Spirituality

All posts tagged Spirituality

How cool is that? …

Posted by Paul on July 23, 2010
Posted in: Personal, Photography, Spirituality. Tagged: .

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Feeling rather thankful today …

How cool is that to be able to go for a walk every morning with my dog. To be able to walk!

How cool is that to be able to hear the spirit-lifing cry of the hawk, daily, and the comforting sounds of a Mourning Dove’s coo on the same walk? To be able to hear.

How cool is that to be able to see the sunlight scatter and form a rainbow in the mist of a sprinkler, to see a hawk spread its wings and take flight, to see the sun rise most every morning? To be able to see!

How cool is that to be able to smell the ozone in the air after a thunderstorm has passed, or the musk of a skunk long passed? To be able to smell!

How cool is that to be able to taste the sweet goodness of a grape, or perhaps a bowl of cold watermelon after a long walk. To be able to taste!

How cool is that to be able to feel the sweat trickle off my head, down the back of neck, and down to my lower back. To be able to feel!

A huge feeling of gratitude befell me this morning and I just thought that I’d share those thoughts. In part, I have to thank Monte for his daily shots of things we often see, but choose to ignore, or perhaps don’t see at all. I really like his photography and where he’s coming from. It makes me stop and look at my own or helps me to appreciate other things.

Zazen

Posted by Paul on February 9, 2010
Posted in: Photography. Tagged: , , .

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I am reading two books right now that happen to support each other. Each echoes the other fully. This was not by design. It just happened. The first, The Presence Process by Michael Brown is about present moment awareness and meditation. The other book, Zen and Creativity, by John Daido Loori, a Zen Buddhist teacher, is about … present moment awareness, meditation, and art. Before he became a teacher, he was a photographer who was intrigued by the work of Minor White, trained with him, and became good friends over the years. It was Minor White who introduced him to meditation and letting the subject speak to him.

Both use the zazen Zen meditation, which is seated meditation. According to Tao and Zen schools of thought, meditation has absolutely no purpose except to meditate and just “be”. There are no expectations of healing, enlightenment, or any other goal. Just be.
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The first book, The Presence Process, came to me through my wife, Vera. Vera was reading it and thought that I might find it interesting. She was right. The second, Zen and Creativity, I have no idea how I found it.

No muse appears when invoked, dire need will not rouse her pity.
May Sarton

For the past 8 days, I’ve been sitting zazen and doing meditation twice a day. Once in the morning when I first get up, after a shower, and once in the evening before I go to bed. My first couple of attempts, 15 minutes, were quite comical. If you’ve never tried it, it is amazing how difficult it is to sit completely still and quiet for 15 minutes. The quiet I had no problem with. The sitting still, well that’s a different story. Also, when you sit, you realize how many hundreds of random thoughts that you have every minute. You have to constantly remind yourself to reconnect with your breathing … in 1 … out 2 … in 3 … out 4, etc. Before you know it, you’re right back to being distracted again. Now, after 8 attempts, I can last almost 20 or 30 seconds without being distracted! :-)

Anyway, I am enjoying the practice. The other day when I went to Bull Hole, I took with me my ever-present load of anxieties, thoughts, doubts, etc. You know, my traveling baggage! When I got to the park, I shot a little bit first, then found a bench next to the water and did 15 minutes of meditation. It’s nice to have those feelings leave, even if for 15 to 30 minutes. I feel somehow, cleaner, clearer.

Did this make a difference in my photography? I’m not quite sure, but it sure did make a difference in my experience. It had been a while since I’d gotten ‘lost’ and worked out of time. I spent 3 hours just exploring, looking, listening, and feeling quite good about it. Also, this time when I looked at my photos, I had a lot more that I liked than in previous outings when that baggage weighed heavily upon my back. So, did I leave the baggage there? Of course not; it’s my baggage! I still carry it with me, but am able to take a rest from it a couple of times per day.

Oh, since I’m flipping back and forth, both of these are digital shots converted to B&W.

Context

Posted by Paul on January 25, 2010
Posted in: Photography. Tagged: , .

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Leica M6 – Ilford HP5 – Rodinal 1:50
I’ve not gone to a gallery in a while. However, when I do, one of the first things that I try to do is look at the photographs and get a sense of what they might mean to me personally, if anything.

The same goes for visiting blogs that include both text and images. I like to look at the image first, to see how I see, with all of my personal baggage, beliefs, etc. Then, if the photo is associated with the text in anyway, get an additional bit of context to lend even more meaning to the photo.

In response to Saturday’s post, Exploring Something New, Juha said:

For some reason, I was so fixated on looking at the bench that I didn’t see the background (and the mill) at all, until I read your posting. Strange how this image works, now it seems to be very different from the first impression.

In that photo, before reading my words, that bench held some significance for him; however, after reading my words, it resulted in a change of perception. I find that very interesting how that can happen. We can use words to change perception and focus (no pun intended) on what is important.

I think that it would be a very interesting thing to hang a set of photos, say 10 or 12, include no captions, or context of any type, and survey some number of individuals from different countries, walks of life, etc, to see what they got out of it. It would be similar, I imagine, to our futile efforts in high school English Literature class where we had to read a story or a poem and try to ‘understand’ what the author was really trying to say.

In a way, a photo without a caption or text is a lot like a Rorschach inkblot test, except in the case of a photograph, we know what the items are; that is clear, but the underlying understanding or meaning, is very subjective and dependent upon the psyche of the individual.