wanting to live it…

“It’s having a dream and wanting to live it so greatly that one would rather move with it and “fail” than succeed in another realm.”  The Universe

Amber glow

Drinking day old coffee, cold. Wearing cloths that are worn, frayed and out of date, piled high on surfaces that use to be desks, for the draws are full or inaccessible. Sleeping on a futon crammed in a room that was supposed to be temporary, sheets and pillows toss about hardly ever straightened. Books, books, more books, spiritual, educational, fiction/nonfiction, art books/photography picture books and essays, all piled on every other surface that can handle them, some in cases, on top of file cabinet reaching almost to 9 foot ceiling, on little floor space around the bed. Collections of found objects, feathers, rocks, miniature cars, toy monsters, solider’s of the empire, bones of creatures, groundhogs?  A tiny space that was created as an altar, a small photo of the Sacred Heart of Mary, red rosary’s draped over the edge, wood angels, collections of semi precious stones, in a hand-made pottery bowl, many spill out on the surface, waiting to be held or carried. Scattered around them essential oil bottles, sticky with use, giving a sent to the room something a bit unpredictable at times. Every thing dust-covered, feathers from the bedding gather in corners that are mostly unreachable. On the walls that have  semi peeling wall paper with 55-year-old paint, pale blue on them  have a few of my own photographs, one of Terrill Welsch’s canvas print photographs, and a stained glass image of an angel.

scattered elements

Is this a space to create from, is this a room of a mad man, a hoarder, a dreamer? I once saw photos of Lucian Freud’s apartment that is painted from floor to ceiling, in the biography of Alice Neel it is said that her apartments rooms were filled with her paintings and little else, they lived and worked in those spaces. Creating images that seem to just wish to flow from them.

building towers

So if I “fail” as a house keeper or in relationships/friendships or other wise it is because pursuing a dream, following my bliss is about creation, creating photographs, viewing photographs and art… Self education of the talent that I have been graced with has enriched my life in so many ways other pursuits seem wasteful, almost unproductive.

No no my whole home is not a hoarders nightmare, it maybe a yard sale waiting to happen?  Photographs are  hung, as well as leaning against the walls in places I would like them to hang. There are boxes of old framed photographs on the porch among frames that need attention.

A small view into my world:

The quote from the Universe this morning also stated this; “At which point, of course, failure becomes impossible, joy becomes the measure of success,”

Growth Question: Are your following your dream, your bliss?

Rarely have we seen a person fail…

who has throughly  followed our path.” Big statement yet placed with honesty, and continual practice of service to a Higher Power through the steady conscious awareness of self in daily readiness to help another human being.

Glimmers of light

At 12:00 am today I was led out of a tunnel of darkness, into a room full of light, well really crowded with men and women sitting around a table and lining the walls of a strip mall store, drinking coffee, smoking and chatting among themselves. Actually they were reading from a book,  a little blue book, The 12 & 12, which was either shared with me by the person next to me or I was given one while being shown which page and paragraph they were on. Yes I was late to my first AA Meeting at the Malvern Club House.

24 Years ago today those people in that crowded smoked filled room help me begin to change me life, one day at a time.  Being desperate enough to finely seek help for my drinking which had recently gotten me arrested for public lewdness or disturbance. My lover of the past few years had offered me a ultimatum,  it was him or the booze and crazy behavior alcohol and pot created within me. Imagine I went to my first meeting to save my relationship with another person? Yet I discovered after a few short weeks it was the relationship to myself and a Higher Power that would keep me there, allow me to get sober and be sober…

A moment

24 years is a life time, 24 years is only a beginning of the opening doors, the unraveling of years of unconscious behavior, ideals, and thinking that kept me in the state of want, the state of emptiness. In that state I felt the need to fill the hole in my soul, the ego needed to be constantly stroked. Every action was caused by those needs to be wanted  to be like, to be the best at something.

24 years of awakening, walking along many paths with many people, in meetings, books, in prayer circles, which for a time included religious organizations, than in spiritual community, who did I meet in all those places? I met myself, I meet myself in the reflection of each person and situation that challenges who I am, who I believe I am and who I am becoming.

