Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

Welcome to much-awaited 2021! Wish you all a very Happy New Year, brimming with creativity and more freedom than you had in the year that passed away!

+1 is always good. 2020+1 seems better. I hope we are able to say Thank You, 2021 — You were the best.

Well, we go ahead with the Exploration Challenge, as usual, finding a way to connect with your brilliance every week. I’ve just changed the cover pic, just for that feel of something new.

PROMPT #167

I woke up in 2021 ….

Take it ahead in any manner you like – fiction, fantasy, poetry, essay, reflections or art.

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I woke up in 2021…….

And was totally disoriented

Loud bangs and fireworks were going on in the streets

Throngs of people celebrating the new year with joy and excitement

What was going on, and why people were intermingling without fear

I couldn’t see and masks around or social distancing

Is this the same world where I went to sleep in 2020?

Or have I woken up in an alternate reality

Was this a wishful dream or will I wake up to a nightmare

What will it be?

#Keepitalive

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Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #166

Welcome to the last Exploration Challenge of 2020!

PROMPT #166

I’m employing a reverse strategy for the last prompt this year.

Here are two short pieces for the prompt.

 inkblots mutate
 to form pictures,
 alphabets,
 stories
 I did not create 

 decorated trees
 sway to songs 
 emanating from
 masked lips
 imagining smiles
 that reach
 twinkling toes and 
 luminous tips 

WHAT DOES NOT CHANGE

Create a post on your blog with the chosen picture, and copy-paste the link in Comments. In case you are using a pingback, do check back to see if it has worked.

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( Image Credit: Taelynn Christopher@ Unsplash)

The colors swirl in the eyes of my mind

Psychedelic patterns waving in and out of my vision

I can imagine what I will create with my hands

A tray full of paints, a pack of brushes dipped in turpentine

What I do manage, looks nothing like what I imagined

The distortion between imagining and execution is great

As I look at the results, I come to peace with them

It may not be a masterpiece, but it was the call of my heart

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Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

PROMPT #165

Our theme for this week is HANDS.

Look closely at the pictures above. Choose one or more, and think what are they doing together. Will they remain entwined or go their own way? Was their act or intent good or evil? Could they do whatever they planned to do together, or fell apart?

I think this is more than enough for a story or poem or essay or article to spring out of your fertile minds. I have sowed a seed.

So, go ahead and do what you always do – Write.

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Hands meet in friendship

As a sign of camaraderie

A bond unbroken, lasting a lifetime

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Hands raised in prayer, asking

Palms wide open extended to

Receive the blessings from above, faith unshakable

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Hand touching in exploration

Tactile and sensory discovery

Making new bonds, man and machine progressing ahead

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Hand holding hand, in love

Sharing vows of fidelity and trust

May they remain joined all life in harmony

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Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

Reena’s Exploration Challenge

Welcome back to explore the innermost recesses of our minds!

PROMPT #163

We are getting ready for a re-lockdown here, after a sharp spike in the number of Covid cases.

Here’s a video depicting a poet’s interpretation of life in lockdown.

https://aeon.co/videos/lean-into-loneliness-like-it-is-holding-you-a-poetic-reflection-on-life-in-lockdown

Take us into your inner world., and let us see how you view this unusual space.

The piece you generate can be fiction, poetry, essay, art, photographs, or anything else that your creativity brings forth.

Write a post on your blog, and copy-paste the link in Comments. In case you are using a pingback, do check back to see if it has worked.

~*~

There was a world before COVID

We all remember how we lived

A life where restrictions were unheard of

We were free to come and go as pleased

This disease has turned all our notions upside down

New norms are created, old way condemned

But….

Are we adjusting to this new way of living

Has everyone accepted that this should be the way

Have we achieved ease of mind in the inevitable

Or we are at war with what is real, still wishing for dreams

Still……

Do we have a choice

Should we embrace this new life

Learn to live with restrictions

And find peace and joy however we can

And wait till this too shall pass?

~*~

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Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

Reena’s Exploration Challenge – Writing Challenges

Welcome back – Regulars and the new entrants that came in last week!

PROMPT #162

Here are three sentences for you to build your piece on.

His thought process was on so many levels that he gave himself a phobia of heights.

Random words in front of other random words create a random sentence

I come from a tribe of head-hunters, so I will never need a shrink.

There is no compulsion to use these lines in your piece. Choose one of them, and write whatever comes to mind.

You are a genius if you can combine two or all three.

The piece you generate can be fiction, poetry, essay, art, photographs, or anything else that your creativity brings forth.

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Random words in front of other random words create a random sentence, which seldom made sense but that never worried him. His thought process was on so many levels that he gave himself a phobia of heights. After being called the new genius on the social media platforms, people took whatever he spewed out as the gospel truth, even if it made no sense to most of them. They always secretly thought that his words and ideas were rubbish but no one dared say it aloud, lest people thought them dumb.

Such is the power of perception and publicity. Now he had a following of millions and they hung on his words. Each day there was a string of Twitter messages, Facebook, and Instagram posts where he kept on propagating his radical ideas to them.

The bubble burst finally when in his egotistical rampage, he attacked an irrefutable truth. People finally woke up from the hypnotic dreams he had woven.

His fall from grace was as spectacular as was his rise.

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Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #161

Welcome back to light!

PROMPT #161

We celebrate Diwali – the festival of lights in India, while America celebrates a new President. 

Light can mean different things to different people, just like the election results in any country.

James Baldwin says,

 One discovers the light in the darkness, 
 that is what darkness is for; 
 but everything in our lives depends 
 on how we bear the light. 
 It is necessary, while in darkness, 
 to know that there is a light somewhere, 
 to know that in oneself, 
 waiting to be found, there is a light. 
 What the light reveals is danger, 
 and what it demands is faith. 

I invite you to meditate on light this week, and share your take on the subject.

The piece you generate can be fiction, poetry, essay, art, photographs or anything else that your creativity brings forth.

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We see light clearly when in the dark

Ease is felt more after a period of difficulty

Health is more appreciated when we know sickness

Life is valued more when we know the alternative is death

Where would we be if it were light without any darkness

Or we were forever in darkness without a glimmer of light

The presence of anything is as important as is the absence of another

When we see the broader picture, it all becomes clear

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