Words: They're a Natur-al Thing

     I'll bet that you've all looked up in the sky to behold a dog or spaceship or whale-shaped cloud. Maybe you've been hiking where you've seen figures frozen in the rocks, like my son Jack and I have at Pinnacles National Park, of huge bullfrogs. Such serendipity! 
     A few months ago, I decided that, rather than depend on happenstance, I would set out to intentionally look for and photograph every letter of the alphabet-in nature. I was in central Oregon, a magical place teeming with natural wonders: snow-capped mountains, towering waterfalls, wildflowers and plants though changing hue and fading in the Fall, rushing rivers and a host of animals including scampering chipmunks, dappled horses and enormous black cows. I also decided that because the area is farm country, I could capture letters found there (love those barn doors each faced with an X!). 
     Never did I imagine how fun this goal would be, nor how surprising. For ten days, no matter where I went, I was on the lookout for those 26 letters. That smooth cliff reflecting in the still Crooked River became my U. That horse's head, an artistic P. Looking down while on a hike was, what? A round piece of lime green moss with a little tail and a little piece of bark right in the middle, my perfectly shaped Q! Surprisingly, the hardest letters to find were D, which I finally spotted as a 15-foot high rust-colored rock, and C, which I found on day nine in a half-circle cluster of pinecones on the ground. 

Focused creativity is intoxicating. What are keys to keeping it alive? 

1. Be specific about your overall outcome.

2. Be realistically time-bound.

3. Take breaks - outside (this will allow you to literally refresh and reenergize).

4. Celebrate your successes along the way.

I wrote on my FB biz page a few months ago that I'd taken some of my letters, formed a word and submitted them to the City of Berkeley for an art contest to be considered for placement in the offices for a year. While my photos were not selected, I promised to share them and have since turned them into a card reading: ...well, what do you see in nature?!

, Dana