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Archive for the ‘photography’ Category

Eye in the sky

Posted in art, creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, life, narrative, perception, personal growth, philosophy, photography, tagged on April 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »

I love a blue sky. It lifts my spirits and warms my heart.

A plain dull grey sky has the opposite effect.

But wait, the sky isn’t featureless. Even a horizon to horizon cover of grey cloud is never completely homogenous. There are always variations there. There are thickenings, patches where the sun almost breaks through, or lighter patches which are backlit by the sun. There are swirls and lines and sheets and all kinds of forms. You just need to slow down, pay attention and notice.

I think the richness of features in the sky are partly down to the water molecules which make up the clouds, partly down to the light from the sun, partly down to the temperature changes and air currents, but it has another layer of richness added by the human imagination. We are the pattern seekers, and pattern creators par excellence.

Look at this sky for example.

There’s the silhouette of the edge of a tree on the far right of the image. Let your gaze drift across leftwards from there. What do you see?

I see the shape of an eye. The way I’d start to draw an eye by marking two lines in the shape of connected ellipses. There’s no sign of an eyeball, so this is either a closed eye, with the darker edge of the lower lid representing eyelashes, or it is the eye-shaped hole we often see in masks.

Once I’ve seen this I can’t un-see it.

Isn’t that strange?

It takes the imagination to “see” an eye in the sky, but once it’s there it has an impact. I feel watched. I feel seen. I can understand how ancient peoples believed that multiple gods and spirits lived with them. And even if those gods and spirits don’t seem real any more. There was a time when we humans had an awareness of a shared cosmos. They experienced wholeness and connections in their everyday. They didn’t have to question or analyse it, reality just seemed to be that way. Everywhere they looked they saw patterns, told stories, made sense of the phenomena of the ordinary day. Everywhere they turned they brought their imagination to bear and saw connections, discerned meanings, and drew upon what they learned to create art, to find their way across the planet, and to learn how to adapt to the changes and the seasons.

I don’t think there is any way to go back to those times, and I also believe that we have learned a lot since then, that we have deepened our understandings, broadened our knowledge. But I have a nagging feeling that we live in more superficial times now. That life seems somewhat thinner without that rich imaginative layer of stories, shapes, forms and patterns.

But, hey, none of that has gone away. We are able to slow down, to pay attention and to activate our imaginations any time we want. We can see more than a passing glance will reveal. We can make connections of greater depth and significance. We can new stories of the wholeness of Gaia, of the interconnectedness of all beings, of the constantly changing evolution and development of forms and diversity.

We can enrich our lives with art, poetry, stories, music, dance, ritual and loving relationships.

Well, why not?

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Strangely familiar

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography on April 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »

I had never even heard of a hummingbird moth before I came to live here in the Charente. I’d never heard of a hoopoe bird either.

Look at them – aren’t they amongst the most unusual creatures you’ve ever seen?

You know the hummingbird moth is around from the noise of its wings. They emit a deep, bass, tone, quite unlike that of any other flying insects. They love the buddleia plants, just as the butterflies do. I love to watch them hover in front of the plant, and slip that long, skinny proboscis down into each flower to drink up the nectar. They make their way from tiny flower to flower. I can’t imagine just how little nectar they must get from each single flower, but they just keep going, making their way, their special, apparently totally random way, from flower to flower, and bush to bush.

You know the hoopoe is around from its distinctive call – which sounds like, well, you guessed it, “hoo-po, hoo-po”. I think when I first heard it I thought it was perhaps a cuckoo or a dove, but I’ve learned, now, to recognise it as the hoopoe. Isn’t he the most unusual shape? With that long, long beak, he runs around across the grass, stopping to drill down into the soil and come up with a grub, or a worm. I have absolutely no idea how he does that. The movements, like those of the hummingbird moth, seem completely random. Yet, time and again, he comes up with food. Can he hear what’s going on under the soil? Can he smell his prey? Does he detect movement beneath his feet? I really don’t know, but I love to watch him. Once the chicks are born, you can see them follow a parent around as the search for food. The little ones drill down again and again and rarely seem to come up with anything to eat. Their parents feed them at first. Then one day they’ll turn up by themselves and sometimes I’ve thought, oh no, this little bird is never going to find any food, but they keep at it, running this way and that and stopping to peck, apparently randomly. Then after a while, they crack it, and come up trumps as often as their parents do.

