PhotoTao Card #20: I Know by Tao...

Card #20

I Know by Tao

Fall back inside yourself.  Let the container

of your soul house your understanding of Tao.

- Exercise -

Take an object or subject that has special appeal

to you...something that touches your soul.  Spend

a day making photographs of it in a variety of

settings or lighting conditions.  Look at the

essence of the object...its softness, reflective

quality or its transparency...and use this

quality, its "soul", to create interesting

juxtapositions. 

   The word "God" is never mentioned in the writings of the Taoist master Lao Tzu.  But many feel, as I do, that when he speaks of the Tao he is talking about the Divine.  Call it God, call it the life force, call it anything you want but we are essentially talking about the same thing.  All religions in the world are only cultural adaptations of this central idea.

   In New Mexico, I photographed this lovely tin cross in the window of a grocery store.  It had beautiful needlework in the arms of the cross that represented Native American designs.  In this tiny village in Northern New Mexico there was no sense that this clearly religious artifact was in anyway inappropriate in a public and secular place like a grocery store.  The sacred and the secular coexist in perfect harmony here.  The Anglo/Indian blending was also in keeping with the great spirituality of New Mexico.  It is something I try to do when I travel...to tune into the culture's particular adaption of spiritual ideas.  I've always found far more commonalities than differences.