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 Prayerful Regard for the Landscape...

   I've been receiving lovely quotations for my vade mecum and I encourage you to send me something to carry with me when I travel to the sacred sites in the Burren, Iona and Glendalough in May.  One suggestion has prompted this post.  

Absolute attention is prayer.

- Simone Weil

   What a beautiful imagining for the contemplative photographer!  In our rush to experience the landscape we often miss its meaning and message for us.  Rather than walk through the landscape we should pray our way into the mystery unfolding in front of us through the act of absolute attention.  Worshipful regard of the world around us brings us into union with the divine presence we encounter.

   Instead of anticipating, we should be soulfully open to whatever we come across no matter how humble it may seem.  Like this small and worn sculpture I discovered on my recent trip to Glastonbury Abbey.  Whatever saint it is eluding to is unimportant.  Its seemingly singular regard for what is in front of it is the message here.  The eyes don't gaze longingly into the distance but at the ground right before his feet.  It is not anticipating some distant and vague possibility but is soaking in and relishing the immediate and close at hand.  We could all benefit from that kind of thinking...

Are you a Nemophilist?

   It's alright...I'm one too.  Just in case you aren't sure if you are a nemophilist or not, I'll give you the definition:

A haunter of the woods;  one

who loves the forest and its

beauty and solitude.

   I think I would also add, "and its mystery" to that definition.  I particularly love the mystery of a dark forest.  It seems to hold onto things we can only guess at.

     There is such a wonderful embrace when you walk a woodland path.  You are surrounded, enclosed.  Sometimes you can hear the rustle of leaves but most often you cannot see what is making the noise.  You often cannot see the sky or what is in front of you.  You aren't sure whether to go on or turn back.  "Back" is knowable..."forward" is a risk.  But with the "forward" comes the possibility of new discovery.  It is that possibility that must overcome the risk.

   You pathway is uncertain.  There are roots and rocks and plenty of opportunity to trip and fall.  It is a lot like life really.  This is where faith is needed.  Faith that you will come out of the forest, that you will find your way.  Faith that you will overcome whatever adversity the path presents you.  Faith that just because you can't see the sky doesn't mean it is not there.

   And like life, you can focus on the dark shadows with fear or the light infused spots that speckle the way with hope....it really is your choice.

   For those of you who haven't given in to your inner nemophilist this Autumn, here is a lovely video to savor....

A Walk in the Forest - Brian Crain

   ...and here is a link to a lovely look at the fallen leaves in Harvard yard with accompanying quotations from famous writers.  My favorite, and the one that really resonates with today's post, is by Henry David Thoreau (definitely the supreme nemophilist!) - "I have a room all to myself.  It is Nature."

Taking Talking Leaves

Wanderings...

My Bags are Packed...

A good traveler has no fixed plans.

-Lao Tzu 

 I recently met with a group of people who will be accompanying me to Ireland next year.  None of them have been to Ireland before and they were bubbling over with questions, which is only natural.  Before I began to approach travel as pilgrimage, I too wore the somewhat heavy mantle of "tourist".  Schedules, agendas, "must see's" were most important and I made lists and lists of  lists.

   Now I have a totally different approach because I try to travel with a pilgrim's heart and not a tourist's mindset.  I make general plans and reservations but the minute I board the plane I leave all expectations behind.  I keep my heart and mind completely open to the serendipitous, the spontaneous and the spur of the moment.  I expect, no, welcome, the unexpected.

   My week down east was a perfect example of the unexpected.  Coming across the books by Brian Flynn reminded of the stone beach I'd visited 16 years ago on Grand Manan.  Reading the introduction I discovered there was such a beach right there on Campobello!  I asked the attendant and she showed me a map of the island where I could find these marvelous stones and off I went on a search that certainly wasn't on my "agenda".  The serendipitous, the spontaneous and the unexpected all at once!


