Photography and Memory...

   My genealogical research has been wonderfully illuminating.  The best part of it has been the real feeling of connection I have with not only my past but my ancestor's lives...even the ones I never knew.  I've done it primarily through the visual image, like this old Polaroid given to me by my cousin.

   The bridge is long gone, the area filled in, but it lives here in this little image stored away for nearly 40 years.  In the creation of my digital scrapbook, I try to use as many photographs as possible and if I don't have a photograph of a particular person, I photograph objects from their lives or the places they lived.   Endless lists of names and dates, which is typical in most genealogical books, while interesting and necessary, are sorely incomplete for me.  I need a visual link.  That is the photographer in me, I think.

   I suppose a vast percentage of photographs created each day are meant to record something.   A "I saw this, I was here and these people were with me" sort of thing.  So many are shared and then forgotten.  There is even a site where you can share an image and it disappears after a few days...automatically.  We are a momentary and continually transforming culture...look at it, add a comment like LOL or OMG and then move on.  I guess contemplative photography is the antithesis of that mindset.

   Photographs can be so much more than mere records of the past, they can be triggers to deep and personal reflection as well.  This one of the old bridge that was less than a quarter mile from my childhood home brought out all sorts of recollections for me and one was that the physical places from our lives, past or present, can have a meaning that goes far beyond what a photograph can capture. In this case, it was the idea that a place can be where we proved our courage by sitting high up on the bank below it as a train rumbled through.  Fool hearty surely but it was a childhood right of passage nonetheless.

    When we look into rather than at these photographs

 we will find some hidden corner of our own soul 

and that is surely worth the effort.

My Word for 2015: Immerse

   For the last two years I have chosen a word to engage with for the entire year.  In 2013 it was Pathways and in 2014 it was Threshold.  This year I have chosen Immerse.

   I will certainly be immersing myself in my Poetry of Place project at the pond for the next six months but this word is relevant to whatever I encounter this year.  I want to remind myself that as a contemplative photographer, it is only through my ability to engage myself wholly and deeply that I can enter into the kind of co-creative enterprise that is most rewarding to me.

   And then there is the water metaphor that is often associated with the word "immersion".  In Taoism, water is the ultimate metaphor.

Water is one of Lao Tsu's principle symbols for the Tao...He who lives the Tao acts in his life and dealings as water acts in nature. Water does not resist, yet it conquers all; it is tasteless -- suggesting the invisibility of the Tao -- yet life-giving. It moves through all that lives and in movement remains clear and pure. It is supple, flexible, and humble; it does not compete...

   Immersion offers many contemplative possibilities, both as a symbol and a metaphor.  It is at the same time instructive and thought provoking.  Have you considered choosing a word for the year?  You might find it illuminating...not only in your choice of word but where it can ultimately lead you through your camera work.

I wish all my blog readers a happy, healthy
and contemplative New Year!

My "Unresolutions" for 2015...

  This New Years Eve, rather than resolving to do something, I will try to not do many things. This is my "unresolution" list for 2015.

   I love these suggestions, along with the quotations, especially the one from Lao Tzu.  This list was passed on to me by a friend and I've printed it out and hung it up so I can remind myself throughout the year of what I want to give up.

   Although these are not specifically photography related, one can always find a way to adapt them.

  I've even used the Lao Tzu quote in a post on this blog because control is an issue that, as photographers, we deal with every time we walk out into the landscape with our camera.

   So much of our time can be consumed with the "right way' to make our images...as if there is only one right way.  We often limit ourselves by using phrases like, "The light isn't right" or "There isn't anything of value to photograph here."

   We sometimes whine a bit about not having the right lens or the right app or the perfect anything...it is so much easier to make excuses than it is to make the photograph no matter where you find yourself or what you have with you...it isn't always about the equipment.

   We, and I know I am very guilty of this, sometimes seek another person's approval of our work, as if what they say is more important than what we feel we must do.  If the work comes from your heart, that is all that matters.

   We all have attachments to certain styles and methods in our work and the fear of trying something new, and "failing", is always there but it reminds me of the Freeman Patterson quote: "The only rule in photography is never develop film in chicken soup."   Maybe this is the year to try new things...not only in subject matter but in processing the image.