These are two creatures which were so strange to me, and, in fact, I still find them exceptionally strange, but they’ve become familiar to me. I look forward to the first one of the season arriving in the garden, and I never tire of watching how they live.

Isn’t it strange how the unfamiliar can become familiar, without losing its distinctive uniqueness?
That’s what these photos make me think. How every day is unique, how every person is unique, how every living creature is unique. And what delight that brings me.

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Sharing

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, philosophy, photography on April 24, 2021| 2 Comments »

One summer day, three years ago, we were sitting out in the garden having lunch. Here in the Charente there is a particular variety of melon – the Charnetais melon. It’s the perfect size to cut in half, scoop out the seeds, and fill the middle with Pineau (a local drink produced by the surrounding vineyards). An easy and delicious dish.

We have several Buddleia bushes in the garden and they attract a lot of butterflies and humming-bird moths.

On this particular occasion, this butterfly decided to join us for lunch, and flew down onto the melon my daughter was about to eat (she seems to attract butterflies even better than the buddleia bushes do, by the way). The butterfly took its time and enjoyed the Pineau – can you see how its proboscis is disappearing down into the alcohol?

This little episode made the lunch experience even better. It added to our pleasure, our delight and our senses of wonder and joy.

As I look at this image again today I’m struck by how the key theme seems to be sharing.

We were happy to share our lunch with the butterfly. More than that, sharing our lunch made the lunch even better.

Isn’t that often the case with sharing? Isn’t a drink, a coffee, a meal, enhanced when we share it with those who we love?

This has been one of the greatest challenges of the pandemic so far, and I suspect it’s going to remain a significant issue for many months to come. Because of enforced distancing, lockdowns, experiences of deaths of loved ones, we’ve been living more isolated lives. Yes, probably we’re all using messaging apps more, using video links more, maybe making more contact over all than we did before but it’s different isn’t it? Yes, we can have a “video party” together and it can be fun. Yes, we can share a “video apero” with friends and catch up. But there’s a lot of everyday, ordinary sharing which we did together that has been put on hold.

However, isn’t one of the most striking features of this pandemic the extent to which so many human beings are prepared to look out for other people, to care for other people, to even put their lives on the line to heal other people?

Isn’t one of the most striking features how scientists around the world have shared their knowledge, ideas and research results with each other?

Isn’t one of the most striking features how governments and their central banks have suddenly discovered they can find the money to support individuals and businesses during these enforced closures?

This is where my hope lies. I know the forces of greed and privilege are still as active as ever. I know the forces of prejudice and injustice are as active as ever. But we have a chance to blow on these positive embers of sharing and see if we can make them glow brighter.

We don’t need to go back to competitive, selfish, hyper-individualistic ways of living. We can build on what we’ve learned – that we share this one world. That we are all interconnected and we can share the problems and the solutions. We can be generous. We can look out for others, care more, share more. We can build on what we have in common, and delight in working together, creating together and sharing together.

Can’t we?

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Window for light

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography on April 23, 2021| 1 Comment »

When I came across this window the light drew me towards it. The window itself is a pretty standard, rectangular shape. I like the squared paper effect, but I don’t like the iron bars on the outside. I know that in some countries bars on the windows of houses are very common place, but they tend to put me in mind of prisons. I just don’t like them.

So there were elements in this window which appealed to me, and those which I found somewhat off-putting. However, it was the quality of the light itself which really appealed to me and I decided to photograph the light. That’s why I stepped back from the window and took this photo.

Having taken the photo, from the first time I reviewed it on my computer, and every time since, I’ve been struck by the presence of the seats in the foreground.

Why are those seats there?

Not to sit and look out the window at the garden or whatever you can see “out there”. Because the window is opaque. You can’t really see through it all.

So why sit there?

To see the light.

To experience the light.

To enjoy the light.

