Tag Archives: philosophy

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Express Yourself

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What an invitation!  “Express Yourself” – squeeze yourself into a photograph or a gallery, squirting out the essence of your personality, your style, your philosophy, your vision.  This could be one messy catharsis!  Here goes:

What was THAT about?! 

Well, here is something I’ve been pondering lately: Eckhart Tolle’s profound revelation “I can’t live with myself any longer.”  In order to arrive at such a conclusion, he must have thought there was a difference between ‘I’ (the authentic and divine being) and ‘My Self’ (the false delusion we sometimes call ‘ego’).  Seeing the juxtaposition of these two ideas of a person leads me to recognize that there is a lot of falsity, of gibberish and nonsense that we superimpose on the experience of existence.  That veneer surrounds us and can build up, layer upon layer to stifling proportions.  And then, sometimes there’s a break through.  A simple, true observation of the wonder of existence that doesn’t explain everything, but stands in almost blinding clarity against the noise of culture. 

Anyway, my gallery illustrates how I am living astride this double existence.  I interact with people who are a complex combination of I/Self expressions, I deal with objects which are mostly complete gibberish but which many people value anyway, and I marvel at Nature and grieve our exploitation of its pure embodiment of Life.   

Hope you found this entertaining and thought-provoking.  I appreciate the invitation to share my view!

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

Express Yourself

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Shadowed

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I really like this challenge.  Shadowed.  Looking at my photographs and paying attention to what the shadow adds to the picture is like developing greater awareness of the Yin side of the universal whole.  I don’t always remember to do that.  I am attracted to the brighter side of life by default, maybe because of my Sun sign, Leo…maybe not.  Maybe just because there are so many voices encouraging us Westerners to be positive and dualistic.  Shun the shadow, move toward the Light.  Problem is, you’re only half aware if you do that. 

Nature’s shadow is dramatic and ordinary at the same time.  Sunlight is a powerful force in the ecosystem of life, and its waxing and waning effects many behaviors.  We tend to think of the differences as important, but are they?

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Nocturnal creatures make a habitat out of shadow; it is simply home, cover and shelter. 

shadowed

Natural entrance to Carlsbad Caverns, from which approximately 300,000 bats emerge nightly to find water and food.

Shadows can represent mystery in life, reminding us that what we don’t see is nevertheless present and active.

shadowed 3Ultimately, ‘shadowed’ is a concept.  It’s a creation of the big human brain, borne of our propensity to analyze, distinguish and attach a label.  Shadows are a natural phenomenon that we like to imbue with meaning.  That’s who we are and what we do, and it’s interesting to ponder that.

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

Inspired by the Word Press Weekly Photo Challenge.

Shadowed

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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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Photography 101: Edge

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When I first saw Michelle’s photo of Angkor Wat, I immediately thought of this shot I took in New Mexico at the ruins of a settler’s ranch:

edgeWe recently saw a glorious Korean film called “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring” in English.  It takes place mostly in a monk’s floating temple.  Inside his humble place, he has a shrine and a place to sleep.  The “bedroom” is set apart by a doorway, but there are no walls.  Still, every time he retires, he stands up and goes through the doorway.  It would take him two crawling motions to go from his knees before the Buddha statue to his bedroll on the floor, but he never does that.  The door is a reminder, a discipline, a practice, I’m sure.  It represents some kind of edge or divider, and yet, all is One inside as the open space prevails.  I like how this ruin recaptured that feeling.  We put up our boundaries, but they are mere illusions.  Or perhaps delusions.  Edges are not the Truth of the world, but we cling to them nevertheless.  They give our organized Western minds that compartmentalism that makes us feel secure and in control.  The hazard there is that when the compartments are breached, we feel that something is “wrong”, and we become anxious…needlessly.   Learning to be at peace with being open is a practice I’m following lately. 

In case that’s too philosophical for you, I’ll give you some more literal illustrations:

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Photography 101: Glass

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Glass. 

Half full, half empty.  Worn and washed up on the beach. 

“Land Ho!”  “Pass me the glass! No, not that one, the telescope!” 

Through a glass, darkly.  Nose to the pane.  The ceiling.  Don’t throw stones.