   Perhaps the most important "unresolution" is number 15...giving up expectations.  It is the one I work most diligently on.  If I have no expectations when I engage the landscape, I will be open to any and all possibilities...I won't label things and by doing so, limited them.

   Yes, these unresolutions are totally appropriate for this contemplative photographer.  What about you?  What do you want to "give up" this year as far as your approach to photography is concerned?  What new freedoms will that offer you?

Journeys Completed...Journeys to Come

   As the year winds down, it is only natural to think about where you have journeyed and where the future may lead.  This is the first year in many that I do not have a "big trip" planned.  My month long journey to Ireland and Scotland last spring is a tough act to follow and I am feeling the need to stay closer to home.

   My inward journey at Little Clemons Pond continues for the first half of 2015.  I will conclude the project on June 28th.  One of my outward journeys will be to visit one of the locations of my family's story, in Dutchess County, NY.  I need to put a face to the places I've been reading about during my genealogical research and discover a better sense of the locations that were so important to my ancestors there.

   With contemplative photography, we can journey through our images, even if they are made in our own backyard or in a stairwell of a museum.  Our images are a road map of our soul and each curve and detour is clearly marked.  We define ourselves each time we make a photograph and they become illustrations in our journal of being.

   I have found that it doesn't really matter where you actually travel to, whether it is to far away places or to someplace right around the corner.  The journey is as much an inward destination as an outward one.  That is really what I want to explore this coming year...the geography of my soul and for that, distance traveled is unimportant.  For in the end, the only journey that truly matters is the journey of self-discovery.

 

Every day is a journey, and

 the journey itself is home.

- Matsuo Basho

  

How in the world did I get from there to here?

   Now, I ask you...how did I get from this black and white photograph of heather on South Uist, done in 2005, to the abstract expressionistic pond painting I just did in 2014?  At first it seemed a bit of a puzzle to me.

   Yet, when I look at these two images, I do see a subtle similarity, especially in the focus on curving lines and texture.  All art, be it painting or photography, is an evolutionary process.  You begin where you are and then, over time and with countless influences and experiences, you slowly change.  In this case, the change was dramatic.

   From 2005 to 2009 I only worked in black and white.  My experience on the Burren in 2009 opend me to using some color for the first time.  It wasn't until 2011, however, that I fully embraced the color image.

   But not until I began my Poetry of Place project this past June did I begin to explore the fascinating world of abstract photography when I eliminated any reference to realistic imagery from some of my photographs.  It seems, however, that I am still evolving stylistically.

  When I made my first digital "painting" a month or so ago, I crossed into a whole new way of practicing my art.  Not only were the concrete references gone but I thought in terms of brush stroke and layering for the first time.  Now the photograph's surface is broken up into dabs and dashes of color just as if I had actually put brush to canvas.

   This seemed, at first, to be a huge leap but again it has its roots in past experience. I made several digital collages after I began doing
SoulCollage® pieces and some of those techniques aided me in this latest endeavor. I simply eliminated any recognizable imagery from the piece and focused solely on color and tone, shape and line...pure abstract images that come, nevertheless, from the natural world and my experience of it. With the paintings I was set completely free to create an expression of place rather than a realistic depiction of it which my photography always was.

   Perhaps this is all a natural progression but had you asked me a year ago if I thought I would be working this way now I would have totally pooh poohed the idea.  Never say never.  Just keep an open mind and, like the Tao suggests, let it flow where it will.  You might find yourself in a whole new and exciting world!

   Even if I never make another digital painting, and I have no intention of abandoning my more traditional work, this whole experience has awaken new possibilities for my photography.  It is always important to "play" with your medium whenever you can.  It is never a wasted effort...

A mind that is stretched by a new experience
 can never go back to its old dimensions.

Oliver Wendall Holmes

  

Deepening the Mystery...

   Yesterday's post got me thinking about the real role of the artist/photographer.  Yes, in many ways, we are documenting the world around us through the images we make but is there a deeper role for our photographs?

The job of the artist is

to deepen the mystery.

- Francis Bacon

   There is a superficial reality that our eyes see and then there is the metaphysical reality that our heart perceives.  Contemplative photography is a blending of the two.

