What Lights the Fire in Your Heart?

   I want to follow up on yesterday's post.  My word for this year is Immerse and I think it is synonymous with passion.  One has to have a true passion for something to immerse one's self totally in it.

   I am passionate about my books as well as my photography and Michael Green, the illustrator for the calendar of Celtic Blessings I received for Christmas, is a favorite of mine.  His book, The Illuminated Rumi is a favorite and I look at it regularly, not only to read Rumi's wisdom but to look at Michael's beautiful art work.

   Finding a passion that will ignite the heart is crucial to me.  At present, the pond and my families story are sharing heart space in me.  I will fully immerse myself in both for the foreseeable future. But at some point those two passions will reach their conclusion and I will need to find another.  I have no doubt I will because those who seek earnestly will find what they need.  It is due in part because, as Rumi says, What you seek is also seeking you.

   Open your hear to all possibilities and find your passion.  Joseph Campbell calls it "bliss" but whatever you call it or wherever you may find it, let it light a fire in your heart.  Let it be a resolve for 2015.  You will not be disappointed.

   If you would like to see more of Michael Green's work you can follow this link....


  



  

Photography Books...

   Time magazine just announced their top photo books for 2014. (You can see the selection here...)  I don't know about you but I am a sucker for photography books.  If I allowed myself the indulgence, my bookcases would be more over loaded than they are now.  I find looking at other peoples work fascinating and inspiring.

   Do you have a favorite photography book you revisit over and over again?  My latest acquisition was Alexandra De Steiguer's book Small Island, Big Picture. (You can read the post about her here...)  I don't think there is a photographer alive that doesn't fantasize about having their work in a book someday.

   I've only made one book myself, First Person Rural: A Portrait of a Maine Town.  It is a time consuming and expensive proposition.  Of course, my pond project, The Poetry of Place, seems a perfect subject for a photography book.  We'll see if it materializes.

  My recent "pond paintings", which I spoke about yesterday, are another possibility.  I have created several so far although all are still in the "in process" stage. It takes a great deal of time, I'm finding, to get the look right. 

    However, the abstract expressionistic paintings are delighting me in a way I could never imagined just a few months ago. This one reminds me of chalk pastel.  I use to work a lot in pastel back in college and as I worked on this image I felt the same kind of freedom in the use of color and texture. 

   Time will tell if any of my recent work will find its way into printed form.  I will certainly create some hand-made books of them.  That is a wonderful alternative for the photographer, especially the accordion format.   You can see the post I wrote about them here...

A Season of Giving and Receiving...

   The Christmas shopping season is well underway.  Perhaps you are hoping for a new lens or camera bag but I want to speak about all the gifts you have already received, in the photographs you have been gifted by the landscape.

   I've always spoken about how I don't take or make photographs...I receive them.  When I share them with you on this blog I am simply "re-gifting" them in a manner of speaking.  When I have done presentations on contemplative photography in the past, I always make a point to tell people they need to "change their lenses".  I get that idea from Howard Zehr in his wonderful book, The Little Book of Contemplative Photography: Seeing with wonder, respect, and humility.  I carry that book with me when I travel and refer to it constantly.  I owe so many of my ideas on contemplative photography to Howard Zehr and his writing in this small book which is part of the justice and peace building series put out by Good Books.

Below is a chart that Zehr includes in his book on the idea of changing one's lens in order to enter into a new relationship with the landscape or with anything you photograph for that matter.  I do recommend you put it on your gift giving list and don't forget to gift a copy to yourself as well!

Disclaimer:  I do not receive a cut in the sales of this book!  I am simply sharing with you a wonderful resource.  This is also true of any other book or DVD I recommend on this blog.  This blog is not a commercial enterprise in any way.  I only recommend products or classes that I have personal experience with and think you might enjoy as well.  I just thought you might like to know this.

Photography for the Second Half of Life...

   I think I inherited by photography gene from my father and my maternal grandfather.  Both men always seemed to have a camera in their hand.  My father, especially, seemed to be obsessed with documenting every facet of our lives...first on film and then in the hundreds of slides he took.

   I remember the first time I looked into the viewfinder of my grandfathers old box camera.  The image was upside down and somehow I found that fascinating.  This camera is one of his, I believe he got it from his brother, but I wish I had his old box camera.  It would be a constant reminder of how magical the photographic process really is.

   Being so involved with my digital family scrapbook right now, I can see and appreciated the need for documentation.  Without these photographs I would have no visual connection with my ancestors.

