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Weekly Photo Challenge: Wilderness Inspiration

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This photo challenge is familiar.  In 2012, there was a similar challenge which I responded to in this fashion.  I still blog about all those things, but lately, I’ve come to realize that I have been going through an evolution inspired by a specific concept: WILDERNESS.  In fact, I have an entire page set up to link to my wilderness posts.  (Feel free to browse around there!)  This last weekend, Steve and I went to find some wilderness in the U.P. (the Upper Peninsula of Michigan).  Sure enough, there were 3 federally designated wilderness areas in the western portion of that state.  We went to the Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness in the Ottawa National Forest.  In 1987, logging operations there ceased and the logging roads were left to return to wilderness.  We were told by a forest ranger that the old road is a 7.5 mile “trail” that traverses the wilderness and given a map.  She warned us, though, that it’s not maintained.  We attempted to hike from both trail heads, but only got about 50 feet along before we realized that we would be foolish to go any further.  As I headed back toward the car, I realized that I was crying.  Not because I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to hike there, but for a very different, special reason.  It was as if I had been invited into the sanctuary of a foreign religion or to spend half an hour on a different planet.  I was humbled.  I was in awe.  I felt a reverence for the place that put my presence in profound perspective.  It wasn’t quite like I didn’t belong; it was that I belonged no more especially than anything else there, even the tiniest fungus spore.  It was a supreme experience of equality.  I did not dominate in any way.  I jokingly told Steve that this was a place “where men are food and flies are king”, but I was feeling anything but glib in my soul. 

To find yourself in the sanctuary of wilderness is to feel the breath of the Divine all around.  Breathe it in.  Be inspired. 

Inspiration

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Sliced in Half

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I whole-heartedly approve of this prompt.  I can play the magician and slice my picture in half to give you a thrill.  How do you want them?  Diagonal (like the upscale peanut butter & jelly sandwich), horizontal (typical of landscapes and layer cakes), or vertical (which is my favorite, I think, because I like going through life side by side)? 

Half and Half

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Oscar Wilde and “The Critical Spirit”

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This article is my submission to the July edition of The BeZine.  For the  table of contents with links to my colleague’s work, click here.

“THE CRITIC AS ARTIST: WITH SOME REMARKS UPON THE IMPORTANCE OF DOING NOTHING” — Oscar Wilde wrote this essay in the form of a dialogue between two characters, Gilbert and Ernest, in the library of a house in Piccadilly.  Here are some key quotes from that piece:

“The one duty we owe to history is to re-write it.  That is not the least of the tasks in store for the critical spirit.”

“When man acts he is a puppet.  When he describes he is a poet.”

I confess I have not read The Critic As Artist in its entirety and so have not discovered Wilde’s “remarks upon the importance of doing nothing”.  However, I do have some understanding of our critical mind, the ways we apply it, and the results of being dominated by it.

First of all, what is ‘the critical spirit’?  I think what the author is getting at is the individual thought process that creates meaning.  What we ‘know’ of the world might be broken into 3 categories: Fact, Experience and Story. Fact is the measured detail of life — how old it is, how big it is, how it reacts chemically, that kind of thing. We learn some things from it, but it has no emotional arch, no meaning.

Experience is the raw sensation of the moment: emotions, smells, sounds, tastes, sights, awareness, feeling.  It is how we know we are alive.

And then there’s Story, and this is how we are all poets: we take in data, we see events transpire, we feel emotion and sensation, and then, we put that together into a narrative that makes ‘sense’ to us.  We have created a story, a meaning, and attached it to history.  That work is largely supervised by our Ego as our thought processes select and omit and weigh the data according to our own preferences and values.  We imagine and imitate what we like, we suppress what we don’t; we spin what comes out.  These stories become part of the body of data that we use to create further meaning as well.  It is essential to realize that we are constantly making up stories.  Civilization is a story.  Religion is a story.  Philosophy and Art and Psychology and Anthropology and so many other pursuits are simply ways that we have manufactured meaning by creating stories.  There is wonderful wisdom in recognizing “the danger of a single story”, and so it is a fortunate thing to have so many different ones.  (a Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, fleshes this out in her profound TED talk, HERE) Stories are ubiquitous.  There is no ‘right’ story.  Good stories point at Truth, but there are lots of ways to construct them.

