Salt Lake City Cemetery

Here are some photos from my trip to Salt Lake City. My folks have lived there about 15 years, so I've seen and done a lot of the usual touristy stuff before. My sis took me to visit the SLC Cemetery, which is enormous and very lovely in winter. She told me ghost stories about visiting with friends in the dead of night, finding an urn that is always warm even in winter, and a mysterious force that pushes people off the top of a particular crypt. We visited on a quiet, unremarkable day and saw nothing mysterious.

A lovely headstone with what looks to be Arabic and Hebrew writing on it. I've never seen anything quite like this before.

A stone monument that looked like an AT-AT from afar.

View of graveyard with mountains in the background.

A broken tombstone is balanced atop another.

So I might have recently watched Star Trek and have limited reverence for the dead.

Gilgal Sculpture Garden

I visited family in Salt Lake City, Utah, for Christmas, and at the recommendation of an acquaintance, my sister took me to visit the Gilgal Sculpture Garden, a park created by Thomas Battersby Child, Jr., in the mid-twentieth century. From Wikipedia: he "conceived of a symbolic sculpture garden that would be a retreat from the world and a tribute to his most cherished religious and personal beliefs."

It's a wacky little spot featuring "12 original sculptures and over 70 stones engraved with scriptures, poems, and literary texts." It had snowed that week, and the fresh snow was pristine when we arrived. There were no signs telling us not to climb up on the rocks to take pictures, so we did.

(A phoenix with the face of LDS leader Joseph Smith)

(A close-up shot of Joe's great, hooked nose)

(Me with two sculpted hands framing two sculpted hearts in a rocky alcove)

(Me with a plow with swords and other farming implements welded to it)

(Me alongside an obelisk with a faintly visible wire man atop it)

(The stone back of one piece)

(Additional stonework I cannot identify)

So if you're looking for something odd to do in SLC for a half hour, check it out. It doesn't look like the place gets very much traffic.

Beloved Beginnings, Day 10

Step into the frame.

See the photos that didn't make it here on Instagram.

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Beloved Beginnings, Day 9

Self care:

Going to bed as early as I please, even if it's 7:15 local.

There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling leaves and remember that it is

enough to be taken care of by my self.

--Brian Andreas

See the photos that didn't make it here on Instagram.

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Beloved Beginnings, Day 8

Something about yourself that you are grateful for:

My perseverance

Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.

--A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

See the photos that didn't make it here on Instagram.

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Beloved Beginnings, Day 7

"'Playfulness is an antidote to Fear' and I think its an antidote to frustration too, and to our inner critic!" I did not enjoy the playfulness theme as much as others. But looking back at what I shot, these are pretty fun after all.

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

-George Bernard Shaw

See the photos that didn't make it here on Instagram.

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Beloved Beginnings, Day 6

I took a few days' break since the Spartan Race consumed so much of my time. I shot these yesterday for the theme: movement.

Dancing

Hair blowing in the breeze

In the process of high kicking

Walking past a mirror

Spinning

I didn't pay attention to times or distance, instead focusing on how it felt just to be in motion,

knowing it wasn't about the finish line but how I got there that mattered.”

--Sarah Dessen

See the photos that didn't make it here on Instagram.

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