ColorChallenge - Thursday Green - The Green "Owl" in the Tree - Photography

Rather on the spur of the moment, I decided to do a combined "post" and entry into @kalemandra's "Thursday Green" #colorchallenge for today.

This morning, @cosmictriage and I were sitting out on the back porch with our morning coffee, and she was pointing out a crow to me. Well, I saw the crow, but I also saw something else... so I ran inside to grab my camera.

Because I very clearly saw a green OWL in the tree! Can you see it?

Can you see the horned owl?

Anthropomorphizing Nature

At our place, we sometimes kid around that we would "anthropomorphize a toothpick," but in this case things were a little more obvious.

But what is anthropomorphizing, anyway? Strictly speaking it's a psychological phenomenon that's pretty common in humans, whereby we attribute human characteristics and purposes to inanimate objects, animals, plants, or other natural phenomena. It's a pretty complex thing... ranging from when you perceive your dog to have "human qualities" to seeing-- as I did-- a bird formed by random objects and (even if just for a moment) thinking "life" into it.

When I was a little kid, I used to play in our local woods, and I would see "The Green Man" quite often, in the form of shadows, leaves and branches in bushes and undergrowth. For me, it was extremely real.

This morning I saw what was very clearly a Horned Owl in our tree. Of course, it was made up of a particular arrangement of twigs, branches and shadows. In case you weren't able to spot it, here's the photo again... this time with the owl somewhat crudely drawn in (Sorry, my computer graphics skills are near zero!).

Here the owl has been sketched in-- sorry, I'm no artist!

Why do we assign these "living forms" where there are none?

Much of our survival depends on "pattern recognition." So when certain shapes manifest in front of us, we are really good at checking our "inner library" and filling in the blanks to make a complete picture. And if you're really observant, you can find "figures" in many different places... right down to (you may have heard of this) finding the Virgin Mary on a flour tortilla. 

So that's about it, for this "dual purpose" post. Don't forget to also check the official @colorchallenge page for more information about the challenge, and a number of resteems of challenge posts!

How about YOU? Did you see the "owl?" Do you ever find yourself seeing "living things" in inanimate objects? Have you "seen things" in nature you believed were real? Have you heard of the "Green Man" legend? Have you ever seen the Green Man, or something similar you couldn't explain? Leave a comment-- share your experiences and feedback-- start the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Published 20170629 17:12 PDT