Weekly Photo Challenge: Monument

April 13, 2014 by scillagrace

This week’s prompt page from The Daily Post says this about monuments: “They insist on their own importance, but at the same time allow locals and tourists, pilgrims and accidental visitors, to share a moment and to get a taste of each other’s stories.” The same can be said of the photographs we take and treasure and post. They are monuments of our journey, where we’ve been, what we’ve seen, the stories we’ve told and heard. So, I’d like to share some monuments from my journey on Friday. Steve and I are trying to take a weekly field trip out into the more rural areas of Wisconsin. We are researching a new life, a new home, a new way of embodying what we value: simple, honest work in a lifestyle that respects the planet and is less dependent on human systems. We drove up into the North Country, beyond the oak savannas of southeastern Wisconsin, through the Driftless Area (unglaciated during the most recent glacial event) with its windswept sandstone outcroppings, and into the cranberry bogs and pine forests of Ho-Chunk land. The monumental feeling of this expedition is built of adventure, re-connection with the Earth, the joy of being alive, and the peace of being open to whatever we encounter.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Threshold

April 4, 2014 by scillagrace

I’m tired and indecisive this evening, so you get two interpretations of this theme. The first is this one:

It’s my daughter, Rebecca, at her sister’s bridal shower. A couple of months after this photo was taken, her boyfriend proposed, and now she’s poised to be the next bride in our family. Perhaps she’ll be carried over a threshold shortly after that. (But that’s a pretty old custom; maybe no one does that any more.) Here’s another go:

This one’s probably a bit less literal, but maybe more poetic. I like the ascent from darkness to light, from the cool, barren rock to the wall of mossy fecundity. I like the passage littered with dead leaves that gives way to the vault of sunshine. Steve and I have been talking about the joyous urgency of blooming. He is in midlife, going to turn 50 in November, and he is eager to do something important with his life. And soon! So we are aware of this threshold and urging the “joy of change and movement” into our lives. Not sure exactly how that will be manifest, but stay tuned!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Street Life

March 28, 2014 by scillagrace

This is a story of urban development. This picture was taken from the Milwaukee County Grounds about 2 years ago. This land surrounds the abandoned Poor Farm and Insane Asylum that I wrote about in this post. The area to the south and west of those abandoned buildings was identified as a migratory monarch butterfly trail and maintained by a local group who call themselves The Park People. In the last 9 months, this area has been raked over by bulldozers, trees cut down, and the habitat reduced from 239 acres (in 2005) to just 11 acres…which may never recover from the disturbance and resemble this photo again. The construction project was undertaken in order to create “Innovation Park”, UW Milwaukee’s research accelerator and business campus. In addition to this construction, the freeway you see in the background has been re-routed and upgraded to accommodate more traffic. Massive construction vehicles – earth movers, tree destroyers, and jack-hammers – can be heard around the clock from my bedroom window. This had been the largest green space in the county for many years, and I counted myself lucky to be within walking distance from it. But the life of the street, of urban expansion, has depleted the life of the wild and taken over its habitat. In the words of a famous song, “We’ve paved Paradise and put up a parking lot.” The metamorphosis on display now is not the caterpillar changing into a butterfly. It’s Caterpillar Construction Company changing green space into concrete and steel. Try telling that one to the school children when they start their first grade science class.

Writer’s Fourth Wednesday: Second Person Poetry

March 27, 2014 by scillagrace

Victoria Slotto’s prompt post invites me to share a poem written in the second person. She says, “It is less rare to encounter poetry in the second person. As poets, we love to address our “audience,” celebrity figures, other poets or teachers who have an influence on us, people we love (or hate), God, mythological figures, people from our past.” I went through the book of poems that I self-published back in 1997 and found one that I like. Back in that decade, I was extremely rooted in a Christian identity and was rather prolific in my writing to God. These days, I do not identify myself as Christian or even theistic per se, but I still have a great sense of appreciation. The world is an amazing place; the beauty of it often makes me weep. My brain is accustomed to seeking a source for manifestations, but I now realize that is more about me than it is necessarily about the way Life is. I often find myself wondering, “Who do I thank for this?” It’s more likely that there are myriad contributing factors to the conditions that arise, the harmonious conjunction attributable to all of them simultaneously without hierarchy. So I simply say, “Thanks be,” and leave it at that.

