Scaling a mountain to cross a Maltese

This weeks personification of the WordPress powers that be, Erica V states:  For this week’s challenge, make use of sizing, placement, and scale in your photos…. Have some fun with perspective and show just how big, or little, the world can seem.

A few years ago my family and I hiked the amazing Wolfberg Cracks which I featured in  the conQuest of Wolfberg Cracks. At the time I erred in not charging my camera’s battery and while I was able to take photos, the battery power ran out – crises!! But even I learn from my mistakes and now being a few years older the failure to charge batteries again may just trigger a different crises, a mid-life crises! Thus with 2 fully charged cameras and fully charged back-up batteries nothing could go wrong. This time only my eldest (17 year) old daughter accompanied me and both of us were looking forward to the adventure to be. By the way Irisna has a problem with the fact that I am often not featured on photos so unbeknownst to me, she was to take quite a few photos of her dad.

After a 90 minute drive and successfully negotiating the peculiar bends in the gravel mountain passes of the Cederberg, we arrived at the office for the formality of getting our permits, only to be told the route is closed! Veld fires a few months before destroyed vegetation and the area was still out of bounds for the rehabilitation of plant life.  Sigh, there is a limit to the power of batteries; they cannot conjure up images the lens has not seen. I told the messenger of ill tidings, that they should employ security guards to protect her in case somebody suffers from hiking rage… But instead of becoming cross I scaled my energy into a decision to do the Maltese Cross hike which was to the east and open.

⇑Upon reaching the Maltese cross I was quite disappointed by its size as it was barely bigger than my calf muscles.

⇑But it certainly has magical qualities as suddenly it appeared to be about my length.

⇑In fact is was not only many times my length (see the 2 figures at the foot of the cross) but at least double the size of the mountain behind it.

But then I heard a great thunder and the mountain started growing and growing to dwarf the Maltese.

⇑The mountain must be ginormous as this side-view photo features the sun right behind the cross which means the cross is wider than 697 000 km, being the size of the sun.

 

While it wasn’t the planned hike we, thoroughly enjoyed it  – as a matter of fact our heads grew and grew in realizing we had this special time together in nature. And we laughed and learned; my daughter was under the impression we were going to a rock formation looking like a dog – a Maltese cross 🙂 . The history of the island of Malta and the knights protecting it was not part of her frame of reference (as a lot of terms in her teenage world is foreign to mine). But at least she now knows that there is quite a variance of  Maltese crosses!

If we look with the wrong perspective a Maltese is scaled into a mountain. Emotions sometimes (often?) make me see things out of context which can either give a false sense of security and lead to arrogance and incorrect decisions or make me realize the small part I play and lead to a feeling of helplessness. But if I become quiet and spent time at the foot of the Cross, I realize my worth is built on what was accomplished on the cross and at the same time find strength (not power).