Journeying Home...

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

- Maya Angelou

   Home is at the core of our being although we think it is something we will find "out there".

   We walk for most of our lives around the perimeter but at some point some of us stop walking around in circles and turn inward. It is like a light has gone off and we know that everything we have been seeking "out there" has been "in here" all the time...at the center of who we really are.

   For me, and perhaps other contemplative photographers,  our images become a kind of road map...sign posts along the way.  We don't need to know the way, we will be guided.  We try to refrain from asking, "Are we almost there?" like anxious children in the backseat of the car.  We know we will get there when it is time.  In the meantime, we will stop and read the signs.  We will even allow ourselves to take a detour from time to time.  It is all apart of the journey home...

 

An Epiphany on Epiphany...

   My first photograph of the pond for 2015, on the feast day of Epiphany, January 6th.  Most appropriate, I thought.

   This pond has been an epiphany for me in so many ways.  Each day I visit it brings me new insights and meaning...even new ways of making my photographs.  On this day the temperatures hovered around 0 but the wind chill made it feel more like -20.

   This little fishing shack on the far edge of the pond stood in a kind of splendid solitude.  Ice fishermen will huddle inside by the tiny wood stove to keep warm as they fish. They would need it on a day like today.  But I wasn't thinking about fishing, I was thinking about the story of Epiphany.  After the wise men visited Bethlehem, which is the tradition of Epiphany, an angel came to them and told them that the should return home by a different way.  That thought, and this photograph, would stay with me for the rest of the day.

   I began this project last June and now in January I have rounded the corner and I'm heading for the "homestretch" as it were but I am definitely "returning home by a different way."  Hearts and minds that are stretch can never return to their previous size or shape...they have transformed into a new state of being and, in my case, a new way of looking at the world.  That was my personal epiphany on this Epiphany of 2015.  A great way to begin the year.

 

Immerse Yourself in the Mystery...

Moonrise: a pond painting from 30 December 2014

   An essential part of being a contemplative photographer for me is the ability to embrace the mystery...in the world around me and the world within me as well.  Since my word this year is Immerse, I will try to dive into the mystery more fully and completely.

   So much of the world is mysterious and I could say the same for the human psyche.  In my thinking, the mystic is someone who can throw their arms around this mystery and allow it to filter into their being permitting them to enter into that great realm of unknowing with complete acceptance. 

All saying must be balanced by unsaying, and knowing

 must be humbled by unknowing.   -Richard Rohr. 

   Photography, in general, is not a mystery.  It is a very knowable thing with proper study.  But what we chose to photograph and what we divine from those images, well, that can be a mystery on so many levels.  The resulting photographs can open up the mystery to eyes willing to welcome it.  I've come to more fully embrace mystery with my work at the pond these past six months.  I can "know" the place on one level but there is much about this place I will never know.  Those parts I can only experience and celebrate.  One way I do that is through my pond "paintings".  They allow me to more fully celebrate the mysterious element of this place in a visual and transcendent way.

   The following is a link to a wonderful article written by Christine Valters Paintner about practices you can use to more fully immerse yourself in the mystery...

Embracing Mystery in the New Year

Looking Up and Looking Down...

   On my recent trip into Cambridge, I felt like such a tourist!  I'd lived in the city for 2 years after I graduated from Harvard but this day, it all seemed new to me.

   Walking between the museums gave me lots of contemplative possibilities but I settled on the juxtaposition of the orderly and random.

   Cities, by their very nature, are man's attempt to bring order and structure to the world.  The beautiful tower of Memorial Hall on the Harvard campus is covered with intricate geometric patterns and is a masterpiece of symmetry and balance. A perfect example of the rational mind.  Yet, when viewed against the random and shape-shifting clouds, it takes on a different meaning for me...it is a dialogue between the rational and the mystical mind.

    There are those who maintain that if you can't categorize it, measure it, label it, and prove it scientifically, then it doesn't exist.  They discount all else.  The mystical world is just so much nonsense.  Of course, they are entitled to their opinions but for me there is something more at play in the world.  Call it what you will, but there is a knowing beyond knowing and it can't be categorized, measured, labeled or proved.

   When you look up, you look out into that world.  When you look down, you look into your own world.  I found that analogy beautifully and simply illustrated at my feet.  The curved and random seed pods laying on the ordered, logical brick pattern...two distinct worlds - and world views - which are interconnected yet separate.  Some minds, fortunately, can accommodate both viewpoints.