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The Sky

Did I ever thank you for the sky
      spread far around like an open field
           piled high with moods and structures,
                a playground for my soul?

This space above bids my thoughts expand
      to climb the heights of an anvil-cloud
           and teeter on the edge of a dazzling glare
                or slide down the shafts of the sun,

To swim to the center of its lonely blue
      where I find no mist to hide me,
           and lie exposed to the western wind
                like a mountain braced for sunrise.

Or clad in the shroud of brooding gray,
      it coaxes me to musing
           far removed from the minutiae
                that chains me to my life.

I search for light and openness
      to shadow the bonds of earth,
            exploring the vault of heaven
                for its meaning and its truth.

Thanks for this cathedral speaking glory through its art.
Thank you for these eyes admitting You into my heart.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections

March 21, 2014 by scillagrace

This week, in a post created specifically for this challenge, show us an image that says REFLECTION.

It could be a person who helps you see things clearly, a place you go to collect your thoughts, or an object that reminds you of your achievements. You could also go for something more literal, like a reflection in water. Or something that demonstrates both interpretations of the word.

“A person who helps you see things clearly…”

What would you say about someone who meets you in your greatest grief, who doesn’t turn away but faces the tough questions with you, offering presence, not answers? Someone who challenges you to pursue those questions and discover the emotions they evoke, the hopes, the fears, the identity that emerges from within…and who then asks you to decide who you want to be? Someone who promises simply to be aware and who asks simply for your awareness?

Steve met me 8 months after my husband of 24 years died. I was in a state of profound transition, the fabric and framework of my homespun in complete collapse. On our first date, we hiked around glacial terrain, enjoying the fall colors and talking. Beside Nippersink Creek, I stopped. I became silent. I no longer wanted to fill the space between us with words and thoughts. I was finally unafraid to be aware that I was with him, in a new place, with a new person, as a new life was beginning. He sat beside me, quiet and reflective as well. What I saw clearly was that Life is beautiful and that death does not diminish that one bit.

Living With Mystery

March 19, 2014 by scillagrace

Possessing a human brain is no picnic. The cumbersome chunk of gray matter is quite the dictator. It wants to know: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? It shines the light in our eyes, makes us squint and squirm until we come up with an answer. And “I don’t know” won’t appease its inquisition. Somewhere in our distant evolutionary history, this dictatorship must have presented some advantage to survival. Possibly it pressed us to a more efficient way to find food or use tools or attract a desirable mate. When the interrogation continues after it has served its immediate purpose, it becomes rather annoying and can create anxiety, frustration, torment and suffering. Think of a 4-year-old asking “Why?” to every explanation offered. It never ends. When you shout back, “I DON’T KNOW!” do you feel you’ve failed and slink off to ponder your existence? (For a good example of this “insane deconstruction” peppered with ‘adult language’, check out comedian Louis C.K. in this clip.)

Humor aside, the suffering is universal. We have all lived the anguish of a mystery at some point. As I write this, I am thinking of all the people whose loved ones disappeared on the Malaysian jet that has been missing for 11 days. Unanswered and unanswerable questions must plague them. The few photos of their grief that I’ve seen are hard to bear. Add to that circle connected to those 239 people all of the families of military personnel MIA throughout history, all of the families of travelers to foreign countries in unstable political climates who never returned, all of the parents of children abducted and gone without a trace. The stories of devastation are heart-breaking and inevitable. The common denominator is The Great Mystery – Death. Ironically, it is the most mundane mystery as well. We will all be touched by it, every one. And we know it. The two deaths that I experienced first hand were not shrouded by any great cloud of darkness. My sister and my husband both died right beside me: my sister in the driver’s seat of a car, my husband in our bed. They were not ‘missing’ by any means. And yet, I will never have the answer to basic questions like, “What were they feeling?” “When exactly did they lose consciousness?” “Was I to blame?”

Mystery is the Truth. We do not know. We delude and comfort our demanding brains in a parade of ideas. When that effort is expended, can we accept and live with Mystery? What does that feel like? How do I do that?

You see, again the questions surface, the never-ending tide of the probing lobe of consciousness. Maybe some day that flow will be replaced by the still, mirrored surface of a quiet mind.