   "Deepen the mystery"...I love that phrase.  For the world is a mystifying place, full of layers of meaning and relationship.  Our jobs, as contemplative photographers, is to ferret out those deeper levels of meaning any way we are able.  Those that most touch our sousl are the ones that will resonate with us most and the images we make from that place of resonance will have a profound effect on us and perhaps others.

Whose Landscape are You Photographing?

Rain on Water II

   I can't speak for everyone of course but before I began my Poetry of Place project at Little Clemons Pond, I was firmly embedded in the 19th century romantic vision of landscape.  I saw the beauty, the lyrical quality even the divine thumbprint but it was all things I was projecting onto the landscape.

   Now, I have glimpsed another landscape, a landscape that is creating itself, projecting itself onto me.  It is a subtle but very real difference to my mind and, to be perfectly honest, a much more Taoist approach as well.

   This photograph is a variation of the image I posted on November 4th.     With these images I realized that as I watch the water's surface the landscape, through the rain drops that hit it in  random patterns, was creating and re-creating the composition as I just stood there and observed it.  It was a bit of a revelation to me.  I could control what part of the water I photographed but the landscape was creating the composition...a composition that changed second to second as the rain fell and the light changed.

     This is not my landscape despite how much I feel connected to it.  It is a living breathing entity of its own.  Interpretation is my role in the process and offers me all sorts of creative avenues to explore but I no longer feel any artistic superiority.  Perhaps that is still a bit of a romantic notion but it reminds me of a lovely quote from a Taoist master...

You ask why I make my home in the mountain forest, and I smile, and am silent, and even my soul remains quiet: it lives in the other world which no one owns. The peach trees blossom, The water flows. ―Li Po (701 – 762)  

   So now, whose landscape are you photographing?
  

Becoming Who We Really Are...

   Life is a confluence of experience.  One thing flows into and plays off of another.  When we are able to see the connections it can be quite eye opening.  This happened to me last week and I want to share it with you all.

   I went to a wonderful installation exhibit at a deserted mill in my town.  Created by artist Amy Stacey Curtis, it was an interactive collection of 9 parts.  The one that impacted me the most was the linear labyrinth.

  This is where the confluence began.  As you slowly moved from square to square you realize that each represents a stage of life...from birth to death.  The revelation is that the end looks exactly like the beginning.  It made me think of a wonderful Confucious quote:

Life is simple but we insist on

making it complicated.

   Of course, this co-ordinates nicely with my genealogy research that I spoke about yesterday and I suppose that would have been enough but there was one more occurrence to add to this chain.  I read a post that Kim Manley Ort had added to her Google+ page and it all clicked...it all fused together into a wonderful moment of revelation.

The Poetry of Place: 23 October 2014

      Kim posted a link to an On Being essay The Autumn of Our Own Existence by Omid Safi.
 In it, the author reveals what is really happening with the autumn leaves.  They are not changing or turning colors at all.  Those colors have always been there.  It is when the photosynthesis process ends, and the leaves begin to die, that the colors come out.  He goes on to relate this to our spiritual journey, our becoming who we have been all our life....

What beauty there is in letting go and accepting.
What wonder there is in embracing the colors inside.
What loveliness there is in the death of one color, and the shining through of all the divine colors.
How lovely is this human creature when the divine colors of compassion, kindness, mercy, justice, and forgiveness shine on through.

   All the pieces of this multi-day experience came together in a meaningful and beautiful way for me.  It underscored, yet again, what I've always believed; that we are engaged in a marvelous dance with the divine, even if, at times, we can't hear the music.  And with each step, each twirl, we find ourselves becoming more and more who we really are...who we always were...

As I enter this autumn season — and the autumn of my own existence — I am growing slowly more comfortable with the becoming less and less, so that more and more can be revealed.

- Omid Safi

The Landscape as Archetype...

  Sometimes I think my life is one big synchronistic dance!  I have been thinking a great deal about my little meditation garden and design possibilities for it.  I wanted it to be more than just another place with plants.  It triggered a series of connections that ended, as many do for me, with photography. 

  First I got my weekly newsletter from A Sacred Journey where Lacy mentioned a website that allows you to plot out your own archetype chart.  (Which is really fun to do by the way.  Try it here...)