The most beautiful thing we can experience 

is the mysterious.

 It is the source of all true art and science.

Albert Einstein 

  

Seeing the Unseen...

       

Everyone sees the unseen in proportion

to the clarity of their hearts.

- Rumi

   I am asked countless times, "How do you see what you see?"  After all, we all have the same eyes, we can stand on the same spot in the landscape and yet, we all see things differently.  I've thought a great deal about this idea, the idea of perspective, because it all comes down to that in the end.

   We are confronted everyday with an overwhelming and, at times, over loaded range of visual imagery.  When you go out with your camera you have literally millions of choices.  Why do some people "see", or choose to frame, certain parts and not others?  Rumi suggests it is a "heart thing".

   I also see it as a "why thing"...why are you making the photograph in the first place?  Is it merely to record a place and time...freezing it for you to savor later on?   Or are your responding to the whispers of the landscape?  Is seeing more a function of hearing?  That is the basis of all my visual listening exercises.

   Perspective is also dependent on circumstance.  What is happening "out there" effects what can go on "in here".  Mood shapes perspective in sometimes alarming ways.  

...what we see is what we are.

-Ernst Haas

   So I suppose we come back to the Rumi quotation I began with.  What I see, my ability to see the unseen, is totally dependent on who I am at that moment in time.  Tomorrow I will see something totally different and that is a wonderful thing.  That's why I can go back day after day to the pond, even stand in the exact same place, and see a whole different reality.  That is the essence of seeing for me, to bring new eyes and an open and receptive heart to the experience each time...

You are What You are Seeking...

   I've decided that, despite my own self perception to the contrary, I am at heart a true introvert.  I am never lonely in all my alone time and as much as I love being with friends and family I enjoy returning to my quiet retreat here in my little farmhouse in western Maine.

    We are on a journey of becoming that which we already are. That is the impossible paradox of our lives.

Leonard Jacobson

  

   I have often referred to the wonderful Rumi quotation, "What you are seeking is also seeking you."   But I've come to realize that you already have that essential quality within yourself that you are seeking in your images.

   This little leaf is just outside the window next to where I write this blog.  It seemed to sum up the idea of this post so beautifully.  Surrounded by ice and snow, it glowed...a lovely heart shape...the last leaf on the twig but perfect in its solitude.  It brought tears to my eyes.
 

What you seek is already within you.

You uncover it by shedding all that is untrue within you.

Sampo Kaasila

 

 

The Contemplative Master's Series - Richard Rohr

There is nothing that is not 

spiritual for those who have

learned to see.

   Richard Rohr of the Center for Action and Contemplation is one of my contemplative masters.  I eagerly await his daily messages and I always find them so illuminating...like the quote above.

   Every tiny detail in life is rich in the spiritual essence of Nature.  It is in its DNA.  It merely takes an eye that looks deeply into things...an eye trained to see.  To stand transfixed by the fluffy snow that clings to a thin branch is to see beyond the mere beauty of the landscape and into this divine connection.

   Rohr calls this The Great Chain of Being.  Every link in the chain has a connection to the source of all being, however you wish to define that term.  Nothing is without a spiritual relationship...the branch, the snow...all caught in the web of being of which we and all created things share a part.

   This is why I, and anyone who cares to look, can find the divine fingerprint in the landscape.  There is nothing that does not forge a link to that source.  What a wonderful gift we are given as photographers.  We can not only experience this great chain of being but record it as well. 

The Great Chain of Being

Season of the Soul...

   In yesterday's post I spoke of November as being the in between time; neither autumn nor winter, it rests on the threshold.  Thresholds are always special places to be...on the cusp of becoming.  It is not hard to understand why our ancestors saw this time of year as magical one.

Notice that Autumn is more the season of the soul than of Nature.

- Friedrich Nietzche

   I think I would agree with Nietzche but I feel that soulfulness more profoundly in November than in any other month.  In November the trees, as well as ourselves, are striped bare and we are left with only the skeletal essence of each.  It is an in-turning time.  As we lock tight the windows and light the fires, we touch at some of the most elemental facets of our being.  We prepare for the harsh reality to come and draw closer to the hearth for its reassuring warmth.

