Tag: Weekly Photo Challenge

Tanka Sequence: Light in the Shadows

white crocus buds and leaves appearing through snow

grey walls
a grey polished floor
reflecting
our movements
the jangling keys

doors
opened and locked
by strangers
behind us a free world
turns grey and disappears

female prisoners
scan my face, my eyes
while being open
it is hard not to look
at what I can see

how blue
the light around the mother
who hurt
her child’s abuser
tears running down her cheeks

we talk and listen
to each prisoner’s song
first in rows
then in a circle
a pink light glows

© Xenia Tran

Ribbons, Winter 2023: Volume 19, Number 1

lilac white crocus buds appearing through snow
flowering currant lit up by the afternoon soon

More than twenty years ago, I ran a series of workshops in a women’s prison that linked the chakra system and its colours to meditation practice. The first session in this series inspired the above sequence.

Wishing you all a wonderful Wednesday and a peaceful rest of the week,

with love from Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Cee’s Flower of the Day

Lens-Artists Weekly Photo Challenge #241: Spring

Weekly Prompts Midweek Challenge: Wait

Wordless Wednesday: Small Treasures

close up of purple crocus buds covered in small raindrops
close up of a white crocus bud covered in small raindrops
close up of a lilac crocus bud covered in small raindrops

Wishing you all a wonderful Wednesday,

with love from Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Wordless Wednesday

Cee’s Flower of the Day

Weekly Prompts Weekend Challenge: Treasure

Wordless Wednesday: Etched by Distant Lives

remaining stones of an abandoned croft in a field
a boreen rolling downhill into the glen

Wishing you all a wonderful Wednesday,

with love from Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Wordless Wednesday

Weekend Sky #76

Weekly Prompts Wednesday Challenge: Displays

Wordless Wednesday: Textures of Autumn

The Hermitage

close up of one side of an old packhorse bridge in autumn
an old packhorse bridge spanning a river in the heart of an autumnal forest

Wishing you all a wonderful Wednesday,

with love from Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Wordless Wednesday

Weekly Prompts Wednesday Challenge: Autumn

CFFC: Texture

Wordless Wednesday: Marvellous Mosses

close up of sphagnum moss growing on a tree stump
macro shot of moss growing on top of a dead branch

We are taking a short blogging break to enjoy the fine weather and will be back on Wednesday 21 September 2022.

Wishing you all a wonderful Wednesday and a blessed week ahead,

with love from Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Wordless Wednesday

Weekly Prompts Weekly Colour Challenge: Greenish

CMMC: September Close-Up or Macro

Haiku: Eastern Light

red poppies in a garden overlooking the sea

eastern light
how time slips by
since your passing

© Xenia Tran

haikuKATHA Issue 10, August 2022

fisherman's cottages above the rocks at sunrise

With warm thanks to Kala Ramesh, who encouraged me to write a new haiku to go with the header image, and create a haiga.

Wishing you all a blessed Wednesday and a peaceful rest of the week,

with love from Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Weekly Prompts Wednesday Challenge: Clouds

Poems for the Moon – the Lunar Codex

photograph of a woman next to a poem by Xenia Tran

We were delighted to learn that Chiaroscuro – Darkness and Light, the dVerse Anthology published in 2017, is going to the moon. It is one of the poetry anthologies selected by Dr Samuel Peralta to be enclosed in time capsules and launched to the Moon, as a message-in-a-bottle to the future.

The anthology contains a selection of poems written by over 100 poets from all over the world and includes two written by me: Grandma Alice, a poem I wrote for my grandmother’s 100th birthday, and Frozen Footsteps, a haibun written after a walk in Glenmore Forest with our beloved late dogs, Eivor and Pearl.

My grandmother was fascinated by the moon landings and anything to do with space and time. She used to dismantle old clocks and watches to study their inner workings and create ornaments and paperweights with them floating at their centre.

I can imagine her smiling where she is now and it is making everyone who loved her so happy to know that a poem about her is going to the moon. In their own way, Eivor and Pearl will be delighted about this too.

The Anthology will be part of The Polaris Collection, Dr Peralta’s payload associated with an Astrobotic Griffin/NASA VIPER mission, landing in the vicinity of the Lunar South Pole in November 2024.

You can read more about this collection here and more information about the Lunar Codex here.

close up of a paperweight holding the inner mechanics of a watch

Warm-hearted thanks to Dr Samuel Peralta for this wonderful gesture and for filling his amazing moon capsules with poetry and art from around the world.

Wishing you all a blessed Sunday and a peaceful new week,

with love from Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr; photograph of my grandmother by K H Seeger.

CFFC: Would Make A Friend Happy

Weekly Prompts Weekend Challenge: Memory

Lens-Artists Weekly Photo Challenge #209: Surreal

Word of the Day Challenge: Timeless

Haiku: Tea Time

a blue teapot on a tea-warmer

gentle rain
tea is steeping
on the warmer

© Xenia Tran

The Asahi Shimbun, 3 June 2022

close up of a lit tealight inside a tea-warmer

Wishing you all a blessed Sunday and a peaceful new week,

with love from Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

CFFC: Brings a Smile to Your Face

Weekly Prompts Weekend Challenge: Focus

Haiku: Day’s End

rocks and outcrops between a shingle beach and the sea at sunset

day’s end
a cottage light glows
in the distance

© Xenia Tran

waves breaking on rocky outcrops at sunset

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Thursday’s Special: Pick a Word in June 2022 (Bouldery, Perched, Surging)

Weekly Prompts Weekend Challenge: End

Weekend Sky #66

Haiku: Morning Cruise

Caledonian Canal and Loch Ness

Caledonian Canal seen from the back of a moving boat

morning cruise –
happy hospitality
for Nessie-hunters

© Xenia Tran

The Asahi Shimbun, 6 May 2022

Loch Ness with waves and something unusual in the water

We were not sure what we were seeing in the distance and cropped the image:

unexplained sighting on Loch Ness

At first I thought it was a wave, then I wondered whether it was driftwood. Could it be Nessie? I am not sure what we are looking at here, so if you have any idea, please let me know!

Wishing you all a blessed Sunday and a peaceful week ahead.

I am taking a short blogging break and will be back on Sunday 12 June 2022.

With love from Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Weekly Prompts Colour Challenge: Nautical Blue

Lens-Artists Weekly Photo Challenge #202: Minimalism – Maximalism

Water Water Everywhere #128