Cultivating the Intuitive Mind...

The intuitive mind is a sacred

gift and the rational mind its

faithful servant.  We have 

created a society that honors 

the servant and has

forgotten the gift.

- Albert Einstein

   Intuition is the sixth sense.  For this contemplative photographer, it is in many ways the most important one.  For the rationalists among us, it is dismissed totally or rationalized away as merely an unsubstantiated "feeling".  Worse still, it often includes the word "woman" in the same breath.  

   There are many kinds of intuition of course but I want to focus on the kind of intuition a photographer might employ to direct their lens.  I go to the pond, it is my "destination" but after I arrive there I allow my intuition, my trans-rational self, to guide me.  Here are a few suggestions you might try:

1. Turn down the volume on your rational mind...

   Don't establish an agenda; don't give yourself goals.  Solidly formed expectations are a sure way to assure your intuitive mind will remain silent.  

2. Don't pick up your camera right away...

   Being in a hurry to record what is around you is playing into the rational mind's agenda of getting things done.  Intuition takes time to manifest itself.  The intuitive mind is not a "workaholic" like the rational mind.  It is comfortable with inactivity and simply "beingness" and you should be too.

3. Take time to quiet your mind...

   I close my eyes for a time.  Your eyes first path is to the rational part of your mind.  By closing them you allow the other senses a chance to enter into the conversation and the other senses are more closely aligned with the intuitive mind.  

4. Trust your gut...

   Once I open my eyes I trust whatever comes into my mind.  I try not to second guess the process which is the surest sign your rational mind is still in control. If you find yourself attracted to the pile of leaves at your feet...go with it!  And, most importantly...stay with it!

   Cultivating the intuitive mind takes time and patience and most of all trust.  It is there, in all of us - men and women - and it it just waiting for the opportunity to speak to you.  But intuition is an elusive thing.  The more you try to think about it, the less likely you will be to experience it. If the rational mind is the "know-it-all" at the party, the intuitive mind is the shy one in the corner.

Dig Deeper:

    10 Things Highly Intuitive

People Do Differently

A Language Other Than Words...

   Years ago, when I was teaching painting, I tried to explain abstract art to my students who had a difficult time with the non-representational form of the paintings.

   I told them that you can't look at these paintings using your regular vocabulary...that they were using a language other than words.

   Now that I am fully immersed in the abstract images I'm discovering at the pond, I can more fully embrace this concept of "a language other than words"  by which I mean they were not descriptions of "things" but translations of emotion and ideas.

   It is a language of color and movement, light and shadow, simplicity and chaos.  It is a visual experience rather than one of clear observation.

   I think that may be why abstract paintings are often very large in scale...to more fully immerse the viewer in the experience.  I'm not sure how well these photographic abstractions I'm making of the pond will translate into really large pieces.  I guess I will have to try one and see but  I do enjoy to the pure joy of working in this new visual language and like learning any new language, it will take time and practice to perfect it.

Centering Yourself in Nature...

   I am find such joy in walking the shores of the little pond down the road from my house.  I pass it every day and I will often stop to just stand and look...most of the time, without my camera.  It is a way for me to center myself.

   When I taught pottery classes many years ago, I told the students that the most important part of throwing a pot was the centering.  If the clay wasn't centered on the wheel, the pot would be misshapen.  In fact, a lump of clay that is not properly centered can fly off the wheel...not a good thing as you can imagine! 

   Finding a place that centers your soul is important too.  One can then create the beautiful empty vessel in your heart that can be filled with your experience of the landscape.  For me now, it is the pond where I can best center myself.

   Fr.Richard Rohr, the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico, wrote a beautiful exercise for creating sacred space as you walk and I include it here.  I especially like the idea of creating a threshold at the beginning of your walk, no surprise after my recent pilgrimage, and the injunction to leave behind a token, which I always do when I visit especially meaningful places.  You can read a past post on tokens here.

 Wilderness Wandering

Go to a place in nature where you can walk freely and alone, ideally some place where human impact is minimal—a forest, canyon, prairie, bog, mountain. Tell someone where you will be and how long you expect to be there. Take adequate water and clothing for the conditions.

Begin your wandering by finding or creating a conscious threshold (perhaps an arched branch overhead or a narrow passage between rocks). Here offer a voiced prayer of your intention and desire for this time. Step across the threshold quite deliberately and, on this side of your sacred boundary, speak no words, but only expect!

Let the land, plants, and creatures lead your feet and eyes. Let yourself be drawn, rather than walking with a destination or purpose in mind. If you are called to a particular place or thing, stop and be still, letting yourself be known and know, through silent communion with the Other. Before you leave, offer some gesture or token of gratitude for the gift the wild has given you.

