

Photo Sunday is a showcase of photographs about a theme. This month's theme is trees. Tying this project to grief is the important, and difficult aspect of this challenge. Photo Sunday will be September 12th, so all pictures need to be submitted by the 11th.

Mid-Month Challenge.

Mid-month challenge is to use the image of tree in a piece of artwork, craft or writing about your grief and loss. You can use any medium, as always. Please send in submissions by September 18th, for submission on the 19th.

Ten Questions.

Here are this month's ten questions. I will post a Mr. Linky on Sunday September 26th. You come and link to your own blog with answers to these questions. You can choose to answer as many as you would like, or just post about the month's theme. This is a way for members of the still life 365 community to find other people in this community.

1. When you saw the theme of trees for the month of September, what immediately came to your mind?
2. What kinds of words do you associate with trees?
3. Of these words, do you associate any with yourself?
4. Have you been an outdoorsy person throughout your life?
5. How has your relationship with nature changed since your loss(es)?
6. Did you plant a tree or bush in honor of your child?
7. If you have planted a tree for your child, in what ways do you incorporate the tree into your life? If you haven't, what natural images do you associate with your loss? (Do you tend to it? Do you meditate or reflect under it? Do you places flowers by it?)
8. Trees have also been used to represent families. Talk a bit about your own family tree.
9. What are your feelings now about family trees and exploring your own lineage?
10. The rings of trees fascinate me. I remember learning that in hard years, the rings were smaller, or darker than in years of good water. Describe the rings of your tree.


When I was a kid, I loved loved loved Bob Ross, and often think when I am painting anything, "Happy little trees." So, for a little inspiration...





If you have any questions about this month's theme (TREES), please direct it to the comment section of this post. Happy creating.