"I seem to be waking to a larger world of wonderment- to catch little glimpses of the immensity of creation. More than at any other time in my life, I seem to be aware of the beauties of our spinning planet and the sky above. Old age is sharpening my awareness."
Ram Dass - Being With What Is
When I read Ram Dass's quote early this morning, I thought, yes, I understand this.
And then I went out with my camera.
At 7:15 there were no other cars at the Henderson Recreation Centre and I walked towards the area I had visited yesterday, to find the little tree that had so captivated me.
Where was it? I couldn't believe that I did not immediately recognize it- I had downloaded more than fifty photographic portraits just the day before!  
I had been so focused on one tiny portion of the tree, that I hadn't really noticed its overall structure. I was enthralled with the jewel-like richness of colour in the crook, nestled between several branches. In this small area, covering perhaps eight inches, there was a rippling and puckering of wood and tiny concentric semi-circles. The colours seemed part of a rainbow.
I had moved closer and still closer until my camera's lens-protector touched the wood. Each time I pressed the shutter, I moved ever so slightly, sideways and then onto my toes. For almost an hour I was receptive: the heart of the tree and I were in perfect harmony.
  
click any photograph to see a full-sized image
Today, when I finally rediscovered the tree's location, the light was at first too dim and then too harsh to truly capture its beauty. While I have walked along this chip trail, perhaps one hundred times, it was only yesterday that the tree's radiance held me captive. It was as if yesterday I had entered a sacred place, and that today, the magic was gone. |
Sunday, 22 February 2015
Being With What Is
Wednesday, 18 February 2015
a pause from gardening
This morning, I discovered a perfect way to pace myself in the garden. I don't need to set the timer for 30 minutes, as the Arthritis Centre recommends, rather, I find the perfect subject to photograph, and then abruptly cast aside my work gloves and go inside for my camera.
Here is a selection of this morning's photographs.
click any photograph to see a full sized image
Monday, 16 February 2015
All The Light We Cannot See
In Anthony Doeer's most recent book, Madame Manec says to her long-time employer, "Don't you want to be alive before you die?"
She is talking to great-uncle Etienne, who has, for decades, lived solely within the confines of his tall house, in the company of his fears.
This morning I tuned into the Vinyl Cafe just as Stewart Mclean was recounting one of his wonderful Dave and Morley stories. It took the form of a letter written to Dave, a reply to a sympathy note he had sent to the wife of his childhood baseball coach. In this moving letter, the widow recounts how she and her husband spent their last vacation together, describing how, unable to sit, her husband lay on a yellow inflated air mattress which she dragged down to the lake every morning and again in the afternoon, so they could be together by the lake and hear the loons. This was a dream holiday they had talked about for years. This was a trip about love.
There is a strange popularity of books listing the places you need to see before you die; 'life lists' with itineraries of things to do and places to go. The Smithsonian website notes that 'bookstores brim with the titles such as 1,000 Places To See Before You Die, 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die' ...and the more esoteric, 'Fifty Places To Go Birding Before You Die.'
I particularly like an entry on Barnes & Noble's site that announces Patricia Schultz's 1.000 Places To See Before You Die, 2nd Edition: completely Revised and Updated with Over 200 New Entries. Were 200 entries dropped from the must-see list to make room? Had people travelled to places that they need not have visited?
While articles and books and websites write a great deal about what to do before death- seeming to imply that until you travel to these places, your life will be lacking- I haven't noticed one that quite simply says, be. here. now.
Be with yourself and with treasured ones of your own choosing; be open to love from unexpected sources; continue to do what you love most, even if it's for shorter periods of time and perhaps adjusted somewhat.
Continue wondering. And seeing. And being delighted.
Listen.
Forgive.
Love yourself.
In her book, Comfortable with Uncertainty, Pema Chodron talks about loving-kindness towards ourselves, about how this maitri doesn't mean we need to toss out how we feel- whether it be anger or jealousy or feelings of timidness or craziness-but rather, she writes, loving kindness is about 'befriending who we are already.'
