Tina starts this week with another of her wonderful quotes – this time from Mahatma Gandhi:

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

Through my whole life, I have strived to take good care of and preserve the things I love. When it comes to humans, people I love, it becomes more difficult. We don’t live forever. Photos are essential of course, but to me, also living things I have received or inherited from them.

The white geranium above, was one of the flowers in my grandmothers windows. In Sweden we have a long tradition of keeping geraniums in our homes – indoors and outdoors. My grandmother taught me everything about them, and I inherited all of hers when she died in 1988. Soon I excelled in propagating them from cuttings, and outdoors they thrive the whole summer.

Our National Painter, Carl Larsson, often used his family and home as models for his pictures. The Flower Window is maybe a favourite with most Swedes.

Our summer house is a haven for the whole family – and the old sallow was the warden tree. It was believed to be at least 200 years old. Last year it didn’t make it through the heavy storms, but luckily a sapling survived at its feet. We were so happy. When we arrived early this spring though, the sapling too had fallen in new storms. And maybe, because it no longer had the support of the mother tree.

I was devastated, and so were all of us. I decided to gather some of its twigs and take them home, ”Live!” I whispered… when I planted them, and at least one of them does. I am hoping for more.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.

– Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare

I often fall in love with roses, and would love to have more of those. Google is a good friend when my books are too old, and I found a good youtube clip that showed me how to take cuttings. So, nowadays, I don’t have to double expose my rose photos to see more of them! And I can give new roses away as presents too. This yellow rose for example. I now have three of them.

I just could not resist picking something I have learned over the years, ever since I was a child. It still gives me so much joy and satisfaction. It’s a celebration of life. My whole house and garden are filled with plants and flowers, and many of them are gifts from the start, or inherited. So, in fact they are great great grandchildren to the original ones.

Tina wants us to show some of the things we’ve learned about photography or any other subject. How do we learn it – by doing, from classes, or online, or through working with others? Please be sure to use the Lens-Artists Tag with your responses and to link your posts to Tinas’s original one.

Last week Egidio took us Into the Woods for some Forest Bathing. I enjoyed all of the wonderful responses I could read. Our summer house does not easily allow us an internet connection… On Saturday, August 2 at noon Eastern Time John will be hosting our next challenge. Many thanks to Tina for this challenge Lens-Artists #358 – Live and Learn