It’s as important as perspective. Perhaps even more so…
We talk so much about perspective—about changing our view, reframing the story, finding the silver lining in the storm cloud.
But sometimes, perspective doesn’t shift easily.
Sometimes, circumstance leaves you standing exactly where you’ve always stood. The view is the same. The light hits the same edges. The shadows fall in familiar places.
But even when the scene remains unchanged…the focal point doesn’t have to.
Focus is a choice.
A sacred, stubborn one.
It’s the difference between staring at the problem and noticing the petal behind it.
It’s where your attention lands, and where your energy follows.
It’s learning to zoom in on grace even when grief is still in the frame.
And with that subtle shift, a new vision — a new truth— came forward.
Almost always—including in life, and despite circumstance—the best composition doesn’t come from changing the scene but from learning which part of it to focus on.
Mimosa (Albizia julibrissin). Lumix GX7, Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f/2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S., Lightroom Mobile (watermark), VSCO.
Not everything soft is weak.
Not everything brief is forgotten.
The mimosa blooms like a passing thought—pink, feathery, fragrant, gone before you’re ready. But even in its short season, it rewrites the air.
And maybe that’s the point:
To offer sweetness without needing permanence. To make magic in the margins.
💚🌿✨
Mimosa (Albizia julibrissin). Lumix GX7, Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f/2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S., Lightroom Mobile (watermark), VSCO.
The Mimosa tree (Albizia julibrissin) is commonly known as the silk tree or Persian silk tree. Albizia julibrissin isn’t actually a true mimosa—though it’s been lovingly misnamed for generations. Native to Asia, this delicate tree has made its way into southern landscapes with grace and stubbornness alike.
Its blooms are light as breath—powdery tufts that attract butterflies, bees, and human daydreamers. They bloom at dusk, shimmer in the wind, and drop silently—often leaving a petal-scattered sidewalk like a love note no one signed.
Mimosa (Albizia julibrissin). Lumix GX7, Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f/2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S., Lightroom Mobile (watermark), VSCO.
Though it’s sometimes called invasive, there’s no denying its presence feels like a portal: part nostalgia, part perfume, part dream.
Its scientific name, julibrissin, comes from the Persian gul-i abrisham—“silk flower.” A name that suits it perfectly.
Mimosa (Albizia julibrissin). Lumix GX7, Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f/2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S., Lightroom Mobile (watermark), VSCO.
In folk medicine—especially within Traditional Chinese Medicine—the mimosa tree is known as the “Tree of Happiness.” Its fragrant pink blossoms and bark have long been used to lift the spirit, ease grief, calm the heart, and quiet a restless mind.
The flowers are brewed into gentle teas, while the bark is sometimes tinctured for deeper emotional support. Often given to those moving through sorrow or heartbreak, the mimosa is considered a natural ally for joy, resilience, and emotional rebirth.
There comes a point in every soul’s story where you’re asked to lay down what you thought was love—or risk letting it break you.
That’s the thing about burdens: we don’t always know when they stop being sacred and start becoming self-destruction. But eventually, if we’re honest, we feel it.
That’s the core of this message.
You can carry the burden until your knees give out, insisting it’s strength. Or, you can listen to the whisper that says, “Lay it down,” because true strength isn’t brute force. It’s not in how long you hold on. It’s in knowing when to release—when to grieve, and when to grow.
Brute strength—the kind that resists surrender—is fear in a steel mask. But surrender? That’s wisdom. That’s love maturing into understanding.
This isn’t a love story between me and someone else. It’s a love story between who I was and who I’ve become. It’s the story of two souls—two versions of my own soul—and how only one of them eventually realized that the weight of love, when carried alone, becomes grief.
That grief, if left unprocessed, becomes blame. Becomes resentment. Becomes bitterness. Becomes the ghost of a life I never got to live.
The version of me that held on so tightly was trying to preserve love by never letting go—even of the dead. Even of ghosts. But the version of me that learned to let go understands now:
It’s not about letting go of the ones we’ve lost. It’s about letting go of what keeps us from healing. Letting go of the pain we wrapped ourselves in like armor. Letting go of the misunderstandings. Letting go of the old wounds that kept us from breathing fully.
I couldn’t shrink myself any longer to fit into the versions of love that others offered. And they couldn’t stretch themselves to meet me in mine. That wasn’t failure. That was fact. Then, in the case of my mother, she died.