While Madame asks the initial question in All The Light We Cannot See, it is Marie-Laure who nudges her great-uncle forward. It is because of her that Etienne, sequestered for nearly 24 years, becomes fully engaged in life.
** ** ** **
'Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.'
(All The Light We Cannot See)
A Lakota Nation saying is that 'forgiveness is about giving up all hope for a better past.'
Monday, 19 January 2015
reflection
On Friday, it will be one full year since I became a blogger. One year since fromtheothersideofseventy hit cyber-space. I believed then that I'd be focusing on the aging process; how being an 'elder' was affecting me, and how, in North America, we become devalued as we age. On such a blog, I might have listed the Seniors' Discount Days at the various pharmacies in our city, gathered like-minded matriarchs to protest at the Legislature against the retraction of seniors' free mid-week ferry rides and perhaps posted the names of local centenarians getting congratulatory cards from the Queen.
Last week, I read every one of my posts and looked at all the photos. 'Wow!' I thought, 'it hasn't turned out to be like that at all.'
It has become a place where I examine what is going on in my life and delve more deeply into who I am- with a bit of 'why?' thrown in. It's been a place to both take myself less seriously and to acknowledge my seriousness with more respect.
Most important of all: it has been fun.
To celebrate, I am posting a series of recent photographs taken with my new camera (Panasonic Lumix FZ200) at the Oak Bay Marina.
and particularly the abstraction that their reflections create
A palette of colour and an abundance of amazing design
I look forward to continuing on this steep learning curve;
it will be fun to see where I wander
click any photograph to see a full sized image
Tuesday, 6 January 2015
the zen of creativity
Two years ago, I purchased a book written by John Daido Loori, The Zen of Creativity- Cultivating Your Artistic Life. This beautifully illustrated book is filled with poems, quotations and reflections on Loori's own spiritual journey. The simple and elegant format, with its generous use of white space, drew me.
Over the next several months, I glanced through the book, placing some scraps of paper to bookmark the lines that I wished to copy. However, as I read small portions of the text, I concluded that the purchase had been a mistake: the book was far Too Zen for me. I would pass it on to one of my more meditative friends, I reasoned, after I had written down some of the quotations. Bur still the book and I clung to each other; it moved from an overflow pile of books on the floor, onto the computer table.
hint hint
Last evening, I placed my camera by the front door in readiness. I had purchased a Panasonic FZ200 at the end of December with a 15-day trial period and I was eager to experiment further. It was raining as I drank my first cafe au lait. A steady drizzle was falling at 10 o'clock. At noon, I moved my camera to a shelf.
With my outing postponed, I decided to attack the chaos of the desk. Under a stack of papers and an old paperback Greek cookbook, I rediscovered the fawn-coloured book. Pushing the clutter aside, I began to read.
Loori (Daido Roshi) was one of the West's leading Zen masters. He was the founder and spiritual leader of the Mountain and Rivers Order of Zen Buddhism and abbot of Zen Mountains Monastery, one of America's major Zen training monasteries. He was known for his ability to adapt traditional Buddhism into a western context.
I discovered that Daido Loori was also an award winning photographer. He was influenced by the photographer Minor White, who used meditation and mindfulness techniques in his work. This connection with White in 1971 was instrumental in Loori's fascination with art as a spiritual practice.
no wonder I had kept this book
Before I went to bed I read a bit of the introduction. Loori writes 'It was impossible for me to enter Zen through the front door of a monastery. Yet I was able to enter the religious life through the back door of the arts, and gradually to trust my life to lead me where it would.'
sweet dreams
When Loori took a week-long workshop with White, the assignment on the fourth day was for the participants to photograph their essence. 'Don't photograph your personality,' he explained. 'Try to go deep into the core of your being. Photograph who you really are.' White said '...go into the landscape... let your subject find you.' He said you would know when you found it; there would be a resonance. This resonance would fade as you moved away, and grow stronger as you returned towards it.
