We do not retreat from reality, we rediscover it. As long as the story lingers in our mind, the real things are more themselves… By dipping them in myth we see them more clearly. — C. S. Lewis
How do you prefer to take in and process new information about the world? Do you seek out facts, stories, or experiences? Probably you find yourself using a combination of these avenues into reality. And then, perhaps, you find a quiet place to sort through them.
I know a place where no one ever goes;
There’s peace and quiet, beauty and repose.
It’s hidden in a valley, beside a mountain stream,
And lying there beside the stream, I find that I can dream
Only of things of beauty to the eye:
snow-peaked mountains tow’ring to the sky.
Now I know that God has made this place for me.
— a song I learned at Girl Scout camp long ago
My brother was grilling on the back porch last night. While the aroma of smoke penetrated my thoughts, my daughter’s boyfriend asked me, “When was the last time you were camping?”
Two years ago.
I miss that kind of hideaway opportunity. The simple reality of sky, water, earth, and fire helps me see all the storylines that I have crafted about life in a much clearer light. What is essential floats to the surface and becomes like the reflection of heaven. What is clunky and artificial sinks like dead weight in the silt bottom.
We are looking for happiness and running after it in such a way that creates anger, fear and discrimination. So when you attend a retreat, you have a chance to look at the deep roots of this pollution of the collective energy that is unwholesome. — Thich Nhat Hahn
Retreats, hideaways, sanctuaries — safe places for reflection, introspection, and soul work — are important to cultivate. They can be far away, across oceans of distance or as close as the inside of your own eyelids.
This post is dedicated to the men of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis, who are on retreat this weekend. Take care of yourselves, friends. From the inside out.
Adult Coming of Age is a Unitarian Universalist program designed to help each participant examine who they are at this unique moment in time, look back at the people and events that have shaped them in meaningful ways, and clarify the values, priorities, sacrifices, and gifts that will shape this season of life.
As spiritual beings evolving in a physical world, we are never done becoming who we mean to be, and the Coming of Age program for adults honors that at every age, we are crossing thresholds, seeking clarity, and held by circles of support.
My first homework assignment in the class is to create and share some kind of art that demonstrates my reflection on this question: “What animal are you at this stage of your adult life?”
Early in my blogging life, in 2011, I created a post about my favorite animal. Since blogging, photography, and poetry are my creative expressions, I decided to blend them in a tribute to the animal who has inspired me throughout my life and especially at this stage.
“Nature’s great masterpeece…the only harmlesse great thing.” – John Donne
Elephants may well be my icon of choice for ancient grace. I’ve felt an affinity for them since childhood. I slept with a plush, stuffed Babar for years. He had a tattered felt crown that was especially soft against my cheek. I loved him until he literally fell apart, and then I bought a stuffed “lelepani” at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel when I was ten. My wicker laundry hamper was even shaped like an elephant. But my favorite childhood elephant was a real one, named Bobo, who lived at the Lincoln Park zoo. I met him while he was still a baby in the zoo nursery. I could pet him right over the little wall of his enclosure, and I visited him frequently after my Art Institute class on Saturday mornings. My father snapped this photo.
Bobo moved to the big elephant house in 1974, while I was away at Girl Scout camp, and my mother sent me newspaper clippings of the event.
I’ve been reading about elephants more in depth since then. I’ve always been in awe of their intelligence and social sensibility. The way that they communicate and support each other has been documented extensively. They mourn their dead and protect each other. Both female groups and bulls maintain social ties with others of their sex. The female herds accept the leadership of a matriarch, who is grandmother, aunt, or mother of the others, and she decides when and where the herd moves on a daily and seasonal basis. These are the warm, fuzzy facts about elephants. In a book called Elephant Destiny: Biography of an Endangered Species in Africa by Martin Meredith, I read the painful and horrid facts about their history as a species. Their systematic decimation from Roman times to the present is a shocking example of human brutality. In articles in National Geographic and Smithsonian you can read about the ongoing war with poachers who trespass on national park land for the opportunity to sell tusks on the black market. Armed with semi-automatic weapons and axes to hack the ivory from the animal’s skull, they leave behind a devastating scene of carnage that the rest of the herd internalizes, exhibiting increasing fear and mournfulness.