  For a month that begins with the back-to-back holidays of All Saints and All Souls days, it stands to reason that we feel equipped to wrap around us the blanket of reverence for the past.  It is only right that our camera work should become deeper and more inward facing as well.

   I was captivated by this solitary oak leaf carrying on its back what looks like glittering gems. Amongst the rotting leaves that surround it, it seemed to glisten and sparkle in the subdued late afternoon light.  I'm not sure why I thought it was such a wonder filled sight but I did.  Every single time I visit the pond I am treated to some such moment of enchantment.  It is the aura of November that has me in its grasp I think.  I expect to see magic...and I do!

     

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 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

The Sacred Place of Borderlands...

   Slowly, so very slowly, the landscape around my home in Maine is coming back to life.  As the sun warms and the edge of icy winter retreats, tiny signs of re-emergence can be seen.

   I've always viewed the planting of bulbs in the autumn as an act of faith...their appearance in the spring, a moment of joy especially this spring.

   We are all turning our faces to the light and basking in the warmth of a much delayed spring...it is heavenly.

   Although we've experienced this spring ritual of re-birth countless times, this year it seems even more poignant to my winter-weary soul.

   There is a magical quality to the experience of being on the edge of anything...the moment when a change is about to occur.  It could be at the moment of sunrise or sunset or, as in this photograph, the demarcation between cold death and the warmth of emerging life.  It is so clearly delineated here; you can run your finger along the edge.

   These are sublime contemplative moments, to be savored and internalized.  Living in this "in between" place, even for just a moment, is a delight.  One of my favorite edges to walk is where water touches the land...one of those sacred boundary places that Margaret Silf calls the "borderlands of being".   There is something inherently mysterious about these places at the edge.  We can glimpse two ways of being simultaneously...look in two directions at the same time.  Somehow, these borderlands feel like a holy place to me.

Attitude and Perception...

It was her smile that touched me most.

Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.

-Henry Ford

   Attitude is everything...in everything.  It is no less important in photography but perhaps in a slightly different way than what old Henry was referring to in this quotation.  

   When I was on a sabbatical at Harvard way back in 1997,  I was there to research creative thinking skills.  One of the things I discovered was the cliche of the power of positive thinking was, indeed, correct.  Now, all these years later, I find that wisdom is very valuable for the contemplative photographer as well.

   If you see the landscape as a thing to "capture" in your photographs; if you struggle for the right equipment, the right time of day, the right skill set, then it is a struggle that is as easily lost as it is won.  But if you see the landscape as wise teacher and a loving co-creator in your camera work your attitude is totally different.  It is a "win/win" situation.  In fact, you can never loose no matter how much or how little you have of the "right stuff". 

   Every time you venture out, camera in hand or not, there is something there to reveal itself to you. Every single time.   If your perception is attuned to this, you will see it. You will see it because you know it is there to be seen.  Attitude is everything.  It is so liberating really.  Your relationship to the landscape is no longer a struggle, some creative competition, but a co-conspiracy...a communion of kindred souls.  You and the landscape are in it together and you will always be given what you need.  Always.
 

   It's been quite some time since I told you a story!  Here is one of my favorites.  It really is about the journey we are all on as contemplative photographers...seeing the beauty in the commonplace, the sacred in the ordinary.  Enjoy!

The Fable of the Coyote and the Void

Discovering and Creating Sacred Space...

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.

- Joseph Campbell

   One of the inspiring parts of last weekend's SoulCollage® retreat was the ritual of creating sacred space.  It is a very important part of the process of creating and reading your cards.    I have understood this concept through my labyrinth walking ritual, which I posted on Monday, but I love the idea of applying it to other spaces as well.  Like the SoulCollage® cards I made during the weekend, sacred space can be either intentionally created or intuitively discovered. 

   Nature, for me, is the supreme intuited sacred space but truly any place can become sacred by intentionally making it so.  This image is of the loggia at the retreat center.  I love the look of the vaulted ceiling painted azure blue to mimic the sky.  Painting porch ceilings blue is a tradition in New England and I like to think it is a way to welcome Nature into the enclosed space...opening it up.  It was too cool to access this space during the weekend but I could see this being a wonderfully uplifting and sheltering sacred space.

