Beneath the surface, a level of communication we couldn’t have even imagined had been taking place — “We sent whale song into interstellar space because the creatures that sing these songs are superlative beings that fill us with awe, terror, and affection. We have hunted them for thousands of years and scratched them into our mythologies and iconography. Their bones frame the archways of medieval castles. They’re…

To peer into the eyes of a leopard is to peer into the possibility of death and also into the complete interconnectedness of life — Aware — so aware of our every move, of the scent of our fear mingled with the tension of excitement, of our utter lack of cognizance of the dangers lurking in the dappled sunlight. These were my first impressions of the leopard. Languid as mottled water where it lays slow…

A magical sunset moment with the tallest mammals on earth — The long, slow slant of the sun lit the tips of the grasses on fire and sparked the hazy air into a golden mist. Perched on the back of a jeep bumping down a dirt path, my husband and I could barely contain our excitement at being on photo safari…

September Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Shadows” — Our shadows on an elephant’s back The sun hung low, and the shadows stretched long across the South African savanna. We’d been out for an afternoon safari, looking for an elusive leopard but finding, instead, giraffes, zebras, lion cubs, and of course — elephants! Elephants, elephants, everywhere…. Baby elephants cavorted through the brush. Momma elephants grazed…

Are there any secrets for placing in photo contests? — Trying to figure out which photos the judges of a competition are going to like is such a guessing game for me. Is it just the mood of the judges on that day? Is it that there are fewer photos entered into certain categories? Is it better to submit earlier…

But I would do it all over again to have perfect vision — I always imagined blindness to be equated with darkness. When it happened to me, though, I ended up adrift in a sea of milky-white fog. Within the space of less than twenty-four hours, I went from having the best vision of my life to not even being able to see…

September Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Shadows” — Finding awe in a succulent shadow On a fine spring day last year, I had set my journal down on the little table in my garden, underneath a pot of succulents. All of a sudden, I noticed that the shadow of one of the arms of a succulent had draped itself across the page. I had…

Poetry of impermanence — “We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.” ― Khalil Gibran The wraith steps out into the night wearing a gown spun of shadows and light, a strand of cratered pearls, unfurled across her neckline. She swoons and swells her breast, her bosom more exposed with…

Thank you, Medium engineers, for fixing all the broken bits of our Medium experience — Ido want to say “thank you” to Medium’s engineering team. It must be a difficult job to stay on top of all of the bots and glitches that accompany a platform of this size. I just can’t even imagine, in this day and age of AI, how complicated keeping all…