I think the amazing thing about contemplative photography is the way Nature keeps whispering in your ear, even when you are thinking about something else. During my SoulCollage® retreat I was pretty involved with thinking about the process and my cards but it seemed as if the landscape wanted to give me a new vision of thresholds.
I "stumbled" across this John Muir quote while I was there. I put stumble in quotation marks because it really was just another of those wonderful moments of synchronicity I'm always going on about. It wasn't difficult to find two little pine trees to create this liminal space to hold the quote.
Walking back along one of the trails I was presented with another threshold icon to challenge me.
These intersecting shadows created, in my mind, four thresholds. I stepped carefully and slowly over each one. When I'd finished this little ritual crossing over exercise, I realized that I had planned to consider only three thresholds during my up-coming pilgrimage. Was Nature asking me to consider another?
Staying open to these "whisperings" in the ear is a crucial way I practice my contemplative photography. These messages from the landscape are meant to stimulate new ways of looking at things if we accept them for what they are.
They are meant to challenge us...shake us up in some way, not unlike the collaged cards I make. The soul can only communicate to us through a visual reference of some kind. I am always grateful for these gentle nudges from a Universe who wants to participate in our journey if we would only let it. I hope I never lose this gift of seeing the messages in the landscape.
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