• landscape,  Plants,  sunsets,  trees

    A Photographers Serenity Prayer

    August 18, 2022

    God, grant me the serenity to accept the scenes I cannot change, courage to change the scenes I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

    I have been praying the Serenity Prayer every morning before my feet hit the floor for a few years now. The prayer is about three basic things: serenity (acceptance), courage (to change) and wisdom. I’ve become aware that I’ve been using this prayer in my photography without realizing it, but with a slight twist. I would suggest you may also. Let me explain using these two images.

    I noticed this scene while driving along County Road 19. I knew from the get-go I was not going to have the image I wanted because of the close proximity of the house and tree. I wanted the sun setting behind the tree without the house but with the tree more towards the center. Wasn’t gonna happen in this scene. A couple extreme options were…

    I could burn the house down but there would be court dates to deal with and I didn’t think the image would be worth the outta pocket expenses. Another option was to move the tree but I didn’t have a chainsaw for that task, nor the time. I don’t know about you but I seldom carry a chainsaw in my camera bag. Or I could….

    … accept the scene as it is. So, I began by changing my expectations. The image I wanted when I first saw this scene I was not going to get. But, here is what I could do. I could work with my exposure, making sure it was what I wanted. I had my 70-300mm zoom on my camera because I had been photographing pronghorn antelope a few minutes earlier. So, I took a half dozen images, cropping at various focal lengths with and without the house in it. Again, I had little time to decide before the sun set.

    I’ve been shooting long enough to know that I will not always come home with a keeper. I’m comfortable with that knowledge and therefore do not get as frustrated and lose my (serenity). I knew I could accept the scene as it is, aware I may trash all of them later (courage). Of course this is much easier today with digital than film days (more courage). I also knew that I was there to witness this gift of nature and store this scene in that place Mary Oliver calls the “kingdom we call remembrance.” I also know there would be other opportunities to come (wisdom).

    After bringing the images home I found a couple that worked for me. The top image is without a crop and includes the house. It turned out better than I envisioned. I find it quite acceptable. The second image is the same image but with the house cropped out. Having the tree as far to the edge of the frame really did not take away from what I first saw. Shows you what I know. Both images are acceptable to me. If you are so inclined please let me know which image you like better. And, what experiences have you like this?

    Just for fun, and because Tom stirred the pot, I went back and looked at other images I took to see if I include the whole house. I did and like them as well. I also did not realize how I must have moved along the road in my attempt to eliminate the house because this image has the sun on the opposite side of the tree.

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  • clouds,  landscape,  quotes,  rants,  writing/reading

    Dream World

    June 4, 2022
    On a drive down Rist Canyon I came upon this tree shrouded in clouds and mist.

    “Too often in the past our approach to truth has been to assume that we have it and others do not. Consequently, we have thought that our role is to tell people what to believe. We are being invited instead into a new humility, to serve the holy wisdom that is already stirring in the hearts of people everywhere, the growing awareness of earth’s interrelatedness and sacredness.”

    John Philip Newell

    I went to a local coffee shop to sit outside and journal but that did not happen. There was a group of men gathered around a couple tables talking loudly, wearing shirts that told you their political opinions, one of them packing a gun. We are faced daily with people telling us what to believe, their truth, from all different perspectives. It was not a comfortable place, so I left. I went where I could listen to the birds sing. They make more sense to me and I love their music.

    What would our world be like if people spent time in nature? Would there be an experience of the awareness of our interrelatedness and sacredness that Newell talks about? How would that change us? Maybe we’d realize we need to be students rather than know-it-alls. Or worse yet, think we need to change the world but not ourselves.

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  • landscape,  Plants,  quotes,  seasons,  snow,  trees,  winter scenes,  writing/reading

    Learning to Be a Listener

    December 15, 2021
    A gentle snow storm at Arapaho Bend Natural Area in 2014

    Generous listening is powered by curiosity, a virtue we can invite and nurture in ourselves to render it instinctive. It involves a kind of vulnerability – a willingness to be surprised, to let go of assumptions and take in ambiguity. The listener wants to understand the humanity behind the words of the other, and patiently summons one’s own best self and one’s own best words and questions.

    Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living

    Over the years I’ve discovered how poorly I listen. Some of the discovery is from encountering people who are poor listeners, enabling me to see the reflection of myself in them. Becoming a better listener allows me to be the student rather than thinking I need to mansplain it. I agree with Krista that listening is a virtue we can invite and nurture and overtime becomes instinctual. It seems to me listening is the very foundation to any healthy relationship with another human and all of creation. With that in mind, my curiosity begs to ask the question, what do we learn when listening to the silence of a winter snowfall?

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  • Avian,  Canada Goose,  clouds,  gratitude,  landscape,  natural areas,  Plants,  reflections,  sunrises,  trees

    Listening to Nature

    April 8, 2021

    I have friends vacationing in Hawaii with kids and grandkids. I’m a bit envious of them sitting on the beach working on a tan. All the photos they’ve sent include big smiles. Yet, this morning while visiting the Top Minnow Natural Area, I was reminded by the red-winged blackbirds and the meadowlarks of just how beautiful it is right here. They were reminding through their joyful songs to be grateful for where I’m at and what I have. These two Canada Goose told me the same thing. I’m learning to listen to the wisdom of nature more often.

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  • landscape,  mountains,  National Parks,  Smoky Mountains National Park,  sunrises

    Sunrise at Foothills Parkway

    November 14, 2019

    Sunrise on Foothills Parkway in the Smoky Mountains

    In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy skips and dances down a yellow brick road in hopes of finding the Wizard of Oz who will help her return home to Kansas. Traveling that yellow brick road lead her to new horizons, discovering her gifts of wisdom, courage, and love. I like to think of Dorothy’s yellow brick road as a metaphor of our spiritual journey to new horizons.

    Some of us live in the shadow of an illusionary self, a false-self that alienates us from reality, much of this world and a Creator. We can be blind to the possibility of the horizons yet to be discovered, paralyzed with fear, failing to venture forward on our yellow brick road and discover our gifts of wisdom, courage, and love, which I choose to call our true-self.

    “May we seek this inward path to encounter the true-self, the essence of who we are, and allow ourselves to be embraced by love.”

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  • landscape,  moon,  quotes

    Seeking Wisdom

    September 21, 2019
    One of the first images of the moon I made with my Nikon D100 and Nikon 80-400mm lens back in 2003

    “Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else … Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”

    Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

    No, this post is not an attempt to impart what wisdom is because I agree with Hesse. It cain’t! However, if I can boldly say this, what wisdom I have found is from the knowledge I’ve gained from reading, study, learning from my mistakes, learning from those who have wisdom and made mistakes, my own inward spiritual journey and aware that what I think I think I know is not always so. Or, as Socrates says, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” Hopefully, many of us have a bit more wisdom than we did at the age of 20 or 40, that it’s a evolving process. There are those who think I have wisdom and those who think I’m foolish. Debating whether I have any wisdom or I’m just a fool is not the point of this post. The point is to share with you the desire I have to continue seeking wisdom, to live it, to do wonders through it! 

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