Maybe—just maybe—there’s a higher realm where we meet again, whole and healed. Where all the versions of us come home to each other. Where they are not in conflict, but in communion.
Until then…I carry them forward. I no longer miss them the way I used to—because they’re not gone. They’re right here, quietly guiding me home.
Flowers!?? Of course, flowers! How could I not start this whole top five/top ten thing with anything else when that is what I shoot the most?? OK – it’s probably a tie with droplets, but even those are technically flower shots. ((blows raspberry)
Specifically, as you’ll remember me mentioning Nicole if you read my last post, flowers are what she first asked me to choose as a top five list. I’m going to have to go with ten, though, because I share almost exclusively flowers. It was too difficult for me to choose just five. In fact, it was extremely difficult for me to put these in any sort of order as far as my own “top” choices. The rest of these will likely be “five” lists. This one was definitely the hardest.
10. Blue
I love this one because it combines different visual elements but still keeps the flower as the focal point. Another reason this one is special is because I shot it to complete a calendar I was doing for my Mom. This flower was one from one of the sprays given in memory of my father at his wake, and it also reminds me of the blue and white ceramics that she collects. Things so often tie together like that, in my perception and creativity.
**Sony Alpha (a37), Tamron macro 90mm f2.8, manual focus on full, tripod, external flash. Unedited, aside from crop.
09. Calla
I love this flower edit, done with DistressedFX on the fly. I shot this Calla lily at the oil change place with my phone. It was February, and I was attempting to leave for New Orleans for the third time in two weeks. I was so desperate to get there and find something. This flower, before I even embarked on my journey, was the first thing I “found.” What I was looking for in New Orleans exactly, I’m still not sure, but, all told, I found a lot more than I bargained for.
My plan to stay once I arrived there was foiled by understanding and learning in a very tangible way that you can’t always escape reality, and that when you love someone you’ll always return to them. My dad fell ill and that’s why I ended up coming home in the end – which I wasn’t planning to do at all…and from there my life began to unfold a chain of events that would forever change it – but not all for the bad.
**iPhone 5
08. Finding It
This cute little flower was hanging out on my cousin Gail’s porch at the farm. I shot this during a time when I felt so…overwhelmingly lost. It was a day when I simply didn’t know how to breathe without my father’s presence in my life, and was struggling to find meaning in ever leaving my room again, and when I saw this flower and spent thirty minutes photographing it and even longer playing with the DistressedFX/Mextures edit, I found a ray of meaning to get out of bed the next day: a desire to find more flowers to shoot. It was a very meaningful day because of this tiny little flower.
I found these daisies on clearance at Home Depot around mid-spring this year. This experience was something on many levels that I can’t even put into words…but this shot is visually one of my favorites because of the angle, focus and colors.
Some form of wild sage, I think. I shot these while walking in the woods somewhere in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. I love these little purple flowers, and I didn’t have any super special experience for or equipment with this shot. I just love the textured edit I did with it using Mextures.
**iPhone 5. Mextures Formula Code – TWTIYIE
05. Lightroom
With this shot, I was playing with Lightroom – which, at the time, I hadn’t done for a very long time. I’d been using mobile apps and devices and hadn’t touched my computer for months (ok, truth be told, years). Here I was trying some different styles with some shots from earlier in the year, and I was especially addicted to some Lightroom presets I’d gotten from Creative Market. Mixing presets and filters with Mextures formulas and effects from other apps, like DistressedFX and Stackables, is fun and you get some pretty cool results.
I chose to include this image because I love the gradient of the colors in the edit, but when I looked back at the original post I remembered very clearly how I felt on that day and why I called it “Soul Dance.” It was all down to music – a song called “Crystallize,” by Lindsey Sterling – as my moods often are. Internally, I was having such a hard time. I remember how light and how empowered that music made me feel, and as I was editing this image whilst listening to it and was trying to imagine my spirit flying like these dandelion seeds soon would be, I titled it after the song.
Continuing with my dandelion obsession this year, this shot is one of my all time favorites. I shot this while walking a trail at Norris Dam State Park, located on the Clinch River in Campbell County, Tennessee. I was sitting down, talking on the phone with my Dad (one of the last times I ever spoke with him before his illness and death), and he was telling me he was still not feeling well. It was at that point that he was going back in to the doctors to request more blood work and I was very scared and concerned and asked if I needed to come home. He said no, he’d be ok.