When it is time to return to the human world, find again your threshold and cross over. But now you have learned to expect God in all things.

Exploring the Landscape through the SIx Senses - Intuition

   I know, most of us have learned that we have 5 senses but as a contemplative photographer I know that is one sense short.  It doesn't account for the vital sense of intuition.

   Some people have a very highly developed sixth sense.  Some think, quite wrongly, that it is more a woman's thing, this intuition business.  Even more folks discount it altogether.  They too would be very, very wrong.

    I relate intuitive sensibility to imagination and above all, curiosity.  A curious mind is always looking out for signals, even when we think we are in a strictly rational mindset.

   It is the intuitive part of our mind which senses things before our rational mind can take it in.  It is our soul's radar as it were.  Always on duty, scanning the world for energy pulses.

Intuition is always at work...take the time to listen to it.

    When it becomes insistent, it taps us on the shoulder and says, "Hey, wake up!  Look at this!"  We would do well to listen to the intuitive brain.  It always draws us to the most interesting things...things the soul needs us to pay attention to.

    We all have this intuitive sense even if it seems less than obvious in some people.  It is only that the bully boy rational mind wants it all its own way.  After all, our society values and rewards rational thought and discounts the intuitive heart-felt response.  When I've spoken about quieting the "monkey mind" it is so the intuitive mind has the opportunity to take the floor for a change.  Going with the gut might be another way of speaking about this sense.  When something rumbles in the belly of your soul, take heed.  It's your intuition trying to get your attention...

Exploring the Landscape through the Six Senses - VIsion

Vision is the art of seeing

what is invisible to others.

- Jonathan Swift

   Being a "visionary" usually refers to someone who can imagine a future state of being.  Being a visionary photographer, by my definition, is being able to see into the essence of the landscape...to envision the seemingly invisible.

   I sometimes pose this question to the landscape, "If you could present one face to the world, what would that face look like?"  It is not as silly as it might sound.  I am trying to get at a vision that others may not take the time to see...what may be invisible to them.  That is the the true art of the contemplative photographer...to be that kind of visionary.

Embrace radical seeing.

   This requires that we take the time to settle into a place, to shake hands with it.  We acknowledge its energy and spirit and we make our humble attempts at rendering this invisible presence.  Talk about setting the bar really high!  We aren't content with merely recording or documenting.  We must unveil.

   I am advocating a kind of radical seeing.  A kind of seeing that is beyond seeing.  The willingness to step up to the threshold of transcendent sight and to then cross over.

   Vision may be the ultimate sense for the contemplative photographer but as this series of posts indicates, it is by far not the only one.  Embrace all of the senses when you explore the world around you and engage in a mystical relationship with whatever you encounter.

   Tomorrow we will explore the sixth and final sense...intuition.



   

  

Exploring the Landscape through the Six Senses - Hearing

Those who know do not speak.

Those who speak do not know.

- Lao Tzu

   Silence is the most profound form of hearing.  I call this type of hearing, visual listening.  It is the beginning of my encounter with the landscape whenever I am alone and at ease.

   Silence is not the absence of noise but a form of interior listening.  It is not done with an empty and unresponsive mind.  It is an interactive experience.

   Every place has it's own unique sounds...or lack thereof.  When my Boston cousins visit my little farmhouse in Maine two of the things they comment on is the complete darkness at night (no street lights or nearby city light pollution) and the quiet.  It is a bit eery to them who are use to the constant and pervading noise of urban locations.

Listen for the music of the landscape.

   Listening for the sounds of the landscape is part of the experience of being there.  Like the time I was sitting alone on the Burren in Western Ireland and put my ear to the rock.  You could hear the underground rush of a rain swelled river. (Almost all of the Burren's water is underground.)  It is the life blood of the place and I felt by hearing that I had experienced a vital part of the location.

   I love this Lao Tzu quote.  If you truly know the spirit of the landscape, there is no need for speech.  In a way, there is no need for a photograph.  You carry it inside and it is there for you whenever you need it.

   That is how I feel about certain places in Ireland.  I know that landscape in a much more intimate embrace than any other place I've ever been. It feels like an old and much loved sweater that has stretched to fit only you.  The first morning I awaken in Ireland and open the door, it is like going to visit a cherished friend and I immediately apologize for staying away so long.

   Do you have a place like that?  A place where no words are needed and you melt into a silent encounter?  If you do not, try to make this the year you find your heart's home.

Exploring the Landscape through the Six Senses - Smell

Smell is a potent wizard

that transports you across

thousands of miles and

all the years you have lived.