   When you are out in the landscape, find ways to bring the intention of sacred space into the experience.  It can be as easy as just welcoming the sacred qualities of the place into communion...the warm sun, the feel of the wind on your cheek, the buzz of the bees hard at work at their gathering task as you prepare to gather in images.  All of these are elements of the discovered sacred space. Visual listening exercises are my ritual for creating sacred space in the places I photograph.  

   When I do PhotoLectio with my contemplative imagery it is important that I create a special place and time to do it.  It only adds to the significance of the process for me.  That is what creating sacred space does...it sanctifies the experience.  You might like to discover a few ways you can carve out sacred space for yourself.  The link below is a good place to start.  

Ways to Create Sacred Space

Another Labyrinth, Another Lesson...

   Every time I find a new labyrinth I find a new lesson to be learned, especially in the less formally created ones.  I think that may be part of the joy of discovering labyrinths.  Each seems to be unique to the location you find them in...each has a message to give us.

   At the Rolling Ridge conference center there was a double labyrinth, each a bit different.  But one thing I found interesting about them is their use of standing stones along the path.  They seemed to me to be silently watching sentinels guiding your journey.  (I tried not to think of them as gravestones but that might be another message!)

   It was early in the season of course so the paths were not raked of their autumn leaves but I actually liked walking on the fallen leaves; leaves that were returning to their source which we all must do in the end. There was quite a bit of moss as well...soft and inviting and I felt compelled to reach down and feel it.

   The biggest challenge to these labyrinths was the fact that they were built around trees.  You had to step over or around the roots and at some points it was a bit unclear where to go even though a labyrinth is usually a clear path.

   Perhaps when the paths are raked it will be more obvious.  This got me thinking about the challenges we face every day even if our path forward is clear.  Even when we are on a path that is well delineated we must remain vigilant...there are so many opportunities to stumble, so many obstacles that can trip us up!

   The following are the five parts of labyrinth walking as I define the process.  If you set out on this form of walking meditation you might like to try them.

Letting Go:  Spend a few minutes before you actually begin your walk shedding the concerns you might be carrying with you.   Symbolically wrap them up and let them stay to one side.  You can pick them up later when you return from your inner journey.  You might want to focus your walk on one idea, one thought that is weighing on your mind. Make it your intention.  Spend a moment imbedding it in your heart and try to quiet your mind to all other thoughts.

Concentrated walking:  Walk into the labyrinth, into its sacred space with reverence.  Set your own pace.  This is not a race to the center!  Walk slowly and with intention; feel the freedom to stop from time to time.  I keep my eyes on the path right in front of my feet.  I don't look at my "goal" and I take it one step at a time. I will sometimes repeat a phrase or word that is linked to my intention for the walk. Some people like to listen to music as they walk but I just like to hear my footsteps, the wind in the trees and any birdsong that might be there.  I try to welcome them all into my experience.

Centering Illumination:  When you do reach the center, spend some time centering yourself and opening your heart to hear any illumination you might receive.  Some people like to sit down and spend some time in the center...do what feels right for you. Do not be concerned if no grand insights are forth coming.  Labyrinth walking is like all forms of meditation.  You become more proficient at it the more you do it.

Journeying Back:   The journey back is, in some respects, as important as the journey to the center.  It is a time to integrate what you have come to know during your walk and process any feelings that might have arisen.  In pilgrimage, and a labyrinth can be seen as a pilgrimage, this stage is sometimes referred to as "bringing back the boon".  You want to incorporate any new thoughts you've gathered into your everyday life.

Crossing the Threshold:   The moment you step out of the sacred space of the labyrinth you must acknowledge this liminal moment.  I turn back and face the center and honor it in some way.  It might just be saying thank you...find a way to show your gratitude for the experience.  Pick up those concerns you left when you entered but you might, as I often do, simply leave them behind.  They sometimes don't feel all that important to me anymore.

   You can visit my labyrinth locator in the right side bar under links to find one near you.  Visit my my board on Pinterest for more labyrinth inspiration if you'd like...

Solvitur Ambulando...it is solved by walking

Spirit and Substance...

   All things have a dual nature...they are both spirit and substance.  Everyone recognizes the later, the material nature of things, but far fewer understand the former...the spirit contained within the object itself.

   Let's take the common toaster as an example.  We can easily see what it is, a device for toasting bread.  That is what it is, that is its substance and for most people it is nothing more.  But when we try to see into the simple toaster, when we try discern its essential spirit, we see so much more.