This awareness of the creation of story by your own Ego is the key to “the importance of doing nothing” as well.  The plethora of stories and the facility of story-telling in our culture tends to dominate our reactions and expectations, creating drama, manipulation and anxiety along with meaning.  In some ways, we want that.  We find it exciting.  But it’s also exhausting and can be exploitative.  To be able to leave the story-telling aside and simply BE is important for my well-being and my personal peace.  Meditation is helpful in the practice of stilling the ego and refraining from making up meaning.  When I concentrate on the present moment and return to the simple activity of breathing, I allow the world to be what it is instead of conscripting it into the service of my creative ego.  Then I am free to relax my mind and let go of my anxieties about how the story will turn out.  My energy is renewed, and I am at peace.  (This is a practice that I am only just beginning to employ.  Awareness is the first step!)

“The imagination imitates; it is the critical spirit that creates.”  We are invited to engage with the world on many different levels, all of which can be useful and appropriate at certain times.  Wisdom is the art of choosing how to engage in a way that is edifying for yourself and others.  For everything, there is a season: a time to imitate, a time to create, and a time to refrain from creative ego activity.  May each of us find joy in the exploration of this Wisdom and delight where we recognize this exploration in others!

Vivid

© 2015, essay and photographs, Priscilla Galasso, All rights reserved

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Symbols of My Father

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Today is my father’s birthday.  He’s been dead for 5 years, but his influence on my life has been incredibly profound.  I look through my photos and recognize him in symbolic images that point to something he represented in my life.  Representation is a well-developed part of human culture.  We use it in language, art, religion, philosophy, identity and so many other ways.  The real challenge we ‘civilized’ folk have is to strip away representations and come face-to-face with actual entities.  My father was highly educated and an educator himself.  His facility with symbol was quite advanced: he was a mathematician and a writer and combined those skills in his career as a Technical Writer.  I am grateful for the symbols I still see that remind me of his life, his personality, his love. 

My photos are valuable symbols to me.  Especially when I can’t access the actual things they represent.  GWHII RIP 2I miss you, Dad.  Rest in peace.

Symbol

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Door – or No Door?

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The open door…

edge

…is a symbol of the fluidity of life.  We pass through, but may we not also pass around or over?  Most often, I believe, doors are constructions of our own egos, our own consciousness.  We perceive doors even where there are none, just as we construct walls in the wilderness for no reason other than to give us a sense of boundaries.  Why do we find boundaries and closed doors comforting?  Maybe because they give us an excuse for setting limits.  Maybe that’s how they make us feel safe.  Where do you build doorways?  How would you feel in a place where there were none?

Familiar door
Fancy door

Door

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Weekly Photo Challenge: My Muse

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Brie Anne Demkiw’s challenge invites us to share our personal ‘muse’, the subject that we return to for new inspiration and in-depth study.  She has a favorite pier (coincidentally Scripps pier in La Jolla — I went to Scripps College in Claremont), which reminds me of my own pier post, A Jury of My Piers.  My muse is always Nature, and mostly Wisconsin, and you can visit my gallery page of Wisconsin nature shots by clicking here or on Wisconsin Outdoors in the heading. 

But today is an historic day, and I want to celebrate another muse, my youngest daughter Emily.  Emily recently announced her engagement to Nora, and today the U. S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a Constitutional right to same-sex marriage in all of the United States.  This is a break-through for the entire nation, but it’s a personal triumph for my family as well.  Emily is a ‘guiding genius’ (one of the definitions of the noun form of ‘muse’); she is a poet and singer and artist and recently became employed by a science surplus store….so she has all the Greek goddess talents going on.  In addition to that, she is an inspiration to me about social awareness, about being aware of yourself, your own psychology, and that of the people around you.  She is extremely intelligent and articulate, so that makes it easy for her to assess and communicate about what she notices and what she thinks.  She has called me out on my hypocrisy and my delusions (lovingly, of course) and challenged me to become more broad-minded.  She is a subject that I find particularly appropriate today….and she’s very photogenic.  So here’s her gallery:

So here’s to Emily and Nora: a bright, fabulous future to you!  May you continue to be an inspiration in the lives you lead and the love you generate.

