Fungi

"There is joy in repetition." - Prince

As you might already know I am a sucker for repetition in form.  So you can imagine my joy when I was walking the other day and discovered this fungus growing in the middle of my neighbors yard on an old stump.  I walk that street almost daily and never noticed it.  In my defense, it was growing on the far side of the stump but when I walked around and saw what was growing my jaw dropped.  I literally oogled this stump for about half an hour...climbing all around taking photos from every which way.  I'm sure if you had been watching you might have thought I was a total weirdo.

But if being excited about rotting wood and their dazzling decomposers makes me a weirdo than I am happy to wear that badge because  LOOK AT THESE GUYS!!!  The burnt orange and grey-blue are such a lovely complimentary pair along with the neutral cream edging.  And the ruffled repetition is stunning.   

The photo below was one of my favorites.  I like the color in the foreground and the contrast of textures between the bark and the fungus in the background. 

I wasn't sure if the fungus in the photo below was a different kind or not, but the color was certainly a bit more green.  This fungus was growing on the top of the stump so the color may have been different because it receives more sunlight.

When I was looking at this photo it reminded me of photographing barnacle and mussels down by the beach in New Jersey... so much repetition.

It is a lovely thing to witness such beauty.  As I walked away from the stump and continued my walk I couldn't help but smile.  I love that even though I've walked that path a thousand times...every time is different and a subtle turn of my head can lead to something spectacular that was right before my eyes the whole time.

After I finished writing this post I re-read it and had the thought that all my posts sound the same.  I had the urge to delete all the text and just let the images speak for themselves.  But then I decided to listen to what the post was trying to tell me and thought..."repetition, repetition, repetition."

“Beauty is seen in repetition; keep repeating your beauty even if your beauty is not all that beautiful, you shall still leave a mark and there shall come a moment when the beauty will be seen.”

― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah