With Halloween approaching this week, using the theme FRIGHTFUL to describe the season this year is fitting. With my children grown and gone, we don’t get into the Halloween season much. However, our neighbors with two school-age kids are all about the season with their yard full of Halloween-inspired inflatables and yard decor.
Most of them are kid-friendly and not too creepy.
Really Frightful
How about we get the scary images over with? Not a fan of big scary insects and spiders? Take a quick look if you dare. Most insects and spiders don’t bother me (except black widow spiders). I admit I ran when I saw the whip spider 😨!
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself… and spiders.” ~ Unknown
See? Now it’s over with and you’re OK!
Frightful Challenges
If you’ve followed my blog long enough, you might remember I used to teach a variety of recreation and park management courses at a university in Sacramento. One of my favorite lessons was requiring students to take the Challenge Ropes Course on campus, and then write about their experiences from the framework of leisure motivation.
“Obstacles Are Those Frightful Things You See When You Take Your Eyes Off Your Goal.”
~ Henry Ford
Students wrote about their fears, whether they feared heights, climbed a rock wall, or were forced into frightful group situations. 😱 As their professor, of course, I loved to participate. The students got a kick out of seeing their professors jumping off the dive above or crossing the catwalk 30 feet in the air.
Frightfully Interesting
Last Wednesday, I shared some orbs associated with Autumn and Halloween…’tis the season.
The Science and Mystery of Orbs
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” ~ Albert Einstein
Have you heard of the ghostly orbs (or will-o-the-wisps) that many people see all year round?
According to Heal Your Life, “Millions of people have been noticing opaque circular features in their flash photographs taken with digital cameras and have wondered what they mean. By making use of digital photography, it appears that Spirit Beings have devised a means to provide irrefutable evidence of their existence…” (thought to bring messages of hope).
“Orbs are likely not spirit beings in and by themselves, but emanations from Spirit Beings.”
~ Klaus Heinemann Ph.D.
According to Wikipedia, “in photography, backscatter is an optical phenomenon resulting in typically circular artifacts (or orbs) on an image, due to the camera’s flash being reflected from unfocused motes of dust, water droplets, or other particles in the air or water in low light. Wikipedia
Well-known blogger and poet, Colleen Chesebro, witnessed a will-o’-the-wisp with her own eyes near Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp. She saw something glowing and it wasn’t headlights from a car.
“It looked like glowing balls of light energy floating above the swamp. It was Halloween, and I figured my imagination was playing tricks on me.” Click on her name above to read her poem!
However…
“In Scottish folklore, will-o’-the-wisps are variously depicted either as mischievous spirits (typically fairies), or even the ghosts of the dead, eager to lead travelers off their path and into their death.”
“Men say that in this midnight hour, the disembodied have power.”
~ William Motherwell, Scottish Poet
Interestingly, I looked through many photos where I remember seeing these orbs.
What the three images above have in common, is low light, either a rising or setting sun, and good timing.
Backscatter or fairy orbs?
It doesn’t matter what I believe, but my natural instinct is to believe what I see with my own eyes. You may choose to believe in the magic or the science of these mysterious orbs; so I’m curious, have you seen or photographed an orb?
How About An Orb We Can ALL See?
“Cold-hearted orb that rules the night…” ~ Graeme Edge, Moody Blues
Here is another interesting orb—the waxing moon. Why are these interesting, you ask?
My new cell phone Samsung S23 Ultra, takes frightfully good images of the moon. I could never have achieved this with my old phone. Almost as good as my camera.
“There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.” ~ George Carlin
I had to include this OLD photo of Aero and Gideon caught in their morning howl! Gideon instigated this daily, probably reacting to the loud sirens or other frightfully ear-splitting noises only dogs can hear.
The Weather Outside is Frightful…
…And not seasonally like you would expect during Christmas. With an early snowfall predicted, we scurried around the property winterizing (like the beetle I showed you earlier).
We put away garden hoses, blew water out of sprinkler lines, and moved the grill and smoker under the patio cover. We moved and covered vulnerable plants out of snow’s harm. I added mulch around the young trees we planted and put them to bed for the winter. Trees become dormant but their root system strengthens, even in the frightful weather.
Apparently, these poor plants became zombies one year on Halloween.
Inspiring Photo Challenges
Each week I find inspiration from my fellow bloggers’ photo challenges. I enjoy incorporating these into my Sunday Stills weekly themes.
Sunday Stills Photo Challenge Reminders
The Sunday Stills weekly-themed photo challenge is easy to join. You have all week to share and link your post.
- Remember to title your blog post a little differently than mine.
- Please create a new post for the theme or link a recent one.
- Entries for this theme can be posted all week.
- Tag your post “Sunday Stills.”
- Don’t forget to create a pingback to this post so that other participants can read your post.
- I also recommend adding your post’s URL to the comments.
This Week’s Featured Bloggers
Sunday Stills is a wonderful community of bloggers, poets, and photographers who desire to connect with one another. Below are this week’s links from bloggers who shared their frightful photos. I add these all week as new links are posted.
- YOUR BLOG’S NAME GOES HERE…
- Always Write
- Bend Branches
- Cats and Trails and Garden Tales
- Cee’s Photo Challenges
- Deb’s World
- The Day After
- Graham’s Island
- Hugh’s Views and News Image shared in comments
- In Primo Piano
- Light Words
- Loving Life
- Mangus Khan
- Musin’ With Susan
- Quaint Revival
- NEW Special Mom’s Blog
- Stevie Turner
- This is Another Story
- Walkin’ Writin’ Wit and Whimsy
- Willow Dot
- Woolly Muses
- Working on Exploring
Themes for November are ready to view on my Sunday Stills Photo Challenge Page. This page is updated monthly. Join me next week so we can all share our Autumn leaves (or Spring blooms).
I’m looking forward to your frightful images, stories, and poems this week! Stay safe!
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