   I believe everyone thinks of photography this way in the beginning at least.  "I was there, I saw that, and these people were with me."  It is a very important role for the photographic medium and for some people, perhaps most, that is all it is and ever will be.  That is absolutely fine.  But for me, and some other contemplative souls, photography can be something more.  We all can't write books or poetry but we can all make photographs.  It is the most democratic of mediums.

   Now I look into photographs more that I look at them.  Through my journal writing I explore the why's of of my camera work...why this image at that time?  I've come to see the camera as an extension of something deep inside of me that I am only partly aware of but photograph by photograph I am coming to a more complete awareness.

   Now, I am well past the half way point of my life but I do look at the medium in a completely different way now.  Since I firmly believe that I am my photographs, long after I am dust people will be able to know a lot about me by looking at what I paid attention to.  Someone once said that to truly know a person, look at what is on their book shelf.  I say, look at their photographs...

  



    

The Infinite Web of Relationship...

Where does the

 temple begin,

Where does it end?

- Mary Oliver

   Contemplative photography has led me to understand and stand in awe of the powerful web of relationship that exists in our world.  Nothing, not a solitary leaf or moss or lichen, is not connected to this web...each playing it's part in sustaining all of creation, including ourselves.

    Through the camera's lens we can focus our attention on the tiny elements of this web and embrace the intimate and mysterious relationship close up.

      The most beautiful thing we can experience

is the mysterious.  It is the source of all true art

and all science.  He to whom this emotion is a

stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder

and stand apt in awe, is as good as dead; his

eyes are close.   - Albert Einstein

    There is no better place to experience this mystery of relationship than the forest and living here in Maine I am surrounded by a wonderful temple of creation.  I have found an amazing video produced by the BBC that celebrates the inspiring web of relationship in the deciduous forests of North America...from Maine's immense woodlands to the dense rainy forests of the Pacific Northwest. It explores a phenomenon they call the Wood Wide Web.

    Tomorrow we celebrate Earth Day.  I hope this video will give you a whole new appreciation of our "Mother".   Prepare to be amazed and then take your camera for a contemplative stroll in a nearby forest!

The Magical Forest

by Wallace Koh

Finding Inspiration in the Most Unusual Places...

   After my 500th post, some people have commented on my ability to post something different every single day.  I sometimes marvel at it myself but it all comes down to being able to find nuggets of inspiration in the most prosaic of places.

   Like the doctor's office waiting room.  This magazine greeted me as I sat down to await my appointment.  I had never heard of this magazine but I instantly said to myself.  "What a perfect magazine for the contemplative photographer!"  After I glanced through it I discovered I was right.  Finding the sacred in the commonplace is one of my photographic sages characteristics and one I firmly believe in.

    Completely devoid of ads, this magazine celebrates the commonplace.  Ordinary life is elevated to an almost spiritual experience.  The photography is stunning, the text compelling.  Each issue focuses on a single topic like "attachment".  I loved, particularly, this phrase from their mission statement... 

That perhaps we might each find

the poetry within life's daily prose.

   Another bit of unanticipated inspiration came from another unlikely place, the television show, NCIS.  My favorite character, Abby Shiuto the forensic specialist, put forth this thought in a recent show...

I believe in Magic, Prayer, and Logic...equally.

    Such an unlikely thing for the goth, dog collar wearing scientist to say, I thought. She often says very unlikely things, which is why I love her character on the show.

   This one got me thinking about people's tendency to separate these ways of thinking...you can believe in one but not all. But are they really mutually exclusive? An idea for you to mull over at your leisure. I will end with another quotation from dear Albert Einstein whose wisdom appeared a ways back on this blog...

Musing on Memories...

   I must admit that this winter has me feeling a bit like Julian of Norwich, the medieval English mystic that was walled up in a tiny cell with only her cat for company and three windows to gaze out of.  But self-enclosure has its benefits.

   I came across a bag of my old marbles one day when I was rummaging through a drawer looking for something else, my "cat's eyes".   (I know, funny isn't it.  We usually say someone has "lost his marbles"!)  I loved to play marbles in the school yard during recess when I was young.  It was more about the beautiful colors and patterns in the marbles then anything else.  I loved rolling them in my hand and watching the light dance through the glass.  Even way back then it was a visual thing for me.

   Now, contemplation is all about being present in the "here and now" so what role does memory play in the contemplative equation?  This winters forced indwelling has allowed me time to puzzle over the question.