   That got me thinking about the possibility of discovering archetypes in the landscape.  The next thing I knew, I was ordering a book, The Inward Garden by Julie Moir Messervy.   In it, she identifies seven archetypes in the landscape...the sky, the sea, the cave, the harbor, the promontory, the island and the mountain. (Of course, I saw my little meditation garden as the harbor.)

This whole chain of events happened a few days before I left for St. Joseph's Abbey.  It primed me to experience the landscape around St. Joseph's in a whole new way...as archetype.

   As I drove up the one mile long driveway to the abbey I was immediately taken by the rolling green fields that surrounded me.  The monks chose the center of the 2,500 acres, on a crest of a hill, to site their buildings.  From that vantage point you gaze out on vast seas of green.  It was the exact same "oceanic effect" I had on Star Island only now it was green rather than blue.

   In her book, Messervy also equates the sea with "withinness" associated with our first sensation of floating in our mother's womb.  With the immersion effect of the real or symbolic sea of the landscape we experience that inward world which was our first experience of space.  Very powerful and evocative thinking.

   The sky also seemed bigger to me here.  There was a kind of interplay between height and distance going on that was very appealing. Messervy calls it the "transcendent world". Now, I have a lot more reading and thinking to do about this idea of archetypes in the landscape as I immerse myself in this wonderful book but the seed has been planted.  (Oops!  Back to gardening again!)

   One can find connections everywhere you look.  The important thing is to recognize that interconnections exist in the world...visual as well as literary.  Thoughts, ideas, images...all are a great well the contemplative photographer can draw from. (Hmm, could that be another archetype?)

   I found that adults remember vividly their childhood contemplative places, and long for such spaces in their contemporary lives.  These images from our early lives carry strong physical, psychological, and spiritual meaning forever.

 The Inward Garden, page 26

   Do you  have special contemplative places from your youth?  One of my favorites was a tree house my Grandfather and I built in an old apple tree.  It was a place I could withdraw to...pull up the ladder and escape.  That memory has stayed with me all my life.  One of my saddest childhood memories was when my Father knocked down the old tree with his bulldozer as he leveled the backyard.  Something quite special was also leveled that day and I think I have been seeking that place of retreat all my life in some way or another.  My little meditation garden will be my recreation of this youthful sanctuary.

  

The Serenity of Fog...

   The lake was enveloped in a rolling fog bank.  It soften the landscape and imbued the water with lovely tints of blue and mauve.  I love fog.

The fog is an illusion—
A master of disguise,
Which hides the tangible
Before our very eyes.

 - Walterrean Salley

 

       Fog softens sounds as well, like snowfall does.  Before the lake awoke this particular morning, the landscape was hushed, wrapped in a cloak of silence and serenity.  A half hour later it vanished and the landscape came to life but for these tranquil few minutes, the world was at peace.

   In the Autumn in New England, we often awaken to fog.  The air is chilling but the land and water are still warm.  I experienced this lovely effect at "my" pond recently.  Even though the sun was shinning in my yard, less than a mile from the pond, here everything was enveloped in mist.  The sun was trying to break through but a moment later the distant shore disappeared entirely only to re- appear a few minutes later.

   I noticed the same raising and lowering of the veil out on Star Island where the Atlantic fog bank alternately revealed and concealed adjacent Appledore Island.

   Seaside or pond-side, the effect is always similar. There is a purple tinge to the air caused by the water droplets in the fog and always an enveloping silence.When you are by the sea you can almost taste the salt in the misty air.

   My poetic soul loves the metaphor of fog as well.  We see and then we don't see...things appear and disappear as if by magic.  There is a message here...

Sometimes we need the fog to remind ourselves

that all of life is not black and white.

- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A Star Island Epiphany...

   An artist's duty is rather to stay open-minded and in a state where he can receive information and inspiration. You always have to be ready for that little artistic Epiphany.
- Nick Cave

   Epiphanies are unexpected.  You think you are going in one direction and then, BANG, you find yourself going in an entirely new one.  That is what happened to me on Star Island.  

   I hadn't thought seriously about the monochrome image for over a year, since I was out on Monhegan Island in June of 2013.  When I first got to the island I bought Alexandra's de Steigeur's beautiful book, Small Island, Big Picture.  She is the winter caretaker on Star from November through March.  She is also an accomplished photographer who works exclusively in black and white.

