A Magical Place

Sometimes a photograph can not capture the full essence of a moment, especially when there is more than just visual information that is central to the experience.  In the featured video at the end of this post, both sound and movement were so key, that a visual image alone would not do justice to the scene.  As a result, I was inspired to take a nature video with my digital camera for the first time.

In May 2010, I had the incredible opportunity of taking a professional development workshop on questing in the town forest of the district in which I work.  For an hour and a half, a colleague and I were assigned the task of creating activities that our students could engage in by the pond and vernal pool.  Inspired by the sights, sounds, and movements, we created a poetry exercise that would require the kids to incorporate the senses into a poem.  Afterward, my colleague and I commented on how magical the town forest was-- never had we heard so many green frogs croaking in that area and we were not aware of the passing of time.

Driving home at the end of the day, I composed the following haiku in my head to try to capture the sound of the chorus of frogs serenading us:

Frog acapella
Deep-throat, base croaking noises
A symphony of frogs.

During the inevitable stress that the end of the school year always brings, I returned to this video many times.  Each time I watched it, it brought me back to that magical place where time stood still and the only thing to focus on was the sound and the movement of the frogs.

Some questions to ponder:  Where is your magical place?  What effect does this place have on you?  When have you experienced time standing still?  This is an open invitation to anyone who would like to respond with a word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph.  If you would like to respond with a picture or video, please email me at:  courageousteacherartist@gmail.com and I will post it for you.