Cool and transparent, insulating, sparkly…glass is all around.  I look through it all day long, even when I’m outside and have for years.  I remember leaving the optometrist’s showroom with my first pair of glasses on.  I looked up to the foothills and saw leaves on the trees up there.  Suddenly, there was depth and contrast in the distance.  It was a miracle.  The first time I looked through a microscope was a miracle, too.  I imagine indigenous people finding obsidian and cutting their fingers on it, rejoicing.  What stuff! 

I feel my life getting dull.  I’ve been working hard at the book-selling business, rather repetitively.  I need to wake up to the scintillating delight of life.  This is a perfect visual reminder!

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Saints, Souls and Scorpions

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What are we, really?  What is our essence?  Is it distinct? 

What a burning question!  How we long to know that we are special, unique, inimitable and eternal in some way.  Our egos seek definition, boundaries and refinements.  This is me!  That’s not me! But is that really how the Universe is made up?

Carl Sagan says that we are made of star stuff.  Ah!  What a beautiful idea, connecting us with the cosmos, the eternal past and the eternal future.  Thich Nhat Hahn says that we are ‘continuations’, the recycling of energy into life.  Environmental education seeks to instill the understanding that we are a part of, not apart from, the natural world. 

I love that today is a day for celebrating those connections.  All Saints’ Day, Dia de los Muertos, Steve’s Birthday, my sister Dharam’s Birthday, all of those holy notions come together today.  We ‘inter-are’, we interconnect, we are interdependent with all forms of life.  It so happens that those born on this day share the zodiac sign of Scorpio.  That reminds me that we are interconnected with forms of life that are not human.   And somewhat scary.  I saw my first wild scorpion in Texas one week ago.  He was promenading around in the light of the bathroom facility at Guadalupe National Park’s Dog Canyon campground in the middle of the night.  I was making a night visit without a flashlight but aided by the starry host. Had he not been directly under the security light, I would have missed him.  He was pale and small, and I walked right past him in my drowsy stupor.  It wasn’t until I was ensconced in the bathroom that it dawned on me.  “That was a real scorpion!” By the time I emerged, he had moved on.  I was sorry I missed a better look.  And I wish I had a photograph. 

The manifestations of star stuff that we get to see are fleeting and fascinating.  Enjoy them.  Look long and hard.  Take pictures if you like.  You may never see this combination again.  And you will see other combinations to delight you instead.  What a thing to celebrate!

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

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Poets Revving Engines

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NaPoWriMo!!!  It’s SPRING and it’s POETRY and the world is a wonderful place!  I feel the excitement, the bloom of emotion, the fascination of symbol and script!  It’s romantic, pedantic, nostalgic, elegiac, existential and full of potential.  WHOOOOOT! 

Okay, with all of this enthusiasm, you’d think I was about to bust out a whole anthology of poems that I’ve just written.  Sorry to disappoint, but it’s also Spring Break month (because, really, no two school districts plan this for the same week) and things at Discovery World Museum are pretty hectic – meaning that after being indoors with 600 school children for 7 hours, my ears are ringing and my head is aching and I haven’t been in my quiet, creative place all day.  Still, I have looked up the prompt from the NaPoWriMo site and consulted the Bibliomancy Oracle.   It has led me to a wonderful poem called Parable on Fish & Fire.  Coincidentally, I made tilapia for dinner tonight, and after sitting down and offering my thanksgiving for fish, I recalled the saying by Kabir, “I laughed when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty.”   We are thirsty fish, we are celebratory poets.  We celebrate the mundane, the environment of being human.  Love, life, beauty, truth, concept and experience…we make it up and tear it down.  We’re social animals with big brains, but we’re only minimally distinct from all the other carbon life forms on this planet.  Isn’t that a riot?  Sure it is.  So let’s riot…but stay a little aware. 😉

— A Poem I Wrote sometime before 1997 —

God is a poem

Infinite in meaning

Economical in expression

Clothed in symbol and harmony

A breathing Word

Engaging all perception

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections

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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. 

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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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My Personal Titanic

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From manic to panic

to sinking, slowly,

letting go, breathing with the flow,

the end of woe,

the bliss of weightlessness,

the natural company of fish.

