My first thought was “Tangled.” This beautiful, messy natural place is tangled and complicated. There’s a lot going on and it’s not at all peaceful. Looking at the tangled branches and how the light’s getting through I realized that life within those branches must feel pretty trapped. The photo became a metaphor for life’s journey. How it can be hard and painful and messy but there’s beauty and light and hope that comes through despite it. The photo became about reaching a certain part of your life where you’ve had a dream and realizing it’s time for that dream to die but knowing that a new dream will come in to replace it. That’s where the “caged bird” metaphor came from. Where there is loss there is a next path and from that tangled darkness you can choose how you want to see and you can choose to turn into something beautiful just by reframing it in your mind.