   My friends and I will spend a week together next May in "John's house" in Ballyvaughan where I'll introduce them to that magical thin place, The Burren.  It is the first leg of my month long Threshold Pilgrimage.  (You'll hear much more about that in the months to come.) After a week in community, I'll leave for a solitary retreat to Iona and they will be on their own.  I've encouraged them to just wander.  To follow their hearts GPS and see where it leads them.

   I've always had this wild idea of going to the airport one day and letting circumstance and whim decide which plane I board and where I end up.  No plans, no reservations, no expectations.  I would simply  trust I'd end up someplace interesting and meaningful.  I would try to be like those ancient Celtic monks who would put to sea in their tiny curraughs with no rudder and no oars...content to let the sea take them to a place of its own choosing, not theirs.  This complete suspension of control is the ultimate act of faith I think.

Click on the lovely quote by John O'Donohue below to learn a bit more about these wandering Celtic monks. 

I would love to live as the river flows,

carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.

- John O'Donohue

Encountering the Unfamiliar...and the not so Unfamiliar!

   I leave for France in a couple of days and I am very excited.  Part of this trip is a kind of pilgrimage...to the beaches of Normandy...to pay tribute to my Father's landing on D-Day, 1944.  I hope the emotions of the day do not keep me from making some photographs but that remains to be seen.  The various encounters one has with the unfamiliar when traveling will produce unforeseen consequences and the photographs one makes - or does not make - as a result will be affected by them. That is part of the excitement of travel for me.

   When you travel to a new place there are many opportunities to encounter the "unfamiliar" and if you are, as I am this time, traveling with other people you may not have the time to sit and listen to the landscape as I like to do.   I've had to develop a set of strategies for these kinds of situations.  Primarily it requires me to rely on my intuition as a photographer.

   In February I wrote a post on the concept of Wu-Wei.  A mind in the state of Wu-Wei "goes with the flow, reflects like a mirror, responds like an echo."  These are all necessary requirements for photographing intuitively.  The hardest part of the process for me is switching off my brain which loves to analyze, rationalize, and control everything.  It "knows" and therefore "anticipates". It will apply all sorts of filters to what I see which makes it infernally difficult to really "see" anything at all.  I've used this quote from Dorothea Lange before but it bears repeating...

"The best way to go into unknown

territory is to go in ignorant."

   I think one of my greatest challenges in this up-coming trip will be in Giverny when I visit Monet's garden with my friends.  They will go to see one thing and I will, no doubt, try to see an entirely different thing.  I have never visited the garden but after 30 years of teaching art I feel I "know" it...through the paintings of Monet and numerous photographs, mainly on calendars my students would give me for Christmas presents.  What I "know" is other people's view of the gardens. My task, before I set foot in the garden, is to try and "unknow" it.  I must try to make the familiar unfamiliar...to go in "ignorant" so I can photograph it through my eyes not theirs!

Impression - pond weeds, Isles of Harris, Scotland 2005

   When I arrive I will wander off by myself.  I will try to tune out the hoards of tourists and find a solitary place, if I can, from which I can "read" the landscape.  If I can't apply my visual listening exercise and sketching for lack of time, I can at least read the "text" of the landscape.  It will be like reading the Cliff Notes for War and Peace and not the novel itself but it will have to do.  I will read not only the literal and most obvious notations of water and plants but the more subtle descriptions of shadow and reflection...the softer echos of Monet's created world. I will attend to the adjectives and not just the nouns. I will then make what photographic impressions I can...as Monet did when he painted the light in his garden.  Photography too paints with light and the contemplative photographer can also create  meaningful impressions based on their personal and intuitive  response to the landscape.  The "reflections" will have to wait for when I return home.

      I hope to post several "photographic impressions" of France in the days ahead...the contemplative photographer "on location" as it were.  I've chosen several interesting venues for photographic exploration like Mont Saint Michel and the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris but who knows what other sites will peak my interest.  I (and you, all my blog friends) will just have to wait and see what transpires...

Au Revoir for now!