   On one level, you might think of all photographs as testimony to memory regardless of what motivated you to make the image in the first place.  We photograph so we can remember.  The luminous light on the snow that morning, the way the sun illuminated a squirrels fur creating a delicate halo,  the almost comical icicle that formed one day...they are all small memories from this winter I thought worth gathering in through my photographs and sharing with you.  The "here and now" is so fleeting.  It quickly becomes the "there and then".  All we have left are the memories...at the end of the day that is truly all we can hang onto.

   Susan Fox, who writes the wonderful blog Finding My Bliss, sent me a link to a wonderful French film about a girl and her camera.  I pass it on to you...

Memoires

  

The Landscape is my Mentor...

To measure one's step by a universal rhythm and thus to bring one's life into harmony with a universal order, this is contemplation in our tradition.

A Listening Heart

David Steindl-Rast

A Listening Heart is a small collection of essays on the monastic practice of contemplation by monk/philosopher David Steindl-Rast.  I found several passages in the book that speak to the idea of contemplative photography as well and I would like to share one with you.

   Foremost is the idea that everywhere you go you are on sacred ground:

"All around in every direction; Holy of Holies." Ez. 45:1

   There are no divisions between the sacred and the secular - everything is sacred.  This, of course, is a Celtic world view and it is merely a small step from that concept to  the one which sees your photographs as icons and teachers.  Steindl-Rast calls it  Environment as Guru:

Any place is sacred ground because it is, potentially, a place of confrontation - confrontation with divine presence. -page 20

   He defines guru as a "dispeller of darkness" and he equates darkness with confusion.  Sitting in the landscape, for me, is like being in the presence of a wise and wonder-filled teacher who, as all great teachers do, does not provide us answers but opens our heart to the questions.  Great teachers direct your eye to where you should look but never tell you what you should see.

   My landscape mentor removes the clouds of confusion by presenting me with the embrace of the eternal.  I don't have to "know" everything - I just have to present myself as a willing and empty vessel.  I will be filled.

Through a Glass, Darkly...

Distortions

    I was making some photographic studies of a glass vase recently. I was fascinated by the distortions, shadows and reflections; the way the light shifted and altered  my perception of the glass form.  For some reason, it triggered a memory of the 1961 film by Ingmar Bergman, Through a Glass Darkly.   I decided to go looking for the reference.

 (BTW, this film won the 1962 Academy Award for best foreign film and is the first made by Bergman in his trilogy on faith.  The other two films are Winter Light and The Silence. All three films were required viewing in my college class on the history of film.  They all seemed to resonate with me after this winter's reflections and I decided to watch them again.  I'm so glad I did.  They are stunning films.) 

   My, was I surprised at how often, and in so many ways, this phrase has been used.  In film, in prose, in music, in poetry, and even as titles of television series episodes this phrase, "through a glass darkly", has inspired generations.  I wondered at its origin and found it refers to a biblical quotation, 1 Corithians 13:12,

For now we see through

a glass, darkly.

      What is it about this phrase that fascinates?  Does it have meaning for the contemplative photographer?  I think the answer to the first questions is found in the inherent truth of it.  What we think we can "see" is never the entire truth of anything.  It is all smoke and mirrors.  It can really be nothing else because so much lies buried beneath.

Reflections

   The answer to the second question is self-evident.  We trust the camera's lens to be the ultimate arbitrator of the truth but is it, really?  More questions.  

   This is an excellent jumping off point for the contemplative photographer.  What we seek to see, be it divine presence or perfect perception, is a mere shadow.  Turn the glass and the images shift and alter, subtle distortions...so it is in life as well.

“What a fool I was! and yet, in the sight of angels, are we any wiser as we grow older? It seems to me, only, that our illusions change as we go on; but, still, we are madmen all the same.”
― Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, In a Glass Darkly

Into Great Silence - a contemplative movie

   I've been thinking a lot about silence.  In my January 25th post I spoke about practicing the art of silence.  As always, intensely thinking about something usually draws related things to me.  This was the case when I discovered the 2005 movie, Into Great Silence.

    I'd never heard of the award winning film until a few days after completing my post on silence.  I guess the Universe wanted me to have a visual encounter to expand my understanding of the concept.  I immediately ordered the film and I was not disappointed.

   Now, if you are a person who likes action packed dramas this may not be your kind of film.  It is nearly 2 1/2 hours of beautifully filmed but nearly silent footage.  I think the length of the film is important since it takes time to melt into its contemplative nature.  In the beginning you may find yourself thinking, "OK, when does the story start?"  You have to turn off that mindset.  The "story" here is silence and it doesn't require words, drama or a back story.

