Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography, Uncategorized on March 24, 2016| Leave a Comment »
If you’ve got it, flaunt it.
Proud as a peacock.
Interesting phrases, huh? But isn’t it truly beautiful when we fully express our uniqueness? Isn’t it wonderful when we can be really present in the world and share who we are?
I don’t think it’s about flaunting or “strutting proudly”. Those are phrases used to suppress and control.
You are unique.
You are special.
Express yourself.
Share your uniqueness with the world.
I suspect that’s why you’re here.
Posted in creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, philosophy, photography, psychology, Uncategorized on March 21, 2016| 1 Comment »
Two gardens.
Could they be more different?
The first is the Hanbury Botanic Garden in Ventimiglia, Italy, and the second is Marqueyssac in the Dordogne, France.
Thomas Berry, in The Great Work, describes the two forces of the universe as wildness and discipline. David Wade, in The Crystal and the Dragon, describes them as the moving, flowing principle, and the ordering, or structuring principle. You get the idea? One tends toward expansion and one towards constriction. Empedocles wrote about Neikos and Philia, the forces of repulsion/separation and of attraction/combination.
There is no right or wrong here. Both forces need each other, like the yin and the yang. As they interact with each other, as we produce integration (the creation of mutually beneficial bonds between well differentiated parts), we create.
These two gardens are examples of this. In the first case, the Hanbury Garden, there is a glorious “far from equilibrium” quality brought about by encouraging diversity and a light touch on control. In the Marqueyssac, constant pruning, trimming and shaping brings this astonishing spread of geometric and repeating forms.
Is one more beautiful than the other?
I suspect each of us have certain preferences…..drawn towards the wildness, or drawn towards the discipline.
Isn’t it great when we can have “and” not “or”? It just requires the will to explore and to stand back and see the view from Sirius.
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography, Uncategorized on March 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »
When you look at seeds starting to burst out of their pod, you glimpse some possible futures…..but which seed will take root, which will be nurtured, which will thrive?
Don’t think there’s any way of knowing……
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography, Uncategorized on March 9, 2016| Leave a Comment »
As I stood looking out over the Mediterranean I saw this.
Water. Stretching in every direction. From this distance it looks calm, almost smooth. But from where I stood I could hear the waves breaking on the rocks, the water spraying into the air then slipping back down from the land into the sea again. Without water, no Life.
Fire. That silver shining strip of light caused by the Sun’s rays sparkling the sea. But it’s a false horizon. Beyond that apparent edge, if you look carefully, you can see more water. The fire of the Sun warms the water and warms the Earth. It’s the source of all our energy. Without the fire of the Sun, no Life.
Earth. Look more closely now, beyond the water on the other side of the sunlight. Can you see shadows? Hazy impressions of something more solid? The Earth. Islands, other lands, rocks and stones and sand. Earth, the element which changes so slowly. Without earth, no Life.
Air. No, you can’t see the air. But as I stood there I filled my lungs with it. The clear, fresh, sea-scented air. The most invisible of all the elements, constantly changing, as I breathe in and breathe out again. As you breathe in and breathe out again. As all living creatures breathe in and breathe out again. Without air, no Life.
Then look again. Look down at the bottom right hand corner of this photograph. See the tree? Doesn’t she look like she has a fancy hat on? Doesn’t it seem as if she is looking out over the water, the fire, the earth and the air? It seems to me that she is stretching both her arms up towards the sky and celebrating.
Makes you want to join in, don’t you think?
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, philosophy, photography, Uncategorized on March 7, 2016| 1 Comment »
Do you ever wonder about purpose? About who you are and why you are here? I do.
One of the answers I keep coming across is that each of us in unique, and each of us has an inner drive to be alive and to flourish….to be the most, the best, the fullest me I can be….because nobody else in the Universe can do that. Nobody else was ever identical to me and nobody in the future ever will be.
I think it’s just the same for every living organism.
Look at the way this flower opens herself up to the sunlight and manifests herself to the world. See how beautiful she is. How delicate, fragile, yet gloriously strong to grow and develop to this fullness.
It seems so appropriate to choose to illustrate this idea with a flower – after all, isn’t that where the word “flourishing” came from?
Isn’t that at the very least one of my true purposes in Life – to flourish in my uniqueness. I think it’s yours too. You, too, are completely unique, and only you can share that uniqueness with the rest of us. I hope you do.
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography, Uncategorized on March 3, 2016| 1 Comment »
Menton, France.
Ventimiglia, Italy.
You can drive from Menton to Ventimiglia in about ten minutes. Each town is about five minutes from the border between France and Italy. Crossing the border, despite what the “state of emergency” in France, was as simple as waving to the Border guards as we drove from the one country into the other. It was as easy both ways. I suppose this is what the “Schengen” agreement really means….the ability to travel from one European country to another without even having to stop and show a passport. I love the diversity of Europe, and the ease of movement from one country to another. What a shame all that seems to be at risk now, with some countries building barbed wire fences along their borders and anti-European rhetoric ramping up in the UK as the referendum approaches.
I think you’ll agree from my two photos here that these two towns have clear similarities, but for me, a Scot who speaks some French, to travel from Menton where everything felt quite…..well, distinctly French with an Italian twist, to Ventimiglia which is distinctly Italian, without a French twist, it was, as Forrest Gump said, like going to “a whole other country”.
I’m in the habit now of saying “Bonjour” when I walk into shops or cafes, so my first encounter with difference in Ventimiglia was the response “Buon giorno”, to my “Bonjour”. In a cafe, I was surprised that when I gave my order in French (I know, why did I do that??), the Italian waitress responded in English. Not only did she pick up I wasn’t Italian of course, but she picked up I was an English-speaker speaking French. Well I suppose I speak French with a strong Scottish accent. I’ve since been told by a French person that it’s common to find Italians prefer to speak English rather than French. Is that true? Well, I reckon if I lived in or near Menton and could pop back and forward between France and Italy so easily, I’d be learning Italian as well as French – and speaking them both with a Scottish accent!
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, Uncategorized on February 28, 2016| Leave a Comment »
I love it when I see a beautiful reflection in a pond or a lake. Here’s one I saw recently in a botanical garden in Menton.
When you look at an image like this it’s quite disorientating at first as you try to figure out exactly what you are looking at. The funny thing is that when you are actually there, there is no confusion.
I suppose it just goes to show how context helps us to make sense of what we see. Focus in on a part of what you see, then pull it out into a separate, disconnected image, and it isn’t so clear any more.
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography, Uncategorized on February 24, 2016| 1 Comment »
There are no straight lines in Nature
And there are no straight lines in Life either…..
Have you ever thought that it’s the ability to change direction, to turn this way and that, to respond to the changes around us, to grasp our opportunities to connect to the others we encounter along the way…..that create these beautiful, elaborate, complex, unpredictable paths in our lives?
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, neuroscience, perception, personal growth, philosophy, photography, Uncategorized on February 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »
I love the places where different elements meet. There’s a magic there. Here are three I saw recently.
Where sun, air, clouds and rain meet the sea…..
Where the sea meets the land…..
and where the snow meets the forest and the clouds meet the mountains…
Iain McGilchrist, in his Master and His Emissary, describes how our right cerebral hemisphere has an approach to the world which focuses on “betweenness”. I think looking out for, and noticing, the meeting points, these boundaries, margins and connections in the world is a great way of activating your right hemisphere.
It’s a good way of just enjoying the sheer beauty of the world too!
Posted in creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography, Uncategorized on February 7, 2016| 1 Comment »
Sometimes the beauty of the sky straight above your head reminds you of something you saw earlier when you looked down at your feet….
Heroes Not Zombies 