It’s been kind of a crazy week inside my head. Steve admitted to being a little scared of me.  It started out on a real high – Valentine’s Day.  I was full of positive energy, on my biological upswing, energetic and eager to communicate my passions, my dreams, my optimism.  I went face-to-face with Steve’s downswing and asserted my intent not to be the killjoy in his life or the cause for his anxieties. “Go ahead, follow your bliss and don’t worry about explaining it to me!  I’d rather come home to a mess in the living room and you deep into an exciting project than be greeted by restrained order and depression.”  I went face-to-face with a family issue the next day, emotionally charged and endlessly repercussive, feeling open to multiple possibilities and honestly vulnerable. My karma was kickin’, I thought.  My vibes were sure to cause some awesome progress in the near future. 

The next day was a Federal holiday, but I was at work at the museum and anticipating starting lessons with a new student directly after my shift.  Families with kids home from school opted not to venture out, however, because of a huge snowstorm in the forecast.  The staff was dismissed at 2pm because the place was so empty.  I drove 2 co-workers home in a complete white-out and was barely able to maneuver my car into the driveway through ankle-deep snow.  I decided to cancel my lesson, hoping my new client wouldn’t mind.  She never called me back.  I began to doubt my decisions. 

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The next day, I bundled up boxes of books for shipping and headed out the door for work, running a little late in order to get the last package included.  Sitting in the driver’s seat, I noticed there was still snow crusted on the windshield wipers.  I pulled the door handle to pop out and clear them off, but nothing happened.  I thought perhaps the door was frozen.  I pushed with my shoulder.  Nothing. “I’m trapped!” I phoned Steve in the house.  He told me that he had a similar difficulty the night before when he returned from shoveling at his mom’s house. “Just roll down the window and open the door from the outside,” he suggested.  The window is frozen.  I finally squeeze my way out the passenger door into a snow pile and meet Steve in the driveway.  “When? Why? What do I do?” I’m late to work, and I don’t know if my window will thaw in time to let me collect a ticket and enter the parking garage without parking the car and climbing out the other side.  What if the gate closes on me?  And I REALLY have to pee!  I arrive at work late, flustered and cramped.  I wonder why Steve didn’t mention this door issue to help me prepare.  Is this a small fire?  Why am I feeling angry and unsettled?  We talk at dinner, and I tell him my plan to slow down, breathe and concentrate on my bliss the next day. 

My shift starts slowly, sun streaming through the windows, small family groups perusing the museum.  Suddenly, the school groups arrive.  I will be calm and proactive.  I will greet them all and give them information and safety rules and smile.  But they’re arriving one on top of another, and not listening to me!  I whirl around and lunge at a girl going head first down the ladder and drive my knee into the boards of the ship.  Ouch!  Can’t think about that now, I’m still talking to this other group…and I realize I’m talking so fast that I can’t breathe.  My chest is constricting.  Asthma? Heart attack? No, you’re still talking.  Stop talking and take a breath, you fool! 

I am panicked.  I am going way too fast.  Where is my Willy Wonka detachment? “Stop, don’t, come back…”  I am addicted to my thoughts (as Eckhardt Tolle would say), to my ego, to my responsibility, and it’s causing me to suffer.  I need to let go and get grounded once more.  My knee throbs.  I can’t walk.  I must slow down now.  I have no other option. 

I had my first lesson with another new voice student last night.  It went very well.  I rang the wrong doorbell initially; I don’t think it hurt my client’s first impression too much.  Steve and I had planned to go to Madison to take a class at the arboretum this morning, but with a “wintry mix” of snow, sleet, and rain on the roads, we decided to stay home.  Initially, this was one more disappointment in my Manic to Panic downfall, but it dawned on me that I could choose to look at it as an opportunity.  An opportunity to really slow down.  To sink.  Like the Titanic. 

It’s a very real, natural environment down here.  Nothing is “good”, “bad”, “successful” or “progressive” among the fish.  It simply is.  Things happen.  Fish eat fish, waves come and go, and any drama is simply in my head.  I meditate on plankton, sucking in and gushing out, enriched by the flow, going along.  I’m staying here for a while.  I’ll let you know when (and if) I surface.

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