Staying in the World

When I wake up in the morning
I can't decide whether to enjoy the world,
or improve the world;
that makes it difficult to plan the day.
E. B. White

The contemplative photographer faces the same dilemma.
Shall I spend this time cheek-to-cheek with my camera
   seeking and recording the templed aspects
      of this grand experiment called creation,
         this grand drama known as life on earth?
Or shall I be on the lookout for those images
      that challenge more than soothe,
         that prick more than pacify?
My belief is that the contemplative photographer
   is called to do both,
      sometimes in different images,
         sometimes within the same image.
An evocative celebration of creation’s beauty
   is also a plea to preserve it.
A visual homage to sacredness
   is also a call to honor its existence.
With that understanding,
      any of us can plan our days
         with our cameras nestled next to us
            without needing to think about it.
What is there to enjoy, we enjoy.
What is there to improve, we work toward improving.
That makes for a pretty full day.

An Open Letter

One cannot help but be in awe
when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity,
of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.
It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend
a little of this mystery each day.
Albert Einstein

Dear Al,
I feel like taping a gold star
   on your frumpy sweater!
It’s great that you, you of all people,
   step forward to validate the contemplation of mystery.
Long I have pictured you holding a stubby piece of chalk,
   scribbling impossibly complex equations
      that crawled the length of a classroom wall.
You’ve been the poster child for world-class
   intellectuality and rationality.
And then I read your words urging us to be contemplative,
   to meditate on the mysteries of life and eternity.
What an unexpected affirmation
   for this very different way of being and doing!
But, Al, I proceed to your second sentence
   and suddenly I want to twist your Einsteinian nose
      a solid quarter turn.
For you turn right around and tell us to
   “comprehend a little of this mystery each day.”
Comprehend?!
Mysteries like this are not meant to be comprehended!
They’re meant to be pondered,
   brooded upon,
      meditated about.
Contemplation isn’t about assigning answers.
It’s about sidling up next to the unanswerable
   while noticing what happens to your perspective
      about life and reality and eternity as you spend time there.
Take, for example, this image that beckoned to me
   not long ago in Death Valley.
I cannot explain it, nor do I want to.
I cannot say I understand it,
   even though I was right there
      when it suddenly leapt into my camera.
I don’t believe I’m supposed to comprehend it.
I believe I’m mostly invited simply to open to it.
That’s all I wanted to communicate, Al.

Quietly,
A sometime contemplative photographer

Mysteries

Talk of mysteries!
Think of our life in nature—
daily to be shown matter,
to come into contact with it—
rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks!
the solid earth! the actual world!
the common sense! Contact! Contact!
Henry David Thoreau

Rocks!
Trees!
Solid earth!
Thoreau called these “mysteries”
   as he walked the woods of Maine
      one hundred and fifty years ago.
I followed him to Maine three months back.
For days in succession
   I witnessed firsthand his exclamation points.
Stones!
Peeling tree trunks!
Moss-covered ground!
What Thoreau experienced as he ambled,
   and then brought to life in words,
      is what others of us experience as we amble,
         and then attempt to summon to life in images.
Rocks!
Trees!
Water!
Ground!
Veritable mysteries.

Breeze

Let mystery have its place in you;
do not be always turning up
your whole ploughshare of self-examination,
but leave a little fallow corner in your heart
ready for any seed the wind may bring,
and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird;
keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guest,
an altar for the unknown God.
Henri Amiel

There was a time in my early life—
   not early early, just early—
      when I would have scoffed at Amiel’s words.
“Make a place for mystery?!
We’re placed here to figure things out!”
My world was too small to make room for mystery.
And I was too small to give it room in me.
Nowadays I cannot imagine living
   without a huge chunk of mystery.
I have come to feel that knowing is overrated—
   too often it limits and confines.
Not knowing throws wide open
   the windows and doors of my days.
What would I do without that breeze?

Ordinary

A wonderful Zen saying goes like this:
   “Unformed people delight in the gaudy
      and in novelty.
   Cooked people delight in the ordinary.”
I would not dare to call myself a cooked person
   in the Zen Buddhist sense of that expression.
So many photographers are much more fired than I.
But yesterday I walked out on a wooden pier
   over a small lake in central Florida
      where I was visiting my weakening, aging father.
I stood alone on the wooden planks,
   looking down at the dark water.
Elliptical ripples,
   reflected clouds,
      peeping sun.
Nothing more.
Delightful.

Expressing the Inexpressible

After silence, that which comes nearest
to expressing the inexpressible is music.
Aldous Huxley

This much I know:
   words fall far short
      when it comes to expressing the inexpressible.
Human language can only feebly point in that direction.
Human words can make the tiniest of starts,
   saying, “Here’s a hint of a hint.”
Ultimately, however, words are constitutionally
   not up to the task.
The very sentences to which I resort here
   turn embarrassingly mute.
I believe, like Huxley,
   that music comes closer to being that voice.
But I know, deep inside,
   far beyond any other knowing,
      that pure silence comes closest of all.
That’s why from time to time
   I must wrap myself around my camera.
The quiet of photography
   and the silence of the finished photograph
      are eloquent in the way that surpasses all words.
Time after time my camera says, “Shhhh!”
I do my best to obey.