The state of mind of the photographer while
creating is a blank...(but) It is a very active state
of mind really, a very receptive state of mind, ready
at an instant to grasp an image, yet with no image pre-formed in it at any time.
Minor White
this morning's images
click on any photograph to see a full-screen image
this web site of Mountains and Rivers Order of Zen Buddhism
is devoted to Daido Loori Roshi
http://www.mro.org/daido/first-generation-american-zen-master/
Last evening, I placed my camera by the front door in readiness. I had purchased a Panasonic FZ200 at the end of December with a 15-day trial period and I was eager to experiment further. It was raining as I drank my first cafe au lait. A steady drizzle was falling at 10 o'clock. At noon, I moved my camera to a shelf.
With my outing postponed, I decided to attack the chaos of the desk. Under a stack of papers and an old paperback Greek cookbook, I rediscovered the fawn-coloured book. Pushing the clutter aside, I began to read.
Loori (Daido Roshi) was one of the West's leading Zen masters. He was the founder and spiritual leader of the Mountain and Rivers Order of Zen Buddhism and abbot of Zen Mountains Monastery, one of America's major Zen training monasteries. He was known for his ability to adapt traditional Buddhism into a western context.
I discovered that Daido Loori was also an award winning photographer. He was influenced by the photographer Minor White, who used meditation and mindfulness techniques in his work. This connection with White in 1971 was instrumental in Loori's fascination with art as a spiritual practice.
no wonder I had kept this book
Before I went to bed I read a bit of the introduction. Loori writes 'It was impossible for me to enter Zen through the front door of a monastery. Yet I was able to enter the religious life through the back door of the arts, and gradually to trust my life to lead me where it would.'
sweet dreams
When Loori took a week-long workshop with White, the assignment on the fourth day was for the participants to photograph their essence. 'Don't photograph your personality,' he explained. 'Try to go deep into the core of your being. Photograph who you really are.' White said '...go into the landscape... let your subject find you.' He said you would know when you found it; there would be a resonance. This resonance would fade as you moved away, and grow stronger as you returned towards it.
creating is a blank...(but) It is a very active state
of mind really, a very receptive state of mind, ready
at an instant to grasp an image, yet with no image pre-formed in it at any time.
Minor White
this morning's images
click on any photograph to see a full-screen image
this web site of Mountains and Rivers Order of Zen Buddhism
is devoted to Daido Loori Roshi
http://www.mro.org/daido/first-generation-american-zen-master/
Thursday, 1 January 2015
good tidings of joy
After my little Panasonic was ruined by sand in Tofino, Laurie posted on my Facebook page: 'May the perfect camera come in with the tide.'
This morning I spent a couple of hours playing with a new camera.
These photographs were taken on Beach Drive near the Marina.
The tide has come in!
click any photograph for a full-sized image
Sunday, 28 December 2014
the good, the bad and the ugly...
...more or less.
sunrise
I love Tofino...summer winter and fall. The expansive South Chesterman Beach, the peacefulness and the exquisite beauty; we are so very fortunate to live on this beautiful Island. We arrived back in Victoria yesterday after a peaceful and exhilarating 4 1/2 days; the piles of laundry and the square glass plate heaped with shells and other bits from the sea, remind me. Otherwise, this day, filled with business and traffic, would have me forget.
The weather was October-beautiful and my frantic Victoria search for rain pants proved unnecessary. Even I saw humour in the rain gear hunt: first searching MEC, Capital Iron and Robinson's and finally buying a kids size 14 at Patagonia, overpriced and way too big. The next day, while buying some hats and scarves for people living on the street, I literally bumped into a pair of like-new MEC rain pants at a thrift store. Half-price, reduced from $4 to $2! (I returned the others)
I spent the days in Tofino doing just what I love best: walking on the sandy beach. Gum boots instead of bare feet. Smelling the ocean, and seeing the patterns in the water and in the sky.