Muse

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Summer with Dad (and some are not)

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The longest day of sunshine in the whole year…and it’s Father’s Day.  You have hours and hours to spend with your dad today!  What will you do?

– go camping, go sailing, have a picnic, play on the beach, go to the zoo, take a walk in the woods, play in the back yard, snuggle on the couch, climb a mountain, go out to dinner, eat ice cream cones on the porch, sing silly songs, read stories, play with his beard, watch the sun set….

Spend time with your Dad.  All you can.  There will probably come a day when you have no more hours of sun or darkness to spend together in the world.  In those days, you may spend time with your photographs and memories of him instead.  It’s not a bad time…..but it’s not the same. 

 

Dedicated, with love, to my dad (George) and the father of my four children (Jim).  I miss you this long, sunny day. 

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Proud of Roy G. Biv

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The rainbow is a perfect symbol and challenge for this June post! June is LGBT Pride Month, to honor the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan.  My friend and colleague, Jamie Dedes, alerted me to the history of this on her blog.  Here are the facts:

“The Stonewall riots were a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States. In the United States the last Sunday in June was initially celebrated as “Gay Pride Day,” but the actual day was flexible. In major cities across the nation the “day” soon grew to encompass a month-long series of events. Today, celebrations include pride parades, picnics, parties, workshops, symposia and concerts, and LGBT Pride Month events attract millions of participants around the world. Memorials are held during this month for those members of the community who have been lost to hate crimes or HIV/AIDS. The purpose of the commemorative month is to recognize the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals have had on history locally, nationally, and internationally.”

I celebrate all the colors of the rainbow, all the diversity of the world, the beauty and variety of life, its abundance and its sanctity.  Celebrate with me!  Have a colorful day!

photo by Marni (RIP)

ROY G. BIV

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Diversity and Car(ry)ing Capacity — Spiritual Lessons from Nature #3

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This essay is my contribution to the monthly ‘Be Zine’, found here.  Check out the other contributions by my colleagues!

According to Wikipedia, the term “biodiversity” came into popular usage in 1985 as the 1986 National Forum on Biological Diversity was being planned. A decade earlier in scientific studies, the term “natural diversity” was the expression used to describe the variety of different types of life found on earth, and “species diversity”, “species richness”, and “natural heritage” are even older terms. The same Wikipedia article goes on to describe how biodiversity benefits humanity. This is where I want to jump off the Wiki-wagon. I have a diminishing tolerance for anthropocentric thinking. Diversity isn’t important because it’s good for us. Diversity is important because it IS.

Where diversity exists, you know the carrying capacity of the environment is at a high level. This means that there are enough resources to support a large community of biota. There is abundance and health….for everything. There are food sources, water sources, shelters, places to meet others of your species, safe habitats in which to reproduce and raise young, and plenty of predators, large and microscopic, to keep the population in balance. Where diversity is threatened, you see widespread extinction, the development of large mono-cultures, and the altering of climate and landscape. (For a fascinating example of this, see this story on how the re-introduction of wolves into Yellowstone Park changed the course of a river. How Wolves Change Rivers on youtube.com.)

farm and wood

Diversity and abundance or extinction and scarcity. These are snapshots on either end of the spectrum of possible futures for our planet…or for any small subset of it. My question isn’t about how diversity benefits humanity. My question is about how diversity feels. Not only to you, or to us, but to the Universe. As Eckhart Tolle would say, think beyond the Egoic Mind. What is diversity to the Power and Source of Life? It is essential; it is essence poured out on reality. You might say that the Divine is manifest in diversity. What is diversity to the Ego? It is a threat. It is Other and Dangerous. I’m sure you can see how this plays out across different parts of history in different parts of the world. Where mono-cultures restrict diversity in the human community, what is the effect? Take a moment here to think of all you’ve ever read or heard, seen or felt about genocide, extinction, ‘ethnic cleansing’, segregation, persecution, and intolerance.  The human Ego fighting the reality of diversity is a war that makes no sense to me.  There is no possible victory in it anywhere, for anyone.

abundance

My final questions are these: what is diversity to the Person you want to be, in the world where you will live? How is your carrying capacity, your caring capacity, today?

© 2015, essay and photographs, Priscilla Galasso, All rights reserved