Birth, Growth, Decline, Death

This morning I cut off two fading amaryllis stems before they collapsed completely. And then I decided to photograph their faded beauty.

So many beautiful sights I’ve seen this week have immersed me in contemplating the circle of life…

Birth, Growth, Decline, Death

I often feel as if our culture does everything it can to deny death. Yet the reality is that life is an ever turning circle. I see it all around me in the way that plants sprout, grow, wither, and die. This morning I saw fox tracks in our back yard leading to pounce in the snow. I know that a mouse probably lost its life to feed the fox last night because the evidence left in the snow.

Life and death in the snow

I cannot mourn each loss of life in nature because the reality is that nothing is lost. Life feeds life. Instead I marvel at the cycles of life and on the myriad forms of life. We keep learning more and more about so many different forms of life surrounding us from the smallest microbe to the giant redwood trees.

The Kingfisher 

The kingfisher rises out of the black wave
like a blue flower, in his beak
he carries a silver leaf. I think this is
the prettiest world–so long as you don’t mind
a little dying, how could there be a day in your
whole life
that doesn’t have its splash of happiness?
There are more fish than there are leaves
on a thousand trees, and anyway the kingfisher
wasn’t born to think about it, or anything else.
When the wave snaps shut over his blue head, the
water
remains water—hunger is the only story
he has ever heard in his life that he could
believe.
I don’t say he’s right. Neither
do I say he’s wrong. Religiously he swallows the
silver leaf
with its broken red river, and with a rough and
easy cry
I couldn’t rouse out of my thoughtful body
if my life depended on it, he swings back
over the bright sea to do the same thing, to do it
(as I long to do something, anything) perfectly.

   —  Mary Oliver

Creative Juice

I’ve been working through the photographs I made during the past two years to create some new portfolios on my website. I wanted to gather some coherent bodies of work that spoke to me. So far I’ve created and posted a Pandemic Portfolio and a Backyard and Beyond Portfolio. I’m working on another called, “Hope Floats,” but I haven’t yet completed it.

I’ve also been making prints with a new photo paper that just arrived yesterday. The paper is called “Washi Torinoko” and it has the look and feel of homemade Japanese paper.

I’ve been thinking of making a homemade photo book and wanted to try out this paper as a possible medium to use. So far I am very intrigued by it. It’s easy to use and has a lovely subtle texture. It works well for black and white or toned monochrome images but not so well for colored photos. Color photos look a little dull and yellow.

If you take a look at the new portfolios on my website you will see that I’ve been a little obsessed with adding a kind of antique yellow tone to my images lately. I’ve become inspired by the work of photographer, Wendi Schneider. She prints on vellum and also on washi paper and then embosses the backs of the translucent paper with gold. I am guessing that I’ve gone too far on the use of the gold tones in my images and will soon find that I prefer a more subtle color. But part of my creative process almost always includes the step of going too far with a technique when I first use it, and then slowly dialing back.

I feel as if I am waking up creatively after a long winter slumber. There aren’t enough hours in the day for all of the projects whirling through my mind. It is lovely to feel my creative juices flow again.

What are you creating these days my friends? Are you in a rest and recover part of the cycle or filled with new ideas and projects?

May you walk in beauty.

Cheerful Tulips this morning