It’s a funny thing but it’s this window, and a couple of other ones I’ve encountered, shift my focus away from what I can see “out there” through the window and replace that with a focus on the quality of light streaming through “into here”.

Does that sound like it isn’t much? Maybe it does, but, you know, I think when we look out of a window to see what’s “out there” then the window itself disappears. It’s a frame, and lens, and as such, it contains, and filters what we are seeing. And I think a lot of the time, we are not very aware of the frames and lenses which colour and alter our view of reality. But when we shift the focus to our experience of the light, then something different happens.

Is this the shift between grasping something, (the main way in which we “exploit” the world), and simply experiencing the present moment (the main way we “explore” the world)?

Is this the shift between a utilitarian approach, asking “but what is the window for?” to something more playful, something which has value in its own right, not just to act as a tool to achieving something else?

Huh, suddenly I’m reminded of an essay by C S Lewis about observing a shaft of light in his shed, then moving to be within the light itself, something which he used to think about the difference between observing and experiencing. I wrote about it once…..ah, yes, here it is, if you’d like to read it.

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Repetition

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, neuroscience, perception, photography, psychology on April 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »

In order to learn and grow we need two, apparently opposite, behaviours. We need to do, or discover something different, something new, or else we’d be stuck where we are. We need to move out of our comfort zones, and to try new things, if we want to develop.

But we learn nothing well, if we never repeat things. Have you ever tried to learn a new language, or acquire any new knowledge? It’s a lot easier if you go over the new words, new concepts or information, again and again. In fact, a key insight from learning theory is to re-present to you, at timed intervals, whatever it is you are trying to learn. There are many pieces of software which facilitate this, and language learning programmes use this technique as well. They present you the words you’ve just learned and test your learning. If you pass, the item is shown to you again after a longer interval than it is if you fail. So the items you haven’t quite learned yet are repeatedly presented to you over a short period until you’ve got them into you brain.

At university, studying Medicine, we had to acquire a lot of new knowledge. I remember being presented with three volumes of a manual of human anatomy before we started dissection class, and I asked the tutor, “Which bits of this do we need to learn?” His reply was “Which bits of a human being do you hope to treat once you qualify?” OK, I got it. It was ALL of it! Everything described in those three volumes! And that was just human anatomy.

Well, we all pretty quickly created our methods to learn and retain all these new facts, writing notes in notebooks, copying out the notes into other notebooks, turning some of the information into flashcards and shuffling those packs time and time again until we got them all right.

Our right cerebral hemisphere is great for seeking out and learning what’s new. It seems to have a real predilection for novelty. Our left hemisphere on the other prefers what it has already encountered. It loves to repeat again and again, rehearsing and refining everything which the right hemisphere presented to it. That’s why it’s good to use the whole brain – we need to encounter the new, and we need to repeat and revise to learn.

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Creative difference

Posted in creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography, science on April 21, 2021| 1 Comment »

Water and rock. Two very different forms of matter. The one flowing, moving, changing, restless. The other solid, steady, firm and enduring.

What happens when these two forms meet, as they are doing so vividly in this image?

Just look at the water amongst the rocks. I’ve zoomed in to focus on this area but you can see the ocean beyond the rocks and it looks pretty quiet and peaceful in comparison. In this zone, where the water is bounded by the rocks, it is seething. There is turmoil. There is action. There is an abundance of energy. You can see that, hear that, feel that.

In fact the water and the rocks are in a relationship. They are constantly exchanging atoms and molecules with each other. The rocks set a boundary for the flow of the water, giving it a shape, the shape of a roiling cauldron. The water leaches minerals out of the rocks. The water dissolves the surface of the rock. So, just as the rocks shape the water, so does the water shape the rock.

This exchange of materials goes both ways. There are molecules and substances deposited onto and seeped into the rock as the water crashes over it, again and again.

I look at this photo and I see the creative power of difference. When different energies, different materials, different thoughts and ideas crash against each other, and constantly interact freely with each other then they release a creative power.

If every day feels the same, if all our days are filled with the same mindless habits and routines, if we only ever exchange with the same people, comfort ourselves with our social media echo chambers, then our energy starts to sag. The mundane, the apparently unchanging, the monotony, are all energy sapping, and without energy there is no creation, no growth, no life.