   The director, Philip Groning, had to wait 16 years for the opportunity to film at the Grand Chartreuse Monastery in France which houses monks of the Carthusian order. (They are world renown for the green liquor that has given it's name to the yellow-green color). Then it was another 5 years of preparation, filming and editing.  Like the monastery itself, "hurry" had no place in the films creation.

   What resulted was a glimpse into the silent nature of the monastic experience.  I found myself drifting off into a unique encounter, the likes of which I have never experience with a film. I also found myself pushing the pause button from time to time so I could better savor some of the films exquisite stills.

    I was a film making major, along with photography, back in my undergraduate studies, and I could really appreciate the essential beauty of this film.  Now, as a contemplative photographer, I could embrace the concept of silence in a whole new and visual way.  You might like to experience this film because that's what you will do..you don't watch it so much as you feel your way through it.  I found it profoundly captivating.

   So, dim the lights, pour yourself a nice hot cup of tea and put your feet up.  Prepare to enter into an experience of simplicity, profundity and, of course, all embracing silence.  It is a contemplative feast for your eyes as well as your soul.  You will wonder where the time went.

Book Review - Pilgrim Principles by Lacy Clark Ellman

   I have been following A Sacred Journey for sometime and I was thrilled to see the the site's creator, Lacy Clark Ellman, was coming out with a book.  With my Threshold Pilgrimage coming up in May, this book was another bit of synchronicity.

   Pilgrim Principles - journeying with intention in everyday life, is meant to be a guidebook for everyone who is interested in living with intention whether they travel or not. 

We set off on journeys far away

 from home and journey in our everyday lives...

And when we infuse our journeys

 with meaning and intention, they become Sacred.

  The book takes the reader on a seven week interior pilgrimage based on her pilgrim principles such as A Pilgrim Immerses Herself in Culture and A Pilgrim Carries Herself with Curiosity. Each chapter offers guided meditations, practices and reflections. Each principle enriches the concept of what it means to be a true pilgrim in our own life's journey.

   The soul serves as the pilgrim's compass.
It is the place where questions become
 quests - where intuition is birthed
and longings explored.

   Every page offers new insights and the possibility of conversion - turning round to experience the world in a new and more profound way.  Day by day you journey...page by page.  Each paragraph a step along the road.  Your destination is a clearer understanding of the way these pilgrim principles can guide you to a more fully realized life.  Isn't that a journey worth the taking?

   Lacy has asked me to be "pilgrim in residence" in June this year on her site, A Sacred Journey.  The four posts will focus on the experience of my Threshold Pilgrimage to three sacred sites in Ireland and Scotland.  The first post will come on the last week of my pilgrimage so I will be able to weave the entire journey into four threshold encounters.  I am very excited about this series and I hope you will follow along when the time comes.  In the meantime, here is a link to a trailer for Lacy's book.  I'm sure you will find it an enriching and soul expanding read, as I did...

Pilgrim Principles

Deep Play...

(dep), adj. (pla), n. 1. A state of unselfconscious

engagement with our surroundings 2. An exalted

zone of transcendence over time 3. A state of

optimal creative capacity

   I have always enjoyed Diane Ackerman's books (Natural History of the Senses and A Slender Thread: The Rarest of the Rare).  Her book "Deep Play" is the subject of this post.  It's the type of book you can pick up and read in installments and go back to over and over again for inspiration.

   "Play always has a sacred place-

some version of a playground-

in which it happens."

      If you love what you do then it is never work...that's how I feel about contemplative photography.  I play with my image making and while that might imply that I don't take it seriously, nothing could be further from the truth.  A deeply playful attitude allows for what Ackerman describes as "a state of optimal creative capacity."  If your mind is not obsessed with rules and "rightness" then it can be open to experimentation and the spontaneous.

   While it is true that I photograph in the city and other built environments, I am most at home in the natural world.  I feel more confined by rules in the city and I feel the freedom to play in the landscape...the landscape is my playground.

   "Players like to invent substitute worlds...Make-believe

is at the heart of play, and also at the heart of much of

what passes for work.  Let's make-believe we can shoot a

rocket to the moon."

   What has make-believe have to do with contemplative photography, you may well ask?  It is, I'd respond, at its very core.  Through make-believe we can imagine that our images are more than merely documents of the real world...in fact, we can imagine another reality that lays beneath the surface of what we see.  We "make" our photographs and then "believe" what we discover within them.

   So this weekend go out and find your playground.  Experiment, explore, play around with your camera.  If you would like some instruction in the process of photography as play, give a small camera to a 5 year old and sit back and observe. Take to heart (and apply it to your camera work as well) Plato's admonition...

"Life should be lived as play."