This has been the most beautiful Autumn that I remember for some time.  Part of it was the weather, lots of sun and warmth and only occasional rain, but never a driving rain that stripped the color from the trees.   The other part, for me, was that I had, or intentionally made, the time to get out and enjoy and capture the color.  There have been some years when I have been so busy with portraits that I barely came up long enough to even notice that the trees were changing.   That is just an incredible loss on my part.  While it wasn’t the most colorful fall ever, I feel like it was the one I’ve been most present for in a few years.  Yes, it’s been a good fall!

Today’s mandalas, and those for the next few weeks, are created with my fall color images.  This one was taken along Penn’s Creek in Pennsylvania where we spent a day visiting family.  I love the way the colors seem to be just floating and not necessarily attached to any one tree.   And I love the mandalas, which are not at all what I expected from this image.  The original image is very painterly and soft to me.  The mandalas make me think of gnomes and fairies and other magical beings that , perhaps, live in the forest.  They make me think of the fairy tales that I loved as a child and the stories that took place in those magical forests.

What do you see in these images?  What do they make you feel?