life’s passages…40

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Nikon D750  f/5.3  1/80s   112mm   100 ISO

Standing at this Threshold

With uncertainty, I question:

What is it that I seek?

Protection? Compassion? Acceptance? Forgiveness? Completion?

Who is it that I beckon?

A father? A mother? A sister? A brother? A companion? A child? A god?

To be? To endure? To offer? To embrace? To validate?

An intentional presence that is drawn upon

A place and time of shadows, myths, and dreams?

Birthed within a family?

Matured within a relationship?

Nourished within a community?

Where the Stillness within Silence,

Affirms the exchange of life’s giving and taking,

Embraces the connection of life’s emotional threads, and

Observes the interdependence of life with non-judgmental awareness,

Yet, knows of a united oneness with another that can not be?

Since it can not be, do I yearn

To know integration through the formation of thought;

To see clarity through the flowing of ink; and

To feel completion through the act of creating?

And then, finally, within the stillness of silence,

I befriend

An internal companion with whom

There is an honoring of the who and what of which I am;

A woman, a daughter, a sister, a niece, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a grandmother, a great-grandmother.

I touch

With reverence the presence of all that was, is, and will be.

I release

The seeking, the beckoning, the yearning to the Winds of Change.

I with uncertainty, Step over this Threshold

Foreseeing a return

~bckofford

lens-artists … sound

Creating sound within the frozen moments of a photograph – introduced by Ted Forbes in his discussions of rhythm and tempo.

Rhythm I – all around us are shapes that are pretty basic and similar to each other. We will see them repeating at regular intervals within nature, design, works of art, architecture, and photography

Rhythm II – the primary characteristic of rhythm is predictability and order.

Tempo – the means by which we display speed, movement, as well as the passing of time all within a frozen moment.

Have you heard the silence within a snow storm?

Sending gratitude to Wind Kisses for this week’s Lens-artists challenge: sound

life’s passages…39

his traveling hat
looking small…
mist ~Issa*

“his traveling hat.” The hat in question is a kasa: umbrella-hat. I picture Issa watching travelers departing in the early morning–perhaps from an inn. As their bodies blend in with the spring mist, all he can see now are the outlines of their umbrella-hats growing smaller and smaller. In this early haiku he shows that he has already mastered the art of using simple observation to suggest depths of meaning and feeling. Like Issa, we shall miss those who go before us, fading into nothing.

*cited: haikuguy.com

life’s passages … 37

I was a child,
Nostalgia seemed a small stamp:
I was here…
My mother was there.

When I grew up
Nostalgia became a ticket:
I was here…
My bride was there.

Years later,
Nostalgia was a little tomb:
I was outside…
My mother was inside.

And now,
My nostalgia is a shallow strait:
I am at here…
The mainland is there.

~ Yu Guang Zhong

Orchid… Sony RX100-3 f/2.8 1/640 25.7 800 ISO

“The Chinese expression for “nostalgia” is xiangchou, literally “village sadness.” …xiangchou describes the grief that accompanies the traveler who cannot find a way back to the home village…[it] is not a geographical predicament but a spiritual state of being. First he finds himself outside the mother as a tiny emblem of apartness, then he is the man who contemplates her tomb. The shallow waters of the Taiwan straits are, similarly, not only a spatial divide between the island and the mainland but a reminder of the longing for, and the impossibility of going back to, ancestral roots.” *

*cited: V Schwarcz (Bridge Across Broken Time)

life’s passages … 34

we tell stories
of the far mountains
’round the brazier
~Issa*

contemplativephoto-reflectionweb9719
Baring the Soul…Nikon D750   f/4.5   1/1,250   85m   100 ISO

Stories, myths, and parables acknowledge and respect the unique individuality of each of us. Myths give voice, through their use of symbols, to what is hidden, unknown, or evasive. Stories that share the dynamics of human interactions silently plant a seed of personal truth in the dark component of each of us, waiting for the appropriate time to bloom and to nourish. They also illustrate the universal theme of suffering and its resolution. Parables, with their multiple levels of meaning, honor the unique perspective and understanding of both listener and speaker.  These multiple layers of meaning touch what is salient to the reader and thus gift all readers with an invitation to define for self their own understanding, interpretation, and application.**  

*cited: haikuguy.com

**Excerpts from B Koeford, A Meditative Journey with Saldage

lens-artists … weather

green leaves of spring,

harvest moon in autumn,

cool breezes in summer,

snow in winter …

A mind not clouded by ignorance,

the seasons of home.

Everything changes and nothing lasts forever

images submitted in response to slow shutter speed’s lens-artists challenge: weather. Weather is a specific event—like a rainstorm or hot day—that happens over a few hours, days or weeks. Climate is the average weather conditions in a place over 30 years or more.