perspective

Listening to presidential hopefuls and starting to write short fiction this week have me thinking about perspective, and perception. Oh, and two posts ago hearing your differing opinions about Zaha Hadid's modern aluminum and glass architectural concept in a row of traditional brick university buildings.

Barack Obama is our savior. Barack Obama is no different from any other politician. He could transform the image of America. He will not change anything.

Eckhart Tolle said that if you were born into precisely the same circumstances as another person, you would make the same choices they have made. Well, you could never prove that one, could you?

What creates our perspective? How much of it is conscious choice? How much is default reaction based on how we were raised? How much is based on educating ourselves, being exposed to someone else's perspective?

If I could zoom in on one little piece of the canvas in this evolving life, I'd like to work on taking myself less seriously while being more open to someone else's perspective.

How can I take myself too seriously when yesterday I:

• made coffee - water in, grounds in - without putting the pot in its spot: yeah, coffee overflowing onto the floor
• getting ready to color my own hair last night, instead of mixing the activating cream with the TINT, I mixed it with the CONDITIONER, in other words, a waste of seven bucks and an hour's time

It was a full moon yesterday. Does that change things?

slowing down

tin can reflection: rock rose

After almost 10 months of posting a new photograph daily at my Flying photoblog and before that, East Lansing Daily Photo (no longer exists), I can feel my pace slowing. Maybe it's a phase, but I feel that intense photographic energy ebbing. And the daily practice of visiting several photoblogs is losing its pull.

Eckhart Tolle talks about three states of mind that are preferable for looking at the world. In other words, if you can find one of these for any circumstance, you will have peace. They are acceptance, joy and enthusiasm. You can't always be thrilled with your circumstances or find joy in them, but you can accept them. Sometimes acceptance even turns into joy, and I've experienced that. Finding joy in something mundane that I used to find tiresome is a great feeling.

The enthusiasm one is a temporary state, he says, for certain projects or visions. I think that's what I had for photography and the photoblog. I was enthusiastic for almost 10 months! That's actually pretty startling if I think about it. I don't think I've ever had such a long attention span for anything, well, except maybe quilt making. But it was always hard to finish one after I'd designed it.

So, I think I'll post a photo every other day, or when I feel it. If I've learned anything in the last 3 years, it's that I get to decide my own pace, what's right for me. I'm glad to have learned a bit about photography, enough to go forward and express myself in it as I do with poetry, without being compelled to answer a daily call.

And hey, Don plans to put a wood floor in the atelier this summer, so maybe the next thing is painting on Grandma's easel in that little building that feels like the center of the universe.

What I long for is human interaction and love, artistic expression, shared ideas, and finding ways to make the world more like heaven than hell. There is joy.



tin can reflection: geranium (pelargonium)

New growth

Today I'm bringing all the houseplants inside from the porch where they summered. I have quite a collection of these Christmas cacti, since I propogated them over the winter.

You know, I think summer is great, but it's in autumn when you reap the benefits of all that sunshine and warmth. You eat the harvested fruits and vegetables, and you see the new growth that sprouted in the warmth and light.

I've been reading in Tolle about space consciousness, and it comes well timed, because I've been overwhelmed with information overload. I need to be more conscious of empty space, and how it's needed to observe life and also for creativity. I need more stillness.

So all that grey space in the photo is for Life to expand.

Flap your wings

See this butterfly? He was flipping and flapping so eratically around the zinnias yesterday, I didn't think the camera would focus on him. See how tattered his wings are? His right one is almost half gone after a season of flapping.

Yesterday I read in Tolle his comparison of humans and ducks.

"When two ducks get into a fight, which never lasts long, they will separate and float off in opposite directions. Then each duck will flap its wings vigorously a few times, thus releasing the surplus energy that built up during the fight. After they flap their wings, they float on peacefully, as if nothing had ever happened."

"If the duck had a human mind . . ." Tolle writes on, and you can fill in the rest. He'd start thinking and analyzing the situation, hold a grudge for next time, maybe for years to come, etc.

So the point is, be more like a duck, flap your wings and let go of the story!

Visit Paris Deconstructed for a new post about my favorite resting place in Paris.