Category Archives: Photography

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Weekly Photo Challenge: New

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What’s New?  That’s actually a very complex question.  Perhaps you’ve heard it said that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed.  That means that everything is just a recombination of ancient atoms and forces.  Even the sunlight of a new day is coming to us from so far away that the first beams to reach our eyes are already old.  Therefore, “there is nothing new under the sun,” to quote wise old Solomon.  ‘New’ is a concept that we’ve made up, a proposition of dualistic thinking. 

Which makes it impossible for me to come up with an accurate illustration. 

So, I’ll leave accuracy aside and go for poetry. 

new fire

Firelight, flickering to life moment by moment.  Have you ever stared into a flame and wondered how it keeps going?  Have you ever contemplated ‘eternal combustion’ and wondered how the sun keeps shining?  Have you ever wondered how it is that Life Goes On?  A new year.  Did you ever doubt that there would be one? 

What if… 

What if one day, the sun went dark and time stopped?  What if the Universe did not behave as expected?  What if meaning and existence and relationships and substance turned out to be utter nonsense?  Have you ever stared into the abyss?  Have you ever turned toward existential angst and forgotten to look away? 

What did that feel like? 

I’ll tell you how it felt to me on New Year’s Eve.  Steve read me a story aloud at the dinner table.  The story was Flannery O’Connor’s tale A Good Man Is Hard To Find.  I’d heard it before.  This time, as he finished, the tears began to roll down my face.  The leftover bits of caviar and salmon on the table looked like a joke.  I felt like I was dead.  And then I felt like there was very little difference between being alive and being dead.  I felt akin to all of humanity, all of its pointless suffering joy, and resigned.  The champagne stayed in the refrigerator. 

Is that depressing?  Is that grace-less?  It felt new.  I’d never felt that way before.  I didn’t brush it off with a hasty grasp at consolation.  I let myself feel that mystic emptiness.  Steve said later, “Whatever doesn’t make you kill yourself, makes you stronger.”  Dark and light.  Old and new.  What brave, new world would I live in if I could embrace both? 

I wonder.

(And if Ms. O’Connor can write a story that illustrates a feeling I’d never had before so powerfully that I’m in tears for an hour afterward, does that make her the greatest writer on the planet?  I don’t know, but she’s gotta be damn close.)

in response to the Word Press Weekly Photo Challenge.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Warmth

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How did people in the northern land of Wisconsin stay warm through those hard winters in the 19th century, without electric blankets, natural gas furnaces or radiators?  Wood fires, wool, fur and the sauna…naturally.

Seems pretty simple to me. 

(In response to the Word Press Weekly Photo Challenge.)

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Yellow

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I am curious.  Yellow.  What does it mean to me?  (Besides a Swedish film about acting, social justice, sex, non-violence and the 60s aesthetic lifestyle.)  I would think sunshine would figure prominently.  And flowers.  Autumn leaves.  A certain house in California.   Well, I’ll give you a gallery, and then you’ll get the picture.  Literally.

  (in response to Word Press)

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Long, dark nights – brief, sunless days

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A poem I wrote many years ago, re-written slightly.  Originally about Advent, it works well with Solstice, too. 

A cold dissatisfaction oozes poison into hours

of solitary boredom that once tasted summer’s warmth

and rejoiced in sensate ponderings of heaven’s languid clime.

 

Now prayers lie frozen on my lips these bitter, ashen afternoons.

 

Glossy catalogs and magazines lie orphaned at my door,

but I will not adopt their cheer

nor bed th’insouciant whoring of our winter holy days.

 

So melancholy punctuates the numbing march of time

into that darkened solstice of medieval isolation —

propelled into the farthest arc, forsaken by the sun.

 

Thus emptied into neediness, to famine and despair,

I search the yawning pitch-smeared void

and there behold a piercing Star!

 

No gaily burning candle nor twinkling hearthside glow,

this is the hard-edged hopefulness forged pure and straight of cosmic might,

arising out of nothingness toward Life’s salvific land.

 

My soul, a silent universe,

lies naked in its beam,

a prayer more fragile and profound

than any summer dream.

For warmth and life, nothing beats baking and eating tasty treats!  Steve made a Pear Rosemary quick bread the other day.  It filled the house with a savory aroma of sweetness, tartness and tangy evergreen. 

May your brief, sunless days be warmed with life, your long, dark nights with be warmed with love!

© 2014, poem and photographs, Priscilla Galasso, All rights reserved

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Twinkle

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Toes.  Eyes.  Live humans twinkle.  Is that from light cast upon them or from light within?

twinkle joshCarl Sagan says that “we are made of star stuff”.  My mother-in-law used to say that Jim was “shiny and pink” as a baby.  He glowed with the vibrancy of good circulation and white-blond hair, I guess.  I remember almost putting his eye out once when that twinkle made me just so curious that I wanted to touch it. 

photo credit unknown

photo credit unknown

That spark of life.  The cosmic, irreproducible result that drives scientists mad.  “It’s ALIIIIIVE!” No wonder we want to add that vibrant energy to our winter days, when we’re thrown into the farthest arc and missing the summer sun.