I remember telling him that the sun was going down and I saw this shot I wanted to try to get while I’d been sitting on the path talking with him (this shot), and I had to go, but I’d call him later that evening when I was back at the place where I was camping. That return phone call was when I told him about my art show in Knoxville, and he was so excited about it and didn’t say a whole lot about his health the rest of the time I was on that trip. It was just a couple weeks after I returned home that he went into a diabetic coma.
Sigh. It’s sometimes very emotional for me to see how things fit together when I look back on them. I’m so grateful that I got a good shot of this. It’s funny to me now that half the dandelion is missing – half of me is missing now, too…
**Lumix GF3, Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f2.8, manual focus on full, handheld. Unedited, aside from crop.
02. Invisible
A very recent edit and a new favorite, I shot this the same day that I shot the blue flower at number 10. I was still experimenting with the external flash, and decided to play with this paper white bloom that had fallen to the floor when I’d moved things around for the blue flower shoot. I love the way the shot turned out, and edited it to further blend into the lighting with Mextures and the Stackables app. One of my all time favorites of my edited shots.
My number one favorite flower image is this macro image of a rose that was in one of the many gorgeous vases that were delivered to my house the day after my Dad passed away. I suppose we all know that flowers are my favorite, they are my friends, and I photograph them more than anything else. I just absolutely love flowers and have a fascination with them at many levels. This is something, interestingly enough, that I shared in common with my Dad. I kept my sanity during the weekend before we were to plan his funeral by shooting these flowers, somewhere in my heart hoping that he was there with me, invisibly enjoying them, too.
As I was shooting this particular flower, I had one of my first spiritual experiences with my dead father, as well as my first completely overwhelming, breathtaking, soul wrenching moment of grief. I remember falling to the floor and just completely breaking down for the first time that afternoon. I began to talk to my Dad, out loud, and I remember having this revelation that got me through that night and the next morning (the funeral home, picking out the casket and all that happiness).
As I shared on the original post:
I used to think that nothing lasts forever. Now I know…the love of a father does. I feel it all around me, especially when I close my eyes, and especially when I cry…even though he is gone. What a beautiful thing.
Now stir the fire, and close the shudders fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn; Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in. -William Cowper
As I have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. I see something special and show it to the camera. A picture is produced. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs. -Sam Abell
Welcome to another installment of Instagram top picks from my gallery. Those of you who have followed my photography for a while know that my strong suit and the genre I love is macro photography. I love getting in close, I love seeing things in a different way, and I love the little details (of both nature and life). I pay attention to EVERYTHING, and I find so much inspiration in the details. This post is a list of my top five favorite macro shots currently in my Instagram gallery (not including droplets, which will be a post in itself). I hope you enjoy it!
05. Little Green Curls
There is infinite beauty in nature, and many lessons in its detail.
My favorite bokeh shot I’ve ever done, because the bokeh in this wasn’t done on purpose. It’s just sort of what happened, and this shot introduced me to working with bokeh on purpose.
The plant in this shot was laying on a glass patio table and it made unexpected prettiness with macro filters.
I have developed an affinity for death and decay over the last couple of years – I find it strangely beautiful and comforting. Very fitting I suppose, since the summer of this year. I love the detail of the skeleton of this leaf. It tells as beautiful a story to me as the green leaf would have on the tree, or as the fiery leaf would have in it’s fall splendor.
**Sony Alpha 37, 35mm prime f1.8, +1/+2/+4/+10 macro filters attached (stacked), manual focus and handheld.
01. Zen Honeysuckle
My top favorite macro shot is my favorite for a lot of reasons. I love the simplicity, the minimalistic feel, the color, the framing, honeysuckle is special to me (so special that’s what I have tattooed on my left foot/leg, in memory of my Mama Kay), but mostly I love this shot because I did this after mowing my dad’s grass one day this past summer not long before he fell ill, and he was with me when I shot it, watching me work my camera magic and asking me questions about it.
Daddy loved my photography and always encouraged and supported me doing it by being actively involved in it, asking things and being fascinated by it and always telling me encouraging things… He was just an awesome dad.
catacosmosis 