Taking photographs and gathering shells.
Enter the more or less 'bad'. Because my attention was divided between shell-collecting and photography, my fingers dropped a grain or two of damp sand onto the lens of my most favourite Panasonic DMCZS30. I didn't realize at first, until the automatic lens wouldn't close completely. Nor would it open fully. The sand was truly imbedded. I warned Brian that I would be in deep mourning and severe upset for at least a day, so to be prepared.
I have said before, how my camera helps me see more clearly, to find texture and intricate detail. To notice the soul in things. Without it, I seemed to see less, not more.
Moving towards 'ugly', this morning I spent over an hour at London Drugs looking for a new camera. As is the way with technology, every year when a new model comes out, the old is discontinued. Never mind that the ZS35 is inferior to its predecessor in every way and that the brand new ZS40 has some serious limitations. The small cameras I saw with better lenses had less zoom capability. Not suitable for me. So, in the end, I took a camera home on a 15 day trial. (Panasonic DMCFZ200) It takes beautiful photos. Absolutely. It is heavy and definitely not pocket or purse size. The really ugly bit is that my arthritic thumb is aching from just holding it at the store.
I will go on a photo shoot trial tomorrow- ironically just after an early morning appointment at the Arthritis Centre with an occupational therapist, who will fit me for a thumb brace!
I love Tofino...summer winter and fall. The expansive South Chesterman Beach, the peacefulness and the exquisite beauty; we are so very fortunate to live on this beautiful Island. We arrived back in Victoria yesterday after a peaceful and exhilarating 4 1/2 days; the piles of laundry and the square glass plate heaped with shells and other bits from the sea, remind me. Otherwise, this day, filled with business and traffic, would have me forget.
The weather was October-beautiful and my frantic Victoria search for rain pants proved unnecessary. Even I saw humour in the rain gear hunt: first searching MEC, Capital Iron and Robinson's and finally buying a kids size 14 at Patagonia, overpriced and way too big. The next day, while buying some hats and scarves for people living on the street, I literally bumped into a pair of like-new MEC rain pants at a thrift store. Half-price, reduced from $4 to $2! (I returned the others)
I spent the days in Tofino doing just what I love best: walking on the sandy beach. Gum boots instead of bare feet. Smelling the ocean, and seeing the patterns in the water and in the sky.
Taking photographs and gathering shells.
Enter the more or less 'bad'. Because my attention was divided between shell-collecting and photography, my fingers dropped a grain or two of damp sand onto the lens of my most favourite Panasonic DMCZS30. I didn't realize at first, until the automatic lens wouldn't close completely. Nor would it open fully. The sand was truly imbedded. I warned Brian that I would be in deep mourning and severe upset for at least a day, so to be prepared.
I have said before, how my camera helps me see more clearly, to find texture and intricate detail. To notice the soul in things. Without it, I seemed to see less, not more.
Moving towards 'ugly', this morning I spent over an hour at London Drugs looking for a new camera. As is the way with technology, every year when a new model comes out, the old is discontinued. Never mind that the ZS35 is inferior to its predecessor in every way and that the brand new ZS40 has some serious limitations. The small cameras I saw with better lenses had less zoom capability. Not suitable for me. So, in the end, I took a camera home on a 15 day trial. (Panasonic DMCFZ200) It takes beautiful photos. Absolutely. It is heavy and definitely not pocket or purse size. The really ugly bit is that my arthritic thumb is aching from just holding it at the store.
I will go on a photo shoot trial tomorrow- ironically just after an early morning appointment at the Arthritis Centre with an occupational therapist, who will fit me for a thumb brace!
These photographs are from our first morning in Tofino
If anyone has a used Panasonic DMCZS30 for sale please let me know!
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