   Now, let me make this clear.  I'm know speaking of spirit in any religious sense.  We know that the toaster is an inanimate object...a non-living thing.  No, the spirit I am speaking of is the pure essence of its meaning; what it does in its most essential expression of its substance.  A toaster warms and alters bread; it does a job that is necessary and by so doing it is expressing it's meaning.  When it does it well, when its form fuses with its function, it is existing at its highest level which is why the Museum of Modern Art has examples of toasters in their collection.

   I came to understand this way of looking at objects through the study of Shaker design, especially their furniture designs and architectural forms, like the exquisite spiral staircase at Pleasant Hill Kentucky Shaker village.  The form of the staircase, its substance, is inextricably linked to its function and spirit.  I had traveled 1,000 miles last April to photograph that staircase.  It was well worth the trip.

   Walking down those stairs was a wonderful experience; my hand guided by a beautifully shaped and flowing banister, the stairs illuminated from natural light above.  All the years I had admired this staircase in pictures I was merely acknowledging its substance.  When I walked up and down it I was able to celebrate and enter into its spirit.

   When we are able to understand the spirit of a thing then we are far more likely to create meaningful photographs of it.  We are not merely documenting it's substance, it's "thingness", we are revealing in its spirit.  Simple still life and architectural photography take on whole new meanings when looked at it as an exercise of revealing the spirit of the inanimate object.  One only has to think of the pepper studies of Edward Weston to understand the way a gifted photographer can reveal the spirit behind the substance.

A weed by any other name....

There is nothing that is not

spiritual for those who have

learned to see.

-Richard Rohr

   Spring is here, at least by the calendar's reckoning, and many of us are thinking about gardens.  Even as I ready myself to depart on my threshold pilgrimage, I can't help considering the garden as it struggles to awaken from its long winter nap. 

 Many, many years ago I made a tiny garden in the backyard of the house I was living in.  I planted it with "weeds" I had gathered along the roadside and in fields.  I thought that so many of the common flowering "weeds", like black eye Susan, milkweed and wild aster, were really lovely and since I had no money for cultivated plants, I planted the weeds much to the chagrin of my landlady who was convinced it would ruin her lawn.  It didn't but it did bring in lots of butterflies!

What is a weed?  A plant

whose virtues have never

been discovered.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

   I think I may try to re-create my old weed garden this year somewhere on my property here in Maine. At least I won't have to worry about amending the soil!  It is a reminder to look at all creation as something worthy of our attention...even those things others seek to pull out of their lives and discard.

   I think the lesson of my weed garden for the contemplative photographer is that beauty and meaning can be found anywhere....even in the weedy patches of our world.  Seek out these places and learn to fall in love with that which has "virtue yet undiscovered".  I'll bet you know a place near to you right now that can be your "weedy patch", don't you!  Take your camera and go there. Find the beauty others have overlooked.

  

Stillness, Silence and Solitude...

   The great trinity of essential practices for the contemplative photographer, stillness, silence and solitude. 

   When I give workshops in the field I had to come up with a way for people to be guided and to be alone at the same time.  Contemplative photography is not a group activity!

   The journals of guided meditations I design and give to participants allow them to experience the stillness, silence and solitude for themselves while keeping them focused on the essential experience I want them to have.

   Stilling the mind's constant chattering, entering into a companionable silence as one sits in solitude in the landscape, this is foremost in the practice of contemplative photography for me and one I look forward to whenever I go out into the landscape.

   I photographed this scene on a visit to Massachusetts recently where they were far more advanced in the steady progress to spring than we are in Maine.  "Ice out" is a term we use here to signify that moment when the pond comes back to life and sheds its winter blanket of ice.  People even wager on possible dates and great ceremony is attached to this northern rite of Spring.  In this image we can see ice out is well on its way.

    It is also an apt metaphor for the spiritual awakening in all of us...when we melt into a new way of being that more clearly reflects the wonders and love of life.  It is the moment of re-embracing the sunlight that will warm us to the core after our voluntary retreat behind an icy barrier of detachment.

   There is nothing so still as a pond silently re-emerging after a long, long winter.  We can't see the wonders at work beneath the icy covering but it is there.  Slowly and in a splendid solitude it begins its transformation and we can only watch and wait.

