Smoke on the Mountain...

Smoke on the Mountain - Isle of Skye, Scotland

   I have made a special effort not to make this blog political in anyway.  Nor did I want it to be about my day to day personal life which is way too boring to be a subject for a blog post anyway!   I wanted it to be all about photography and the power it has to focus our own contemplative practice.

    It is hard, however, to ignore the rumblings in Washington right now.  After months of contentious election rhetoric we seem to be unable to let it go.  I won't talk specifically about the divisiveness and the out right hostilities from both sides of the aisle, you just have to listen to the nightly news for that.  I only offer this image as a possible focus for our meditations on the dilemmas we, as a nation, are facing. If you do not live in the US, no matter, politics (like death and taxes) is something we all share.  I thought it would be a good exercise in the practice of contemplative photography.

    Along with this image I include a quote from Henry David Thoreau (from Corrine Smith's new book, "Westward I go Free"). It was written in 1861 during an even more turbulent era in our history.  I've often found it helpful to pair the literary with the visual and when I read the quote, this photograph sprung to mind for some reason.

     I am not advocating a "head in the sand" approach for we all know where that leads us but sometimes we just need a break!  So, mull over the quote and the photograph above and make of it what you will....

"Blessed are they that never read a 

newspaper, for they shall see Nature, and 

through her, God."