   After attending her lecture I was convinced...it was time to re-visit the monochrome image.  The photograph above is my Icon of the Star Island Experience.  I had first worked on it in color but after her lecture I tried it in black and white.  

   There was the haunting quality that first attracted me to the monochrome image all those years ago.  There are some things you simply can't say with a color image and it is a conversation that I needed to have again.

   The second image has many subtle nuances that would be lost in a color version of the scene.  The tiny seagull's shadow on the cottage in the foreground, the white lace curtain blowing out of the window, the early morning light on the grass, all were lost in the original color image.  Only when I desaturated the photograph did these elements pop out for me.

   Now, I don't intend to turn my back on color, not at all, but I will work in tandem with the monochrome image now.  Some subjects lend themselves to, no, require the black and white translation.  Below is a link to my album of Star Island monochrome images...

Star Island Monochrome

A Summer Sabbatical....

   My summer sabbatical ends soon! August 1st will be my next post.  It will be the first day of Autumn (according to the ancient Celtic calendar) so we will be celebrating the season of change.  I hope you will join me for a new year of contemplative photography posts!
 
  Perhaps it was the illness I battled through most of my trip or the natural let down after coming home, but I feel a need for a time of rest and reflection.  Publishing a daily post is a grueling schedule to maintain and it has become apparent to me that it is time for a sabbatical.

   You can follow my daily photojournal, Memories4Me, and I will be sharing interesting items on my Google+ page from time to time during this coming month.  You also might like to go back to re-read past posts.

    If you are so inclined, I'd like to remind you about the Star Island contemplative photography retreat with Kim Manley Ort and myself this Labor Day weekend.  You can learn about it by following the link in the right side bar.

   I hope to be back here, sharing my images and thoughts, in about a months time. I hope you will bare with me during this time of silence.  I also hope you too will take the time to rest and refresh yourself this summer and that the landscape will whisper wonderful things to you along the way.

Some photographers take reality... and impose the domination of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation. - Ansel Adams

Broken Wide Open...

   Awhile back I advised that we should keep our eyes open for the little contemplative gems all around us.  No need to venture far afield...they are right around us everyday.  This is one of my recent discoveries.

   A tulip in its last gasp, broken open and ready to shed its petals.  That was what caught my eye and that would have been enough but when I opened the file on my computer, I saw that little forsythia flower which seemed to be mirror of the tulips center color...all by itself at the end of the branch. The white tulip petal seemed to separate it visually from the rest.  It had burst out, escaped and was heading in a new direction.

   That is what we all must do from time to time especially when we find ourselves tightly closed and resistant to change.  We need to break ourselves wide open, shed the petals that once protected our vulnerability, and escape!

   Like the little forsythia blossom,  we must be willing to venture out of the security of conformity and get ourselves way out on the tip of the limb.  Every country girl knows that's where the best apples grow...that's where you will grow best as well.

   I love to find these little bits of wisdom close to hand.  It makes me feel that the Universe is participating in my souls evolution by presenting me with these contemplative tidbits.  The world is full of these metaphors for spiritual growth.  We just have to open our hearts and our minds and seek them out!

My final post on A Sacred Journey is up and you can read my last reflections here.

"I am so much more than my shadow..."

   A little nuthatch inspired me to think about shadows.  His little shadow gave me information about his overall shape and size, the length of his tail and the shape of his beak.  But that would hardly give me a complete picture.

   It wouldn't tell me of his comical way of hopping head first down a tree or his subtle markings or his sweet song.  He is so much more than his shadow tells us.

   We all have our shadow side and it is part of who we are but it isn't all that we are although we often fixate on it.  This all reminded me of one of my favorite childhood memories, watching Mary Martin play Peter Pan on our tiny television screen back in1960.  Remember Peter teaching Wendy to fly?  "Just think happy thoughts!" My girlfriend and I tried to think happy thoughts as we jumped off the chicken house roof...much to my Grandmothers astonishment and dismay.  Didn't work but I think we were missing the fairy dust!

