Looking Deeper...

Mondays often feel full of potential until the first disaster of the week hits and then we feel like this photo that I shot a few years ago...

One of my favourite stories about not giving up is the example of accidentally dropping one egg out of the container.  Just because that one breaks... do you smash the other eleven?

Today was filled with the joyful chaos of substitute teaching all day, coming home to a house that smelled wonderful thanks to the chili ingredients I’d tucked in the slow cooker this morning and then watching the girls get homework done before volleyball practice for Erin.

She showed up at the first practice of the new team after last week's tryouts to find out that  some of her new team members had jumped to another club in town without telling anyone until the last minute.

No, life does not always go as planned.

So I dug out this picture instead of the one I’d shot earlier today of floor tile.  This week, I am challenging myself to look DEEPER...  to really see what might lie hiding in shapes and shadows when you look beyond the obvious images.

When I look at this photo, I see a dragon’s wing, a dog’s head, a snail, a bull frog, a square pig and a treasure trove of other things.  What do you see?

INHALE:  We tend to just books by their covers, success by how much money someone makes and hundreds of other SURFACE things.  Creative wonders are waiting all around us if we just take the time to really LOOK at them.  Stop. Look beneath the surface. Look deeper than you usually do.  Part of becoming more creative is taking the time to see with more than just your eyes!

EXHALE:  Find something with a pattern in it.  Tile flooring works well as do wood grain patterns.  Crumple some tinfoil then spread it out again.  Stare at the clouds.  If you have a digital camera then try to capture the image you see so that you can look at it more closely.  What images do you see to sketch?  What stories d o they conjure in your head?  Follow where they lead and see what you can find when you look deeper at the world already around you.