- Helen Keller

   Smell is the least appreciated of the senses in many ways.  We are either trying to mask the scent of things through air "fresheners" or scented soaps and shampoos or we are trying to create artificial scents through perfumes.   Smell is a powerful sense but artificial scents mask the real odors of people and places and is a way to distance our self from true engagement.

   Scent, as the quote above alludes to, has the ability to elicit memories and everyone has their favorites.  September smells like new crayons to me (the art teacher), and  November is the smell of wild grapes that grow on the edge of my property, and I can always smell snow before it comes.  

   When I sit in the landscape it is often the smells that reach me first.  The smell of the sea, or damp earth, or the coming rain...each is a signature of the place and very important to my sense of where I am.  I use to wear perfume but I don't any longer.  I don't want it to interfere with the natural odors of location. This change in behavior happened because of an experience I had in the Burren in 2007.  I was sitting on the limestone enjoying the smell of the sea and the damp stone when all of a sudden a powerful perfume wafted into my consciousness.  I looked around and a couple had walked up behind me.  The woman was wearing a heavy perfume and at that moment I realized how these artificial scents can keep me from appreciating the natural smells of the landscape.

Get to know the bouquet of the landscape you are in.

   The rose in the photograph above was taken in 2005.  I went searching for it in my files for this post.  I looked for the original file, not my monochrome altered version.  I hadn't looked at this rose in this way for over 8 years and just the sight of the rain dropped pink petals brought the sweet scent flooding back.  I remember at the time marveling at the amazingly strong smell of it since so many new roses don't have a particularly strong scent.  Size and shape and color is often more important to the breeders of roses than smell but this rose was so heady in its fragrance.

   Take the time to "smell the roses", or the moss or the rocks, when you are wandering the landscape. Learn to identify the smell of rain and the different foliage of trees and shrubs.  Let your sense of smell acknowledge not only the sweet but the not so sweet smells you encounter.  They are all part of the bouquet of the landscape.

Exploring the Landscape through the Six Senses - Taste

No man can taste the

fruits of Autumn while

he is delighting his

scent with the 

flowers of Spring.

- Samuel Johnson

   Wherever I go I try to experience the location through my taste buds.  I would never seek out an American chain restaurant.  What is the point of travel if it is not to immerse oneself in the culture?  That naturally includes the cuisine.

   But this post is not about that kind of "taste".  I want to speak about a more symbolic sampling of the flavor of a location.

...savor, digest and come to know the landscape.

   We use the phrase, "Get a a taste of...." on a regular basis.  It makes me think of small children.  Little children often experience the world by literally placing new things in their mouth and we use that phrase to indicate the need to savor the flavor of a thing or a place.

   We even say of a bad experience that it "leaves a unpleasant taste in the mouth".  Yet, we rarely look at the symbolic connotations of "taste".

   How does a contemplative photographer "savor the taste" of a place?  Yes, of course, through the food but also through entering into the spirit of place.  For make no mistake, every place you travel has an essential spirit that spices the location in unique ways.  Some places have a subtle gentle seasoning, like the touch of vanilla in my creme brulee above.  Other places are hot with exotic seasonings that make the spirit shake loose its inhibitions.

   Try to ascertain what seasoning the place you visit holds for you.  It is just another way to savor, digest and come to know the landscape.

Exploring the Landscape through the Six Senses - Touch

The Figure in the Tree

Touch has a memory.  - John Keats 

 Photography is a visual art and the operative word here is visual.  A photograph essentially takes a three dimensional, tactile and sensual world and contains it within a two dimensional framework.  Everything is implied, suggested or abstracted.

   This series of posts will look at the way a contemplative photographer can begin their co-creative relationship with the natural world through engaging their senses in the process.  I begin with the sense of touch.

   The landscape is a tactile place.  It invites the hands to touch.  Just look at children as they engage with the natural world.  As adults we have come to embody the "look don't touch" mode of thinking.  Perhaps we think it isn't cool to be too "touchy/feely" but we would be very, very wrong.

I always try to touch my way through the landscape.

   This is a tree I photographed on St. John.  It was amazing.   It immediately reminded me of the Greek sculptures that employed a technique call "wet drapery".  (You can read a blog post on that subject here.)   I simply couldn't keep my hands off this surface.


   This experience of tactile engagement sparked off a chain reaction that was surprising and very illuminating.  I always try to touch my way through the landscape, it is an important part of my initial exploration of the location I am in.  I need to know what it feels like in my hand.  Tactile memory is another dimension of "knowing" a place and an essential one for me.