I think it’s one of the most important things to do in life – make new connections, discover new things, new places, make new relationships and friends, read about new ideas, listen to new music, read new poetry……you get the idea.

I heard a psychologist talking about children recently, explaining how children’s brains seem to work differently from adult brains. She drew from both psychology and computer research to describe – the “explorer/exploiter” duality. We are all born as explorers and young children are in that mode all day. Everything is an adventure. Every day is filled with discovery and learning. Then as we get older we begin to prioritise the exploiter mode, learning to how focus, make plans, and how to fashion the things around in into objects and goals we want to achieve.

Well, the truth is, we need explorer mode a lot more than we use it. So why not start today? Discover, do, experience the creative power of difference.

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Another world

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, photography, tagged , on April 20, 2021| 1 Comment »

This is probably the most unusual and spectacular rainbow I’ve ever experienced. I took this photo (and a whole batch of others) when this rainbow appeared at the top of the hill over the vineyards a few years back.

I’ve never seen this phenomenon before, nor since. What makes it so special is how the whole world under the rainbow is a different colour, a different intensity of light, from the rest of the world. It really seemed that the rainbow was revealing another world. A world within our world, a world shining through our world to reveal itself.

I’ve thought about this several times since, and every time I go back and look at these images again.

Normally when I see a rainbow, it looks just like a band, or an arc, painted onto the sky. But this rainbow seemed to be a whole three dimensional phenomenon. It really seemed as if I was being shown a different world below the bands of colour. A world which seemed brighter, more vivid, and so, more real than the “normal” world.

That colour reminds me a bit of something I’ve seen in some movies where they use that sort of colouration to tell you that you are watching a flashback.

So I felt that I was witnessing something which was a shift in both time and place…….a glitch in the space-time continuum.

No wonder it felt special!

When I look at it again today I am struck, yet again, by the sense of glimpsing “another world”, and that’s a phrase I’ve come across many times during this pandemic. How many of us are saying the way we’ve been living, the way we’ve been organising our societies and economies, is exactly what has brought us to where we are – turned upside down by wave after wave of this tiny little virus. So, if we want to do more than survive this, if we want to emerge from this experience having learned a whole bunch of lessons, then maybe we are well placed to create “another world” – a different world which would be healthier, more resilient, more robust, more able to adapt and grow.

So, when I thought about that I realised that when I’ve been trying to imagine what that world of “after” could look like, I realise now that I’ve been thinking of what doesn’t exist. That’s all very well, but very utopian, and maybe, frankly, unachievable. But what this rainbow experience reveals to me is not another world which doesn’t exist, but another world which DOES exist.

Bear with me here……here’s some of the things I’ve noticed during this pandemic. Poorly paid, undervalued workers in our societies have become the evident “heroes”, have become “essential workers” who keep society alive. They haven’t changed what they do. In many ways they have been the invisible workers……the health carers, teachers, shop assistants, drivers, cleaners…..the list goes on. Our societies have tended to laud and promote “celebrities”, rich people, and certain high profile politicians. It turns out that maybe we had our priorities upside down. Maybe we should be celebrating, valuing, supporting and rewarding the thousands and thousands of “ordinary” workers who keep us all alive more than those whose greatest skills seem to be self-promotion and greed.

We’ve suffered from over a decade of “austerity” economics, of neoliberal economics which have promoted ideas such as the need for governments to “balance the budget”, of “trickle down ecomomics” (to encourage greed because as the rich get richer then their largesse will gradually trickle down to the poor), of “Homo economicus” (the model of human behaviour based on self-interest and rational choice), of the “wisdom of the market” and the pernicious nature of “big government”. But suddenly, the “magic money tree” has been found and governments have found the ability and the desire to spend trillions to keep society going and to fight the pandemic.

Do you see what I mean? I could go on and give other examples, but maybe this post would turn into a book!

Because what we’ve also seen is people coming together to support each other. People celebrating caring over competition. Scientists and governments co-operating at speeds never seen before to progress our understanding of the virus and develop new tools.