   I've begun a new Pinterest board you might like to explore...

Stillness, Silence and Solitude

Faith and the Contemplative Photographer...

   I believe that the one personal characteristic shared by all contemplative photographers is a strong and abiding sense of faith; not faith in a religious sense but the pure faith of a trusting soul.

   I ever move through the world knowing in my heart that the images I need to make, the images that will speak to my soul, will be there - often in the most unexpected places.

   When one moves through the landscape with great faith then one cannot ever be disappointed.  Inclement weather, changes in itinerary, or unanticipated road blocks never impede the contemplative photographer who has, at the very core of their being, a profound faith that what they need will always manifest itself and wherever they are is exactly where they need to be.

   Goal driven photographers are forever being disappointed.  Rising early every morning to "catch" a spectacular sunrise, as if it is a creature to be trapped by stealth and cunning, can lead to sleepy and frustrated souls.  Rise early by all means but for the pleasure of the early morning not with anticipation of any specific outcome.

   There is nothing wrong with having plans as long as one remains flexible and free flowing.  Have faith, my friend.  You are already in the stream; lay back, relax, drift along with the current and see where it takes you!

The Scripture of the Landscape...

A Luminous Light

   Contemplative photography means, for me, being gifted images from a landscape that is eager to share its wisdom with those who possess a still and quiet heart and who are willing to sit and just listen.  The images I receive are the scripture of the landscape written not with words but with photons.

Light is the language

 of the landscape.

   Some days the light fairly sings, like this morning under the crab apple tree.  It was like this, soft and luminous, for just a few minutes.  Just long enough for me to record this scripture of light.

   Snow usually gives a sharp white light with stark blue/violet shadows.  It is not easy to photograph.  But this day, there was a warm glow to the snow and there was no glaring contrast.  It seemed to emit light rather than reflect it.  I know that may sound strange but it was the sensation I got as I look out the window at it.

    At moments such as this, I understand why light has always been associated with the spiritual.  Through time and across cultures, light is the supreme scriptural metaphor.  This day I finally "got" James Turrell's statement about the consciousness of light.  You can re-read the original post here.

   After I made this photograph, I just sat and gazed at the scene, afraid to blink for fear it would disappear in that instant.  It did slowly fade away after about five minutes and I was left with such a feeling of profound thankfulness that my camera and I were there to bear witness to the sight.

   I felt that after weeks of in-dwelling this Winter; of embracing both stability and the wonderful Taoist practice of Wu Wei, photographing only what comes to me, I was given an amazing gift in this image.  No, more than the image it was the experience...the photograph is but a translation of the experience and never equal to it.  This will be my Icon of the Experience for the Winter of 2013/2014.  The image that says it all for me.

   Another post on James Turrell's amazing installation at the Guggenheim last year may also provide some further illumination on light....

Other Seeing

 

Returning to the Well...

    Wells are wonderful metaphors.  The idea of casting your bucket into a deep abyss and bringing up, with some effort, life giving water can easily be applied to those of us who seek refreshment for their spirits through their practice of  photography.

   Nature is an infinitely deep well of inspiration for the contemplative photographer.  Everyday, every moment in fact, offers a new and surprising revelation for hearts that are open and eyes that are clearly focused on what is before them.

   You might also discover special and individual wells within the landscape that you can return to time and time again to quench your soul's thirst.  The crab apple tree a few feet behind my house is one of my personal wells as you no doubt have come to realize this winter.

   One of the vows monks take when they enter the monastery is one of stability...staying put in one place.  Now, with my wanderlust that is one vow I would have a great deal of difficulty with at this stage in my life but Winter offers this "monk in the world" a taste of that stability.  I stay put, hunker down, and feel immense contentment with the near at hand...like my crab apple tree.

   This particular morning it's branches were etched with a silver light that, frankly, took my breath away.  It only lasted a few minutes.  I was fortunate to have seen it at all.  The sun at this time for year melts things quickly but I'm in the habit of checking out the tree several times a day.  For a few minutes I was able to take in the beauty and wonder of this sight.  Tomorrow, even this afternoon, the tree will present a whole different message...a new source of inspiration.  I don't think I will ever tire of returning to this well so, in my own way, I practice the monastic devotion to stability at least for the winter months.  Do you have a special well of inspiration?