Showing posts with label Guided Meditation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guided Meditation. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Guided Meditaiton - Autumn



Autumn

In Autumn I can smell somebody drinking their hot chocolate and making noise as I walk by their houses.
In Autumn I can smell the cold, frosty wind blowing by as I am walking on the grass.
In Autumn I can touch the wind blowing my hair and the Autumn  leaves stuck in it like a bee in a flower.
In Autumn I can touch the crunchy leaves in my hands, turning into pieces and being blown away by the wind.
In Autumn I can hear footsteps stepping on the leaves making sounds like crunchy crisps.
In Autumn I can hear the birds singing on a chilly morning from my window.
In Autumn I cans see the wind blowing the leaves like a fan blowing a paper.
In Autumn I can taste the orange, green, red leaves that are crunchy, wanting to eat and hoping to taste like crisps

- sanjita gurung


   Here in New England, November is a humbling month.  The glorious colors are gone and the trees are stripped of their leaves.  Everything seems to be holding its breath in anticipation of what is to come.  There is still a lot a contemplative photographer can experience in a walk through the November landscape.

   The poem above seeks to stimulate all the senses to participate in the experience of an Autumn wood.  Copy it, print it out and take it with you...find a place to just sit, an old fallen log perhaps.  Let all your senses revel in the joys of November. 

   I've always felt that November has a particular smell about it.  Near my home are wild grape vines and when I can smell the ripen grapes I know it is November.  I also love seeing the bare bones of the landscape, the dark trees etching lace-like patterns in the grey sky. Pulling the seed heads from the wild flowers and scattering them is my way of believing in the future.  Some will sprout no doubt and I can feel I've aided their survival in some small way like those plump grey squirrels burying acorns they'll forget to dig up.

    After a time of just sitting and taking in the "Novemberness" of the landscape, see what draws your attention and what inspires you to release the shutter.



Sunday, May 5, 2013

Guided Meditation #4 from the Thoreau Farm Contemplative Stroll...

Guided Meditation # 4


A good traveler has no fixed
plans and is not intent
upon arriving.

A good artist lets his
intuition lead him
wherever it wants.


#27 in the Tao te Ching
-Lao tzu


Thoreau practiced walking meditation every day in the form of his “saunters” around Walden Pond and here at Two Boulder Hill.  He often set out with no specific destination in mind.

In Taoism, walking meditation relies on the wisdom of one’s own heart to take you where you need to go.In this final mediation practice, turn on your heart’s GPS and allow it to direct your steps.

From the Dead and Decayed, New Life
·        Be non-judgmental…

·        Be open to the spontaneous and the serendipitous…

·        Experience your walk with child-like eyes and ‘play’ with your camera…

                     
  Gather, through your photographs, whatever "breadcrumbs" you find along the path.

   Slowly, begin your walk back to the farmhouse and remember, above all else, to follow Thoreau's example and...              
                 WALK WITH WONDER!

This is the last of the guided meditations from the contemplative stroll to Two Boulder Hill.  Remember that all of these meditations work just as well in any location you chose to visit and the last phrase is the most important, wherever you are!

 
 


Saturday, May 4, 2013

Guided Meditation #3 from the Thoreau Farm Contemplative Stroll....


Guided Meditation #3

To be an artist it is necessary to live
with your eyes wide open,
to breathe in the colors of
mountains and sky, to know
the sound of leaves rustling,
the smell of snow,
the texture of bark.

-Jan Phillips

Thoreau was acutely aware of the various visual elements of the landscape.  Color, patterns, texture and shape allowed him to catalog the natural world.

Connections

·        Let yourself focus on one of the visual elements…Line, Shape, Color, Value (the play of light and shadow), Texture or Space.

·        Look carefully at the area around you for examples of that element.

·        Make your first image from where you sit then get up and move closer and closer making photographs as you go.  Get as close as your camera will allow.

·        Try another visual element if you wish or move on to your next meditation…

You may also want to try this in each of the four places you visit today focusing each time on a different element or concentrating on only one. (This is always a good way to approach the landscape in a contemplative way wherever you are.  It keeps you fully focused and alert to the character of the place you are in and it offers many possible metaphors as well...like the above image.)