Noticing intriguing landscape elements everywhere is one phenomenon that I did not foresee as a fruit of this 
creative exercise. I should have realized that my perspective would become hyper-focused on the elements of landscape, as my observations of people and situations became heightened when I studied acting and
directing.
There is not a lot of natural landscapes when I drive around San Antonio but as I am noticing every day, there is an incredible amount of sky to be seen as I do my dialing shuttling of my family around town. My morning route gives
me a wonderful perspective of the sunrise. Below is one from last week. The picture does not do the colors justice.
When walking through the parish center of St. Luke’s yesterday, I noticed for the 
first time a painting my eyes had seen dozens of times. It’s a beautiful and lush landscape painting but there is one element that speaks volumes. There is a small archway in the middle of a rock formation that a waterfall is flowing out of. To me it looks like a door to a mountain hermitage and out of it is symbolically flowing the water of life and grace. I do not know what the painter intended it to mean but that is my own interpretation. I think this landscape painting is so powerful because the one incongruence with reality creates a metaphoric theology.
The last observation I will note came as a surprise to me. I was passively watching Winnie the Pooh with Quinn, an older version of the cartoon. I was looking at the colors in the trees and how they were blended like an acrylic landscape painting. I felt sad for a moment because I realized how many times the digitally produced animation is devoid of that dynamic of blended colors. I continued watching and realized that all of Winnie the Pooh is set upon the landscape of the hundred acre wood. The animals are truly surrounded by nature and interact with it. As the characters explore relationships and try to understand life, the backdrop is mainly nature. Hmmm. I will never watch Winnie the Pooh the same way again. Of course, I’ve always known that the stories were set in the hundred acre woods but what I didn’t realize is that the landscape of the 100 acre woods is actually a character in itself. Look how Christopher Robin makes himself at home on the tree trunk as if in the lap of a family member and how the breeze on Pooh’s face makes him know what it means to feel alive and joyful.
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