P1040432How do you remind yourself of the shimmer that is our existence on this beautiful sphere in this living Universe?  Do you surround yourself with round, sparkly things?

NYE tableOr do you simply look up from your life?

 

The lights are already hung.  The magic is all around us, even now.  Go outside and take a look!

in response to WordPress’ weekly photo challenge.

<a href="http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/twinkle/">Twinkle</a>

© 2014, essay and photographs, Priscilla Galasso, All rights reserved

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Parenting: Then and Now

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Preschool crush plants a kiss. “Isn’t that cute?!”  Mom takes a picture. 

Grade school crush writes a note.  Revelation: someone likes you.  Mom smiles. 

Middle school crush messes with your self-esteem.  Why and why not?  Mom worries. 

High school crush introduces adult intimacy.  Are there rules?  Mom intervenes. 

College crush invites self-exploration.  What if?  Mom doesn’t know. 

Post-college crush proposes solid possibilities.  What will I choose for myself?

Mom leaves it up to you and breathes relief. 

afterglow

The afterglow: 5 couples around the table, relaxed adult conversation. “Isn’t this nice?!”

Mom takes a picture.

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Inside My Head: Fear

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I noticed it right away.  My heart beat faster and my thoughts proliferated out of control.  Every twinge of muscle, of intestine, of nervous skin was magnified.  I wanted to run, to turn back the clock, to un-make this reaction.  I struggled to assert my Rational brain.  “Emotional reactions are not the Truth.  They are a human phenomenon, but they are not Right or Wrong.”  How do I act, what are my choices, given this rising tide of Fear?  I immediately decide on Function.  I later decide on Communication.  I notice that when I begin to dismantle the wall of Function, I feel very vulnerable.  My nose prickles, my eyes moisten.  I entrust myself  to a Listener.  I dare myself to be Honest. 

fearFear is at the dinner table, and we let it talk.  It is mostly about The Unknown.  What will happen?  What will my options be?  Will it hurt?  I am uncomfortable.  I squirm.  I weep.  I want to flee, but I stay put.  I keep talking.  Memories of pain join the conversation.  I don’t want to return to that place.  I realize that I can’t return to that place.  Each place is different.  Life moves forward; we flow with it.  Now that my emotions and thoughts are freed from repression, I feel movement in myself.  It is comforting.  I am unstuck, calmer.  And exhausted.  How much energy it takes to be afraid!  I will sleep, and use my energy differently tomorrow.

© 2014, essay and photograph, Priscilla Galasso, All rights reserved

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Morning Thoughts: Finding True Place In Wilderness

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I found an essay called “The Body and The Earth” by Wendell Berry in The Unsettling of America published in 1977.  It is an extremely articulate and broad analysis of that “spherical network” that moves fluidly from agriculture, to Shakespeare and suicide, to sexual differences and divisions, and more.  Here is an excerpt from the beginning which describes the mythic human dilemma:

“Until modern times, we focused a great deal of the best of our thought upon such rituals of return to the human condition.  solitude “Seeking enlightenment or the Promised Land or the way home, a man would go or be forced to go into the wilderness, measure himself against the Creation, recognize finally his true place within it, and thus be saved both from pride and from despair.  wilderness threshold

“Seeing himself as a tiny member of a world he cannot comprehend or master or in any final sense possess, he cannot possibly think of himself as a god. 

Big Basin Redwoods State Park

“And by the same token, since he shares in, depends upon, and is graced by all of which he is a part, neither can he become a fiend; he cannot descend into the final despair of destructiveness. 

pinnacles summit

“Returning from the wilderness, he becomes a restorer of order, a preserver.  He sees the truth, recognizes his true heir, honors his forebears and his heritage, and gives his blessing to his successors.  He embodies the passing of human time, living and dying within the human limits of grief and joy.”

edge 3Human limits.  Humility.  Our struggles, our desires, our wants, our hopes and feelings of elation are not the stuff to tilt the planet.  There is a rightness outside of our sphere.  I like to remember that perspective each time I encounter the “world wide web” of hype and OMG! and products and extracting resources and cruelty and pettiness. 

Peace on earth, Priscilla

© 2014, essay and photographs, Priscilla Galasso, All rights reserved

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Gone, But Not Forgotten

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In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Gone, But Not Forgotten.”

Well, this is an obvious one.  After all, I am a widow.  How can I forget the love of my life, my one and only husband, the father of my four children and the man who bought me my first Canon (an AE-1 for Christmas when I was 17)?  I am in a wonderful relationship now with a new partner, Steve, and he’s featured in many of my posts.  But Jim is my first love, the man who was beside me for 30 years, from the time I was 15.  So much of my adult formation took place in those years, even though profound change has happened since.  Shortly after Jim died, I became an empty-nester, I sold our home, and I stopped practicing evangelical Christianity.  Gone are my ‘suburban mom’ characteristics…the van, the mortgage, the disposable income, the salaried position with a Christian company in my home town, the prayer groups and Bible studies, the daily involvement with my kids.  My life is definitely different.  I am much more independent and self-reliant now.  But I haven’t forgotten how well loved I was, how dedicated Jim was to taking care of me.  As his best friend said at his memorial service, he was a Prince of a man.  And he was definitely Charming. 

photo credit unknown