Not only is “another world possible” but that other world already exists. It’s just that we’ve been feeding the wrong “hungry wolf”. See – http://moritherapy.org/article/the-story-of-the-two-hungry-wolves/

So, if the rainbow is a symbol of hope, here’s my hope – that we work together to put our energies and resources into creating a better, more caring, more co-operative, healthy world. It’s not just possible. It’s already there, just waiting for us to step forward and start living in it.

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Open handed, open hearted, open minds

Posted in art, creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography, psychology on April 19, 2021| Leave a Comment »

I came across these two works of art at very different times, and in very different places. One is on the gable end of a city centre building in the middle of Malmo, Sweden, and the other is in a church in the little town of Saint Savin, in France. Both are by contemporary street artists. I really like both of them.

One of the things that strikes me about these two image is the position of the woman’s hands. In the Swedish one her left hand loosely holds a rosary or some other religious object, whilst her right hand is upturned and a lit candle rests on her palm. In the French one both hands are held upturned and in their palms there is a puff of smoke, or a breath, perhaps a suggestion of a spirit. Both of these images are spiritual. The Swedish one has imagery from more than one religion, whilst the French one, which is in a church, is more Christian.

I’ve often looked at these images since I captured them and maybe they will bring you some peace, some joy, or some sense of connection to what’s greater than any of us if you spend some time with them, too.
I love this upturned hand gesture. Try this for yourself. Clench your right hand into a fist. Squeeze tight, and ask yourself what you are feeling. Now open your hand and turn it, palm upwards, and ask yourself what you are feeling.

It’s different, isn’t it?
The clenched fist feels tight and tense. There a sense of trying too hard to grasp something, of preparing to strike out and fight. The open handed gesture feels exactly that…..open. It feels light, comfortable and expansive.

The one feels ready to hold on, and the other feels ready to let go. The first puts us in the place of seizing or fighting, whilst the other opens our hearts and our minds to be ready to receive. I guess we need all of these functions in our life, but I have a strong feeling that the closed fist tends to go with closed hearts and closed minds. And I think what we all need now is to open our minds to new ways of living together, open our minds to new ways of organising our societies. I think we need to open our hearts to others, to feel the flows of love and care which course through this world……do they? Yes they do! We’ve seen plenty of examples during this pandemic.

Oh, yes, of course, there is still plenty grabbing and seizing going on, but what has struck me so much more this last year or so is the awareness that many of us now have of being interconnected. Hasn’t this tiny, invisible, little virus show us that? That we live on One Earth. That we are so deeply interconnected and interdependent that our barriers and boundaries count for little. If the open handed gesture goes with open minds and open hearts, which I believe it does, then this is what we need more.

We are opening our hearts to others, we are opening our minds to new ways of living, we are opening our hands to receive an awareness of the Spirit. In both these works of art, what the woman holds on her upturned hand is a symbol of Spirit, of Soul, of what is invisible, and what is greater than any of us.

Oh and one more thing…..it’s no coincidence that these are both images of women, perhaps even of the Divine Feminine. And isn’t that exactly what we are needing now? A shift away from the Masculine Dominant societies and cultures back towards what we humans once knew…..the importance of the Divine Feminine.

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The Life Effect

Posted in creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, life, neuroscience, perception, personal growth, photography, science on April 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »

As best I understand it, the latest discoveries about the nature of the universe suggest that everything which exists comes into being within an infinite field. The “field” is a beautiful concept. You might also think of it as a network or a web, but part of the reason why I like the “field” metaphor is that it works at the level of energy. We know that electromagnetic energy exists as a field. It doesn’t really fit to see it as a beam, or as building blocks, because it washes over, around and through everything. Think of how you can pick up radio signals anywhere within the field of transmission, and think of how different radio signals can “interfere” with each other.

Interference patterns are one of the things I remember from schoolday science. I remember learning about them in Physics class and finding them beautiful and intriguing even then. Watching one set of ripples encounter another set, and seeing the new patterns emerge as they interact with each other was, and still is, a delight.