Peace out,

Priscilla

Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside

March 14, 2014 by scillagrace

UW Madison Arboretum – inside

We’ve been traveling from Milwaukee to Madison for the last three weeks to take in some of the Winter Enrichment courses offered at the UW Madison Arboretum. Unfortunately, it has been blasted cold each week, so we haven’t been out hiking the trails. Someone set up this little display of prairie grasses in the south window of the visitor’s center, and the sun shining in teased me with memories of warm autumn days smelling dried grass. In the deep freeze of winter, it’s nice to have some plant life taking up residence INSIDE.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Perspective

March 7, 2014 by scillagrace

Dribble castles, only inches tall

“Photos aren’t objective – they show what we want them to show.” Concepts aren’t objective: they reflect our thinking. Delusions aren’t objective. Our thinking is only our thinking. It is never the whole Truth. Like castles in the sand, permanence is delusion, size is delusion. Shifting perspective is the dance of the cosmos. (see this illustration of the Scale of the Universe) “Solid stone is just sand and water, baby/sand and water and a million years gone by.” (Beth Nielson Chapman – in a song she wrote for her late husband; click here to listen) Listening now, I wonder: what is ‘alone’? What is ‘death’? Listening beyond the end of the song, I hear a cardinal singing outside. I am not alone, and life is all around. That’s what I really want to show.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Threes

February 21, 2014 by scillagrace

This week’s photo challenge is about a grouping of perspectives: the big picture, a relationship, and a detail. I like the idea of shifting points of focus because awareness and depth probably can’t be captured at first glance in any circumstance. Perhaps the way you approach a scene can tell you a lot about yourself. When you go to a party and walk in the door, what grabs your attention first? Do you look at the big picture – how the place is laid out, how crowded it is, what music is playing, what food fragrances are in the air – and get a feeling about it all at once? Do you look for people you know and zero in on them? Are you drawn to particular objects and familiar or quirky things about the decor? If you find yourself spending time exclusively on one aspect, do you want to challenge yourself to turn to the others to see what you might be missing? It might be an exercise in awareness worth looking into. Here is a grouping of shots from my second year hosting the Wiencek family Thanksgiving:

Planet Love

February 16, 2014 by scillagrace

The Bardo Group, which mercifully counts me as a contributing writer and core team member, has invited its visitors to share Valentine’s Day posts in celebration of our love for this awe-inspiring planet. Planet Love has been on my mind for a week now; I’ve scribbled phrases and ideas on scraps of paper at work and engaged in ardent discussions with Steve about it, but until now I haven’t had time to sit down and write. “You don’t have time for the planet!” Steve jokes.

Au contraire. I AM the planet.

I have been thinking about the nature of my Planet Love. It starts with the obvious. Duh! I depend on the planet. I need it desperately – the water, the air, the energy from edible sunshine. Without it, I would die! My survival depends on this environment that birthed me and sustains me every breathing minute. I am an infant, perhaps a parasite, a needy lover hopelessly driven by biology into the thrall of her. She is my EVERYTHING!

But my ego shrinks from this debasing posture. I would much rather be the poetic admirer, the worshipful devotee who praises her and charms her, caressing her with ardent words of love. I would describe her in vivid, pleasurable detail. My senses delight in her. I rub against her textures: sand beneath my feet, bark under my fingertips, meadow grass against my back. I inhale her fragrance: sea air and pine and sulfurous volcano. I taste her bounty and drink in her landscapes, satisfied and still wanting more. I strain toward the whisper of her winds and dance to the rhythm of her tides. Her specific excitements are too numerous and various to be composed. She is more vast than my words. The vaulted roof of the cosmos lifts away, and I am exposed.

Suddenly, I realize that the cosmos is not only endless, it is edgeless. There is no ‘It’ and no ‘Not It’. It is integrated. And here I am. Not ‘I’, not ‘It’. WE. We are. The planet, the cosmos, and me – together. We are. What kind of love is this, without borders? Without egos? Is this perfect love? Perfect love casts out fear. I am not afraid, not of death, not of survival. But I know suffering. We suffer. We suffer desecration. Everywhere the planet is fouled, I am wounded. I am sad. I feel a lover’s pain. I stand with her in this pain and take my vows. We are one. We must be at one. At-one. Atone. Heal. Integrate. Become whole. Forgive my ignorance. Forgive my ego. Forgive my parasitic need. I will love without borders. My life, my time, my energy is cosmos – and I will remember that.

scillagrace

Striving to live gracefully

Category Archives: Photography