Chilling Out

As summer heat continues these days find me

Chilling Out

in my office when I’m not biking, gardening, walking, or taking pilates class. I’m working on completing several series of photographs that I’ve been working on for one to two years. Finally, I feel that some of the series I’ve been creating are complete.

I’ll be sharing them with you in the next days and weeks. Today I’m also sharing a quote from the beginning of an article that is well worth reading. It’s called, Murmerations: Returning to the Whole.

Somehow, it feels to me as if this article is meant to be read with these images that I am sharing with you today. Here is the first paragraph of the article…

My mentor Grace Lee Boggs used to ask this question all the time, to anyone who came to visit and learn with her, in any meeting she attended, or speech she gave. She wanted us—her students, comrades, and community—to keep a wide, long lens about our work. To remember, all of the time, that this moment is not the only moment. Human development moves in these massive cycles and phases, and there are always agents of change who ideate and practice and push and grow those shifts. She reminded us that there are changes available to us that are distinct to this time, and she urged us to be present to the opportunities that are current. She knew that we are not individuals simply living these solitary lives in a vacuum; we are the cells of our time-body, the collective physical body of this moment, interacting with each other and the earth and technology in ways that will create an age.

   — Adriane Marie Brown,  Mumerations: Returning to the Whole

Here’s the first series of images that I completed. I created them by combining two or more of my nature photographs with one another. In some of the images I also layered in a photo of a watercolor painting that I made.

I call this series of images

Ineffible

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés

These photographs express my reverence and gratitude for life and for the endless iterations of the creative generativity of life. I believe that we living in a time where the old stories we lived by no longer serve us. We must create new stories that respect and honor all forms of life and that value compassion, generosity, and love more than things, status, and power.

May you walk in beauty. May you experience ineffable grace in your life today and always.