Congratulations to Onna Donovan for her sequence of photos of nature spirits near Johnston City, Illinois schools. Her sequence is the winner for Crystal Life’s February Nature Spirit Photo Contest. The contest theme was to photograph nature spirits who live near schools.
Owl Facing Grade School – Onna Donovan
Onna’s sequence was taken in a community park, with the elementary school located on the left (the owl faces that) and the high school on the right (the upward searching profile faces that) and a lightning struck transformation tree between them. Onna posted these images February 26 on the group Nature Spirit Community Facebook page. Onna writes of her find:
Searching – Facing High School – Onna Donovan
So I drove thru a town that I’ve never ventured in before… Johnston City, IL. I didnt know where the schools or park was. So I just let me intuition guide me. As I thought I was going no where, I decided to pull over near an opening to use my GPS. Well, I was at the community park! And the elementary school was located on left, while the high school was located on my right. My intuition did well.
The 1st photo faces the elementary school and seems to represent an Owl. How fitting for “Education” and being “Wise”. 2nd photo faces the high school and seems to reveal several faces, as “still finding identity”. 3rd photo was in the middle of the park and seemed to represent the “split” between the 2 schools. I feel very blessed to have this experience.
Transformation Tree – Onna Donovan
It was a difficult decision to make, as we had quite a number of very nice images of nature spirits in trees and rocks around schools. The images were of compassionate, protective energies. It’s nice to see our human children are being nurtured not only by parents, teachers and friends – but also by the energies of the nature world!
What the judges liked in this sequence of Onna’s is the intricate story the images record – and her sensitivity to understand the story. I especially enjoyed seeing the tree between the two energies. This is a tree that was struck by lightning, making it a transformation tree. As I noted under her community photos:
The third image shows a lightning strike on the tree. Trees that have been struck by lightning are known by dowsers to be excellent transformation trees. They help in the personal transformation process. If you have a piece of bark that split off from a heavily-lightning struck tree, it is a good talisman to help you through change. So you could also look at this tree as defining a point of transformation for youth as they move from the elementary school to the high school :)
Transformation trees are an energetic situation recognized by the nature-based traditions and by dowsers. Note also the prominent portal in the third eye area of the owl. Meant for deep thinking!
Our photo contest criteria are a combination of the photo, the quality of the photo, and the story. Sometimes, when the story is profoundly interesting, I’ll pull the Community images into the Adobe products and make a few adjustments, so the images can be seen better. So those in the community may recognize that I darkened the owl image – so that the interesting story could be seen a bit better. Onna was fighting a bright day, shooting into the light!
Onna receives a $50 gift certificate to Crystal Life, plus a blog featuring her images that is posted to our crystal-life.com blog area and in our Nature Spirits Community group. Our March Nature Spirit Photo Contest is to post a photo of nature spirits around community sites (such as libraries, civic centers, courts). You can head over to our community group, join up and post there; or send us your photo at photos@crystal-life.com
Each month, on the last Tuesday, our Nature Spirit blog announces the theme for the month to come. On the first Tuesday of the next month the winning photo for the last month’s contest is announced.
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