![\"mushroom-2\"](\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Mushroom-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA couple of weeks ago, I was throwing a load of\u00a0recycling into the condo community bins,\u00a0and I was really tired. I sat in the car for a moment after I emptied the load, looking blankly out through the windshield.<\/p>\n
A point of light on the ground attracted my eye. Something big and white and round.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0mushroom cap – bigger than a fist.<\/p>\n
I got out of the car and walked over to it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Look at that beautiful skin. The way it catches the light. The visible expansion of life.<\/p>\n
I love mushrooms. They are an outburst of another world. They spring from this dark underworld in a beautiful form, one that evolves as it goes through the reproductive process.<\/p>\n
I got down on my knees to peer at the underside of this huge white baby. That’s also a joy, because what’s below\u00a0is as beautiful as the cap’s cover:<\/p>\n
![\"mushroom-3\"](\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Mushroom-3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Just a whispered hint of the gills are showing beneath the veil – see them, at that little rounded corner at the top of the stem?<\/p>\n
As the mushroom opens, it will shed the veil and\u00a0release the spores. \u00a0More beauty will be revealed through\u00a0the gills.<\/p>\n
I took a series of photos in April 2008, when I spent two afternoons on my belly in the dirt to photograph the beauty of mushroom gills when the sun comes through them. Here’s one:<\/p>\n
![\"mushroom](\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/IMG_4913.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Ever since, I look at every mushroom for its potential beauty underneath.<\/p>\n
So on October 5 when I saw this big white mushroom, I made a mental note to come back to the recycling bins and photograph it\u00a0again.<\/p>\n
The days of October passed too quickly.\u00a0When I went past there today, the mushroom was gone.<\/p>\n
Still, I’m glad I took those minutes out of a too-busy day to stop, get out of the car, and admire this mushroom.<\/p>\n
Now, whenever I look at that patch of dirt under that tree, I will see a point\u00a0of light.<\/p>\n
Today’s penny is a 2007, when I moved to North Georgia and discovered the beauty of mushrooms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A couple of weeks ago, I was throwing a load of\u00a0recycling into the condo community bins,\u00a0and I was really tired. I sat in the car for a moment after I emptied the load, looking blankly out through the windshield. A point of light on the ground attracted my eye. Something big and white and round. … read more Here and gone and still here<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9749,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[321],"tags":[18,35,82,1323,910,179,156,62],"class_list":["post-9748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tress","tag-18","tag-art","tag-beauty","tag-gills","tag-mushroom","tag-nature","tag-photography","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9748"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9755,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9748\/revisions\/9755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}