   There is a wonderful essay on the symbolism of Peter's shadow here.  It is amazing the hidden messages we can find in children's stories.  Years later I saw a rebroadcast of the original Peter Pan.  By today's standards it was terribly amateurish.  You can even see the strings that allowed Peter to fly.  But I didn't see the strings when I was a child.  I believed in the magic of it.  I clapped and clapped when Tinkerbell was dying at the end because children didn't believe in fairies. I was 11 years old when it was first broadcasted on television but I still believed.  It was a much different time.  We were allowed to stay children much longer back then.  We loose so much when we cease to believe...something magical in our soul withers and dies.

   It doesn't matter what that belief is, the important thing is the capacity to believe in the first place. So many people have lost that ability.  I wouldn't wish that for anyone. So, my friends, clap really loud and repeat after me...

"I do believe...I do believe...I do believe!"

Why I Believe in Fairies

  

A Brief Moment of Glory...

   Somethings are so fleeting...like magnolia blossoms.  For just a few days they are at their peak and then they let loose.  They kind of  explode, fluttering to the ground like giant confetti.  So many people will not plant magnolias for this very reason.  "What a mess!"  they say.

   But I think there is a powerful lesson in the magnolia flower.  We all have just a relatively brief moment to bloom.  To show the world our beauty.  To bask in the sunshine and then, and sometimes very suddenly, it can be all over.

   I would rather see these magnificent flowers for just a few days; to look forward to their reemergence each year, than to dwell on their demise.  I have to say that one of things I took away from my Threshold Pilgrimage was this sense of embracing these brief, glorious moments.

   Standing under this tree, as the petals fell, was a lovely experience.  I was so thankful for the message those falling petals had for me.  Savor those golden moments and don't dwell on the inevitable.

The tragedy of life is not death but what

we let die inside of us while we live.

- Norman Cousins

  

My Life's Symphony...

   Ralph Waldo Emerson called William Ellery Channing the "bishop" of transcendentalism.  This writing by Channing has always seemed to me to be the perfect manifesto by which one could live their life.

   There is much in this short passage that speaks to the contemplative photographer as well.  It seems to encourage one to simplify their life; to dispense with unnecessary "stuff" (re-organize your camera bag to contain only what is truly necessary.); to await occasions and never hurry ( Be Still, Be Present, Be Patient and Be Persistent); and above all, to let the spiritual  grow up through the common. (to see the sacred in the commonplace.)

   I so admire the 19th century transcendentalists.  Concord, Massachusetts in the mid-1800's must have been an amazing place to be.  I am still drawn to the town year after year...it hasn't changed all that much.  Emerson, Alcott, Hawthorn and Thoreau would still feel right at home.  I have to say that I consider it my spiritual home for so many reasons.  Do you have such a place?  What would you include in your "symphony"?

The Power of the Photogaphic Image...

   Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever. It remembers little things long after you have forgotten everything.

- Aaron Siskind

  Like elephants, photographs never forget.  Perhaps at times we wish they would.  Those old photographs of your awkward adolescence that mothers seem to love to drag out...well, they remember even if you wish to forget.

   Most people use photography that way; to remember things.  That sunset, that birthday party, that wonderful vacation...memories we want to re-live through the photographs.

   But photographs can also be seen as a journal of our souls development.  It records what we thought was important at that moment.  Looked at over time, we can see how our soul is evolving.  What was important to us a year ago may seem trivial now but it was all part of the journey.

    With the proliferation of cellphone cameras we always have at our fingertips the power to record the minutia of our lives.  What do these innumerable images, the countless "selfies", say about us in the end?  What is the digital footprint we are leaving behind? 

   At funerals now it is commonplace to present dozens of photographs of the person throughout their lives as if we are the sum total of all these captured moments.  It might be an interesting exercise to chose just three images you have made to represent you in a visual biography of sorts.  Which three photographs would you choose?  What do you want people to know most about you?  What would your digital footprint look like?

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Speaking of elephants...

   I came across this article about the emotional life of elephants that blew me away.  I always knew they were very sentient creatures but this article highlights the amazing range of emotions of these wonderful beings, I can't think of them as "animals" anymore.

The Unforgettable Elephant

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Earth Day - 2014

...amen to that!

   Now I can't speak for all contemplative photographers but for me, Nature is divine presence.  I would no sooner throw litter in a forest than I would in a church.  There are many ways to celebrate our Mother Earth today...check them out:

10 Ways to Celebrate

 Earth Day

   I would also suggest taking your camera to a favorite wild place and creating a photographic series on your encounter.