I thought of that when I saw the concentric rings around this duck sitting on the water. I’ve returned to this image many times and one of the things which draws me in is the fish – they really seem to be arranging themselves around these circles of influence which the duck is emitting. I’ve wondered if they are just keeping their distance from the duck, but although ducks do eat fish, I’m not sure they eat these ones.

However, it’s the pattern which captures my attention because the duck is just sitting there. It isn’t swimming around. It’s just being. And I think that all of us continuously interact with, and affect, whatever is around us, just by being.

For example, researchers at the Heartmath Institute, have studied the electromagnetic waves and fields set up by the beating of the human heart. Did you know that your heart rhythm can influence the heart rhythm of someone standing next to you? It seems that the actual rhythm sets up a field which can harmonise with the rhythms of other fields within a couple of meters or so…..an effect enhanced by actually touching each other. Ever since I read about that I’ve wondered if that’s the basis of the feelings and intuitions we get about others. How often have I thought about how some people just seem to be “on my wavelength” and others never are? I know there are many other ways we signal to others and many other signs and influences we can detect, but I’m pretty sure these heart waves are a significant part of it.

That’s where I find my thoughts returning to when I look at this image. I realise that I send out energies and information all the time….just by the way I live. I send out vibes from my heart, my mind, perhaps even my soul. And I know most of that occurs below the level of consciousness. I’m not aware of it. But surely it’s a good idea to become more aware and to choose more deliberately what kinds of energies I’m sending out into the universe?

And surely it’s also a good idea to become more aware of the influences on me which come from the vibes and ripples sent out into the world by others? That’s partly why I choose to direct my attention towards what is loving, what is beautiful, what is creative and curious and amazing. Because I want to magnify all of that. And why I choose to direct my attention away from negativity and hatred – and I don’t mean by that to ignore them – I mean to deliberately shift the balance so that they don’t overwhelm me, so that I can adequately defend myself, and, more than anything, so that I can refuse to be a repeater – magnifying and sending on those destructive energies to others.

It’s tricky, huh? But it’s inescapable. As this duck shows we affect the world around us just by being. The only choices we have are how aware we want to become, and then how we want to respond to what we become aware of. And finally, what we then choose to magnify with our attention.

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Love

Posted in art, creativity, from the consulting room, from the dark room, from the living room, health, life, personal growth, philosophy, photography, psychology, science on April 17, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Sometimes I think I don’t say it clearly enough, so I’m focusing on it today.

Here’s my core belief – I believe love is the strongest force in the universe. I believe that love, in all its manifestations, underpins the creation of Life, the existence of human beings, and the constant movement towards ever greater complexity through the creation of an infinite network of connections.

I believe that it is love manifests as attraction. From the blending together of energies and universal forces, to the binding together of subatomic elements to create atoms, the building up of atoms into molecules, and molecules into complex materials which combine to create living cells, to the desire of cells to live together and form mutually beneficial bonds so creating multi-cellular creatures, right up to the way we humans are fundamentally social creatures where none of us could exist in utter isolation.

That deep intense love a parent feels for their new baby from the moment they set eyes on each other. Without that love, no bond would form, and without the bonds of selfless care, that baby would die. With an abundance of love and care that baby can more than survive, they can develop, grow and excel in becoming the unique individual that only they can be.

I believe it is love for other creatures, other forms of life, for this little planet, Earth, in which we all live, which stokes our curiosity, opens our hearts, moves us towards each other and to towards new discoveries. It’s our love of knowledge and understanding which underpins everything from science to philosophy. It’s our love of beauty which underpins so much creativity and art.

I believe it is our love for justice which drives us to demand it.

As I look around the world in these pandemic times, of course I see lots of evidence of cruelty, unfairness and neglect. But I also see an outpouring of love, of people reaching out to each other, of people caring for each other, of people risking their very lives for each other.

I am attracted to those who have loving hearts and minds. I am repelled by those who are driven by hate and cruelty. But here’s the strange thing, from my experience of a lifetime of work as a doctor working with patients one to one I believe that love has the potential to heal even the most hardened, most hurt, most closed off hearts and minds.

So, let me say it clearly once more.

I believe love is the strongest force in the universe.

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