Autumn in Atlanta: Photo Mash-Up #4

From Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human by Daniel J. Siegel:

“Imagine trying to articulate a feeling full of gratitude for this gift of being here, for being human, for being alive.”

From More Than a Rock: Essays on Art, Creativity, Photography, Nature, and Life by Guy Tal:

“Be humble and grateful for the things available to you, for the things you know and feel, and for the secrets and mysteries still waiting for you.”

From Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert, on appreciating the gift of creativity:

“You can receive your ideas with respect and curiosity, not with drama or dread. You can clear out whatever obstacles are preventing you from living your most creative life, with the simple understanding that whatever is bad for you is probably also bad for your work…. You can dare to be pleased sometimes with what you have created…. You can support other people in their creative efforts, acknowledging the truth that there’s plenty of room for everyone. You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures…. You can believe that you are neither a slave to inspiration nor its master, but something far more interesting — its partner — and that the two of you are working together toward something intriguing and worthwhile. You can live a long life, making and doing really cool things the entire time. You might earn a living with your pursuits or you might not, but you can recognize that this is not really the point….

“And at the end of your days, you can thank creativity for having blessed you with a charmed, interesting, passionate existence.”

While walking my neighborhood streets over the past few weeks, I kept seeing giant hydrangeas changing as fall changes them in street-facing gardens in front of people’s homes. I’m alway skittish about standing in a neighbor’s yard with a zoom lens, so I was glad to find the same varieties at Oakland Cemetery while taking photos for this year’s autumn extravaganza. The varied colors on the leaves were surprising; I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen so many color variations produced by a single batch of plants. These are growing in the corner of a large stone mausoleum, the stone creating a nice contrasting background for the leaves and their colors.

Fall in the southeast can be a bit contradictory: on one hand the leaves in late November are well through their turn and falling in massive numbers, yet daytime temperatures are still warm enough to support new growth — especially that of hardy flowering plants like these. This batch of light purple daisies were growing across one of the cemetery plots, reaching from the shade of a large oak tree toward the sun.

Walking further away from the daisies, I found a tangled mass of rose branches, with this fresh new leaf — bright red growth unfurling as if it was early spring and not late November…

… and not far away, some roses among the stones, ready to bloom.

My previous autumn 2019 photo mash-ups, and a few other posts with new fall color photos, are here:

Autumn in Atlanta: Photo Mash-Up #1

Autumn in Atlanta: Photo Mash-Up #2

Autumn in Atlanta: Photo Mash-Up #3

Four Small Signs of Early Fall

More Small Signs of Early Fall

Even More Small Signs of Early Fall

Autumn Tints at Twilight

Burnt Orange and Singed Pumpkin

Thank you to all those who’ve visited my blog this year, looked at my photos, and read my words. When I returned to blogging last year, I wondered at first if blogging had become a thing of the past, supplanted by the short-attention-span-theater of Twitter and Facebook, but have been thrilled to discover instead the vibrant and ever-growing WordPress communities are still out there. So more than thanking you for your visits, let me say instead, thank you for the creative work you do: it’s fascinating, and fun, and mostly: it’s inspiring.

Happy Thanksgiving!