Weekly Photo Challenge: Free Spirit — Your Children are NOT your Children


Weekly Photo Challenge: Free Spirit

During the week of August 31, I was traveling and missed this photo challenge. This weeks challenge was  guest hosted by Strauss Louw. My first thought on this theme immediately went to children.  I think they are the most appropriate examples of free spirits around.  Their faces shine with absolute emotion and they can’t hide it.  What they think is what they show and feel.  The below poem so eloquently explains precisely what I am trying so clumsily to say.

Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.  You may give them your love but not your thoughts,                                                              for they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. for life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness.  For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.”
― Khalil Gibran

What I love about the children is that they are what they are.  We all have dreams, but theirs are the dreams that exist and are real whether they are awake or sleeping.  Their imagination is their current reality.  When they smile, they are really happy and when they are crying they are really sad.  You don’t have to guess at whether they are masking their true emotions for their emotions that are showing are what they are really feeling.

I think I have used some of the following photos but they are definitely worth a repeat. I hope you enjoy.

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New to The Daily Post? Whether you’re a beginner or a professional, you’re invited to get involved in our Weekly Photo Challenge to help you meet your blogging goals and give you another way to take part in Post a Day / Post a Week. Everyone is welcome to participate, even if your blog isn’t about photography.

Weekly Photo Challenge – “Growth”


When I hear the word growth I imagine a seed bursting from the ground followed by a beautiful flower.  I think of a baby learning to walk, then talk, then run.  I think of artists learning a new technique.  I also think of things damaged that have learned how to rejuvenate themselves and start over to become bigger, better and stronger.

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”
― Anaïs Nin

New York Skyline at Night

“Altogether, nearly 3,000 people died, and an entire nation was affected to its core.”  

The above picture and quote represent growth in its purest form to me.  Though you can no longer see the World Trade Center you can imagine it.  Through the collective imagination of New Yorkers they have managed to repair themselves and grow back a city.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Growth

Reflections

Gallery

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So thanks to Chris’s (Rileys Random Review) constant repetition regarding his addiction to the Reader, I too have become obsessed with finding blogs I am interested in.  I happened upon a blog entitled “Where’s my Backpack”  by Ailsa which has … Continue reading