At this stage in my life, I feel kinship with elephant matriarchs. Remarkably, elephants continue to grow physically throughout their lifetimes. Raising a family, grieving deaths, and seeking scarce resources while avoiding the dangers of human predators resonates with my lived experience as a human mother. I aspire to be a wise, evolving matriarch.
The Matriarch – by Priscilla Galasso
Great, gray folds surround a wet eye fringed with Long, dusty lashes not yet moistened by her tears.
She sways ponderously, rhythmically swinging her sensitive, seeking trunk.
Her huge head, heavy with memories and maps Surges forward with each tremendous tiptoe.
Surrounded by sisters and children, She journeys through perilous wilderness, Ever growing, ever onward, Ever mindful of the needs of her kin.
I have an extensive collection of elephantalia, gifts and heirlooms I have acquired over the years. One day, I would love to be able to photograph an elephant in the wild.
There is something continually hopeful about a New Year. Green life grows up on degraded surfaces, and Nature asserts her buoyant purpose.
I always delight in a clear path forward under sunny skies.
Any year that included a trip to a National Park I’d never visited before is a memorable year. I saw Crater Lake in July of 2025.
City culture often centers humanity in symbols of peace. The Portland Japanese Garden contains this Peace Lantern, a 1954 gift from Japan inscribed “Casting the Light of Everlasting Peace”.
There are always unusual and surprising things to see if I keep my eyes open and practice awareness.
At the end of the year, I celebrated with my daughter in her new house, connecting past and present and future in memory, tradition, and hope.
I was inspired by Jane Goodall’s final interview last year. Her message of continuing to do good work despite the increasingly strong challenges to values we both hold dear was a rallying call. This year, current events have already served up powerful strikes against peace and harmony with Nature. I will continue to look for evidence of beauty and goodness around me and make images to record its continued presence. Thank you, fellow Lens Artists, for documenting the Art you see. It makes a difference.
“If I had wings no one would ask me should I fly The bird sings, no one asks why I can see in myself wings as I feel them If you see something else, keep your thoughts to yourself I’ll fly free then” – song by Peter, Paul, and Mary
“Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.” – Langston Hughes
Wings – a symbol of freedom, of dreams soaring, of hope rising – have been assigned to so many types of animals: insects, birds, mammals (my last photo is a little bat asleep in a tree in Death Valley), and even some reptiles and fish. But each and every one of these wing-bearers return to a resting state at some point, fold their wings, and save their energy. I wonder at the moment when they know it’s time to soar. What propels them, emotionally? Fear? Purpose? Exhilaration?
“Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops – at all” – Emily Dickinson
I had a dream about flying recently. I have those dreams periodically. But I never have physical wings in those dreams. What I have is a secret knowledge that I can lift off the ground and glide around…and that others cannot. I’m never completely certain of it, but while it’s working, it feels miraculous and special and effortless. I wake from those dreams with a sense of wonder and joy.
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” ― Albert Einstein, The World As I See It
“We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
The lure of mystery is perhaps a fundamental part of being human. We yearn to know and understand and fill our large brains with certainty, and yet, we are enthralled by those things that are beyond our scope. We are forever asking questions and posing stories. When I think of how mystery is portrayed in images, I immediately think of black and white photography. There’s something iconic and photojournalistic about the feel of monochrome. And there’s a philosophical point in trying to capture reality in black and white while always including a million shades of gray. Cinematically, there’s the trick of using black & white film to depict a night time scene that was actually shot during the daytime. Is that moonlight? Or sunlight?
Alfred Hitchcock built his legendary fame by creating cinematic mystery. One technique he used was high angle shots in dramatically contrasting black & white.
Perhaps mystery is where curiosity and fear intersect. Do you really want to know what lies ahead?
When the scene is painted in shades of gray and the picture seems a bit hazy, almost anything is possible. What would you like to happen?
“There comes . . . a longing never to travel again except on foot.” ― Wendell Berry, Remembering
“I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw Or heard or felt came not but from myself; And there I found myself more truly and more strange.” ― Wallace Stevens, The Collected Poems
“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.” ― Søren Kierkegaard
Traveling on foot is my favorite way to see the world. It calms the anxieties that arise when I try to go far and fast. I like noticing small details. I like stopping to take in the perspective of my surroundings and my inner thoughts. I like relying on my own body and appreciating it. I am content with the beauty and wonder that I’ve been able to encounter in the areas I’ve ambled. I also enjoy seeing photos of places upon which I will never set foot. There is so much to enjoy on this amazing planet!
