Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Winter Etching - 2013...

The Spiral Dance - 2013
   Each year I try to add to my Winter Etchings series. Living here in Maine I have plenty of opportunity to observe shadows on snow and it is one of my favorite winter activities.   In fact, when I first began my journey as a contemplative photographer eight years ago this February, a "winter etching" was in the very first group of images I made. They are so beautifully suited to the monochrome image I love.

   This is my winter etching for 2013.  When I posted on New Years Day I included a spiral I found in the library at Glastonbury Abbey.  I thought it suited the text of that post beautifully and loved the idea that I'd discovered it quite by accident.  When I returned to Maine a few days later, I discovered this spiral in a place I had driven by hundreds of times and never noticed.  I guess I wasn't ready to see it.  That's how it is with contemplative photography.  When you open your mind to an idea or an image you begin to see them everywhere and in that repetition there is revelation.

 The spiral has always  been a favorite image for me.  I even wear one in a ring I had made for me in Ireland.  But now, with my focus on "pathways", I see an even deeper meaning for of this elegant curving line.  I have spent the last months journeying inward, to the very core of my being but at some point we reach the center and then it is time to journey out, to re-connect with the material world and especially Nature.  With the slowly lengthening days I begin my journey out from the secure center of solitude welcoming whatever or whomever crosses my path.  It is all part of the spiral dance...

A sprig which spirals
from a grain,
rising up,
to taste the flame.
And the circle grows
each time around,
for all within
are spiral bound.
Casting prayers
on fate or chance,
all within,
the spiral dance.

(Read the whole poem by
 Emileo Miller-Lopez
here.)

   My experience in the Glastonbury Abbey labyrinth and this spiral revelation, inspired me to create a Pinterest board on labyrinths. Visit it through the link below.  Perhaps the "spiral dance" is in your future...


  

  

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