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Footnote: 
  
The Original Green Man:

 The most common and perhaps obvious interpretation of the Green Man is that of a pagan nature spirit, a symbol of man’s reliance on and union with nature, a symbol of the underlying life-force, and of the renewed cycle of growth each spring. - from The Enigma of the Green Man

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What Unites Us....

   Today is the first anniversary of the tragic bombings during the Boston Marathon.  It is a day of solemn reflection.  I was at the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky when I first heard the news and being in that sacred place had helped me cope with the horror of it. (You can read that post here.)  Now, another photograph is doing its part. 

   This image was made during my contemplative photography retreat in Kentucky last year.  It has remained tucked away in the file all this time.  Images are like that; they can lay dormant for months, even years, until their time is right.

   Looking at it again reminded me of the photographs I've seen of the shadows of people burned into the sidewalks of Hiroshima after that horrific bombing.  I had been able to visit the Nagasaki bombing site with my host family in 2007.  It  is a moment that still brings tears to my eyes.  My host's father had fought in the Japanese army during the war.  My father served in the US army beginning with the invasion at Normandy.  Here we were, all those years later, standing side by side at ground zero. 

Click here to read about this Icon of the Experience

   Nearly all his family had been killed by the bomb that day.  I remember asking him if he felt any hatred for what the Americans had done.  He smiled and shook his head no, it was a time of war he said.  He felt no animosity.  There was a need, he reflected, for forgiveness on both sides. I thought it nothing short of a miracle that had brought the children of former enemies together at this place and we stood in silence for some time, each wrapped in our own remembrances.

   This simple photograph of shadows on the sidewalk, one I hadn't given much thought to at the time, had finally found it's place.  In a world that is growing all the more fractured by ideology, religion, race and economic inequality, the simple words of JFK resonate even more sharply now.

    Our wounds are still fresh and the pain of that April day in Boston is still acute.  It will take much more time to heal and forgiveness seems an absurd notion.  But I can't help thinking of the famous Gandhi quote so I will end with it.  When does the cycle end?

An eye for an eye only ends up

making the whole world blind.

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Footnote:

   Also at the site of the Nagasaki Memorial Museum is a peace pavilion featuring the thousands of paper cranes people have sent from all over the world.  The cranes have become a symbol of peace.  (Read the story of Sadako which has inspired the world.)

   When I returned to the states and my classes at the middle school, I taught my students how to make the little paper cranes after I read them the story.  The little paper cranes have always been a wonderful memory of my time in Japan.

   When I retired, one of my students gave me a crane to take with me.  I put it on my dashboard as I left school for the last time and there it has set for the past four years.  Its patterned paper has long ago faded and the folds are no longer as crisp as they once were but it rides with me everyday and I have no intention of ever removing the little guy.  It is a cherished contemplative souvenir.

   Should you wish to make your own paper crane, here is a link.

How to fold a paper crane.

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Yearning for the Melting to Begin...

   This is the same pond from yesterday's post.  I so enjoyed watching these two mallards rushing across the ice to get to the open water, slipping and sliding on their way.  I could so relate to those two little guys!

   Winter simply won't leave us here in Maine and the ponds around my house are nowhere near this open.  Our poor ducks remain sheltered on the shore gazing with longing eyes at the potential of open water.  What dreams they must be dreaming!  I'm probably dreaming the same dreams...melt, melt darn it, melt!

   Sometimes in our lives we have to just "sit and wait".  Like last week when I came down with a nasty bug and spent days barely able to rise from my bed. (Thank goodness I had scheduled my posts ahead of time!)  Waiting for the melting to start, waiting to feel better, waiting for the time to pass until I leave for Ireland...we spend so much of our time waiting for something.  But most often, the focus of our waiting is out of our hands.  I can't make Spring hurry up any more that I could speed up the virus that just had to work its way through me in its own time.

   I think you can tell a lot about a person by how they deal with waiting.  Next time you are at the airport and a flight is delayed, just look around and see how various people cope with this enforced waiting...very enlightening!  As frustrating as flight delays are I try to see them as an opportunity to study my fellow man (and woman!)...always a worthwhile activity.  One man's obstacle is another man's opportunity!