Do you have favorite viewpoints you go back to – for perspective, for nostalgia, for inspiration?
Iron Mountain, Cascades
This week’s Lens-Artists challenge invites us to revisit Landscapes, a theme that was also assigned in 2019. When I did that original challenge, I was living in Wisconsin. You can view the post I created HERE. I wrote that landscapes are my favorite photographic subject and that I wanted my soul to be a landscape – a place where I have a broad view of a larger reality, where Beauty and Life surround me and produce the thing I call Love.
Since then I have moved to Oregon, and found new Love all around.
Nye Beach, NewportStrawberry Mountain WildernessWilliam L. Finley National Wildlife RefugeAlsea Falls State Recreation AreaMy driveway
Thanks to Egidio for inviting us to share our landscapes and for his superb selection of examples.
“We have not long to love. Light does not stay. The tender things are those we fold away. Coarse fabrics are the ones for common wear. In silence I have watched you comb your hair. Intimate the silence, dim and warm. I could but did not, reach to touch your arm. I could, but do not, break that which is still. (Almost the faintest whisper would be shrill.) So moments pass as though they wished to stay. We have not long to love. A night. A day….” ― Tennessee Williams, The Collected Poems
The Wheel of the Year has turned to Samhain, midway between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice. In the northern hemisphere, the solar winter has now begun. It is the time of year when many cultures honor their ancestors, for the veil between the earthly world and the spirit world is thin.
The trail around Cabell Marsh in Finley National Wildlife Refuge is now closed to hikers until April first so that overwintering birds will not be disturbed. Last week, I saw white pelicans, great blue herons, snowy egrets, tundra swans, Dusky Canada geese, ducks, and nutria in the silent fog.
The wispy traces of light and web and cloud and spirit float away in the blink of an eye. What remains is the feeling that I have been visited by beauty and embraced in Life, a feeling that I call Love.
A Samhain Blessing
May the ancestors deliver blessings on you and yours May the new year bear great fruits for you May your granted wishes be as many as the seeds in a pomegranate May the slide into long nights bring you light May the memories of what has been keep you strong for what is to be May this Samhain cleanse your heart, your soul and your mind! Blessed Be. –Unknown
I dream of a world where Love is the currency that matters. It is invested, returned, compounded, treasured, and generously spread. It flows on every level, in every relationship, from the smallest interaction between particles to the most complex interdependence of galaxies. It is recognized as the force and the source of this marvelous gift we call Life. It creates abundance, beauty, goodness, and balance. Like water, it is soft and powerful, creating transformation over time, shaping wonders as majestic as the Grand Canyon.
Thanks, Ann-Christine, for allowing me to dream a bit, imagining the satisfaction of my yearning.
“Well, the sun’s not so hot in the sky today and you know I can see summertime slipping on away. A few more geese are gone, a few more leaves turning red, but the grass is as soft as a feather in a featherbed. So I’ll be king and you’ll be queen, our kingdom’s gonna be this little patch of green. Won’t you lie down here right now in this September grass?” – James Taylor, September Grass
“Well, I’m-a going back down, maybe one more time Deep down home, October road And I might like to see that little friend of mine That I left behind once upon a time Oh, promised land and me still standing It’s a test of time, it’s a real good sign Let the sun run down right behind the hill I know how to stand there still ‘Til the moon rise up behind the pine, oh, Lord October road, an October road October road” – James Taylor, October Road
“And when October goes The snow begins to fly Above the smokey roofs I watch the planes go by The children running home Beneath a twilight sky Oh, for the fun of them When I was one of them” – Barry Manilow, When October Goes
I feel the shift in seasons deeply in my soul. The loss of summer hits like grief falling in raindrops, the darkness descending earlier and earlier each day. But then, those sunny fall days when the colors pop and beckon remind me that I can live in this place of heightened appreciation and nostalgia. I amble more slowly through the leaves, aware of the passing of time and the gift of life. I love this season in a different way than I love summer. And when it gets even colder, I will mourn the fading light and the maple leaves. But I will love the rain that fills the marshes and the ribbons of migrating birds.
Life is a gift, in any season. Thanks, Johnbo, for inviting remembrance of beautiful Autumns. I have two past posts on this theme, with large galleries of photos from my life in the Midwest. You can see them HERE and HERE.
