Category Archives: Photography

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Living With Mystery

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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?

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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

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

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside

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UW Madison Arboretum - inside

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.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Perspective

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Sand structureDribble 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.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Threes

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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:

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Planet Love

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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. 

Sky over Lapham Peak

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

     

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Treasure

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Treasure: pirate’s booty, artifacts from an ancient tomb, shiny objects stashed in your nest, things you collect and wrap carefully. 

I do not think of myself as a materialistic person because I don’t like shopping and buying, but I do have a collection of stuff that I have found or been given.  These semi-precious items are housed in special places like shelves, curio cabinets, and glass-fronted cupboards in my home.  It’s rather like a museum, which is perfectly appropriate to my interests and personality.  (I work at 2 museums.) When I think of my collecting behavior, it probably started with rocks and “glassies” (beach glass) as a kid.  As an adult, I collected eggs…a symbol of the Trinity, of life, and nature to me.  Now, most of my egg collection is in storage, and I have begun accumulating elephants (mostly from Steve’s Aunt Rosie, who, having a habit as a flea market addict and having identified my taste, seems to present me with additions every time I see her!).  Elephants are a symbol of matriarchal wisdom and compassion to me.  My first beloved stuffed animal was Babar.  I treasure the idea of elephants in the wild and feel great pain at their destruction.  I would like to see some in their natural habitat some day. 

But there is something that I collect and value even more, I think.  I keep them close to me in places where I see them every day: on my computer screen, on my phone screen, on my living room shelves and in great boxes under my bed.  They are photographs of my family.  I’m guessing this is something that most people on the planet treasure…maybe hidden in a chest, tucked into a scrap of cloth, hanging on a chipping plaster wall or stashed in a suitcase in less technologically developed cultures.  In fact, in our “museum inventory”, we have quite a few photographs of complete strangers, gleaned from estates sales – black and white faces in various poses, symbols of human connection.  One day I’d like to give them new life in some art form so they might be treasured once again.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Selfie

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My sister’s 365-day photo project for her 50th year was all about the selfie.  She has a remote device on her camera to make that easier. Her project inspired me to blog, but I am far too shy to face images of myself every day.  I do, however, have a couple:

Touch

It seems I can’t really justify a selfie, unless I’m in costume, with another person, or in the shot by accident.  Then there’s that other one: I’m hiking, facing the sun, and really happy being myself.  I took a picture to remind myself that I like me, which is not something I allow myself very often.  Befriending myself for an entire year is something I have yet to work up to. Maybe next birthday…

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Object

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I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, – and the stars through his soul. – Victor Hugo

Never criticize a man until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins.  – Native American proverb

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. –Carl Jung

What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful than the garment with which it is clothed? – Michelangelo Buonaroti

Back in the days when I was keeping up a profile on OK Cupid, I was prompted to write about my favorite pair of shoes.  I imagine the flirtatious fetishists out there were just salivating at the possibilities.  I didn’t have to contemplate long before I realized that the footwear that best housed my feet and characterized my soul was my 30 year-old, steel-toed, suede waffle stompers.  They had outlasted even my husband by that time.  I got them in High School and wore them in on a trip with the Sierra Club.  I still have them.  They still fit, although I don’t wear them any more.  I purchased new hiking boots a couple of years ago, before I went on a 4 week road trip with Steve.  They are lighter and more comfortable even then my venerable pair.  For a person who hates shopping for clothes or shoes or anything else besides food, the thrill of buying them was unexpected.  I’d finally had a Female Consumer Moment! 

(I don’t plan to have any more…please stop sending advertisements.)

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Juxtaposition

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I love this word: Juxtaposition.  I remember that my sister had an art book by this title when we were in High School.  It held a special intrigue (maybe also because it contained nudity?).  Contrasts are not the same as conflicts.  There is a certain harmony or peace about them, like the yin/yang.  I like that.

The “veil-ociraptor” on the wedding cake topper represents my daughter Susan, who is celebrating her 29th birthday today.  Appropriately, The Bardo Group posted an essay of mine on the subject of “Joy” today as well.  I invite you to read it here.  Joy in the midst of suffering is the juxtaposition of real lives, I think.