24 years of re-discovery, have I throughly followed the path? Sometimes, sometimes not. The quote that begins this blog and is major part of the 12 Step Program written by recovering drunks for recovering drunks, and read at many many meeting everyday sets down the path, offers the tools to use, to a practice of a way of life beyond many peoples understanding. The reading offers bit of comfort with these words, ” We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.”

the imperfect path

Thank goodness for that, I don’t have to be perfect anymore, and I am not by any means. I fall short every day, yet the main thing is I don’t drink, I don’t use a substance, to dumb me. I walk in the woods, I take my camera, and my two lovely animal companions who show me what unconditional love is on a moment to moment basis. I am granted today, this moment, to be present, each a gift to unwrap and savor, sharing with the world around me…

I am grateful.

 

Art is born…

Opening the Artist Way this morning for the first time in a while, the opening lines of the introduction to the 10th Anniversary Edition spoke volumes to me;

“ART IS A SPIRITUAL transaction.

Artist are visionaries. We routinely practice a from of faith, seeing clearly and moving toward a creative goal that shimmers in the distance——often visible to us, but invisible to those around us. Difficult as it is to remember, it is our work that creates the market, not the market that creates our work. Art is an act of faith, and we practice practicing it. Sometimes we are called on pilgrimages on its behalf  and, like many pilgrims, we doubt the call even as we answer it. But answer we do.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answering the call is returning to write this blog through the dark tunnels of caregiving as well as the shimmering light that attracts my eye to create along with natures grace the sharing of beauty. It is the beauty that allows sanity to be maintained.

” Art is born in attention. It is midwife to detail. Art may seem to spring from pain, but perhaps that is because pain serves to focus our attention onto details…”  When the gift of photography was shared with me from the perspective of a gathering of Shamans, in the message that stated, “the property wishes to be recognized” the property being the 175 acre retreat I live at. The land was calling out, I soon discovered so was my soul, so was my voice asking to be seen and heard. Photography/art allowed me to be seen and heard, and to participate in events, situations, what seems like the side lines yet in true placing a camera in front of my face gave me the gift of “seeing” for the first time, really seeing what I was looking at. Offered me detail, lights and shadows.

Now a few years later,  pursuing photography has opened doors and a few windows that have led to a world so unknown to be before. Art! Art can soothe which it usually does from me, taking the dogs and  camera for a walk moves me into another world, world of amazing sites even when I have seen them a thousand times, when I don’t see them, it means I am not present, and I a looking for something instead of just being still, allow presence to stream over or into me… 

 

 

The practice is not only to make photographs but to self educate myself about art. The art of photography is huge and getting bigger, and I am only a small drop of colored light that gleams to paint the world with light. I am challenged by my concepts of photography, ever evolving, as well as what art is… and what it is not.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was extremely challenged a few days ago by photography work I was viewing in the ever evolving world when I came across what is call “art” photography, in the sense of creating something and photographing that to make a statement. (it has been suggested that I attempt to record the process of caregiving and depression, which I have considered) yet these photographers have taken something that was ordinary and maybe kinky, one knits shrouds, which where to represent her feelings of invisibility about her relations and her art. Playful and colorful as they were I began to see them to create more invisibility. Than there is a guy who has made beautiful sculpture like images of bound people in stark architectural sittings… These images awakened something dark, and frightening in me… the darkness and captivity of illness and caregiving. To move beyond that I knew I had to continue with the blog, I had to repurpose my photography into a source of Love and light. It had to become my voice, it had to be the visible me, even through I am not “present” my presence is in the work, in the detail, in the faith, the beauty wins.

 

Question: Do you know where you attention to is?

The progress of mistakes

“If we are to make progress, if we are to grow, if we are to live our dreams, then we must begin to expect that mistakes and problems will arise – and not meet them with the arrogant belief that they shouldn’t be there, but instead bring awareness and patience to the situation and know that problems are there to teach us and they are an inevitable step towards mastery.”  Mastin Kipp: Daily Love Blog:
http://thedailylove.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each morning for weeks, no months, I have desired to write, to blog, always getting distracted by one thing or another. Which is always just me getting in my own way. There is always something to distract us from our journey, always another shinning object, another mistake, another detour, yet all paths on the same journey to our destination. The road less traveled is not as easy to walk, ride, but I believe a much more rewarding one. A journey made from our own choices, our own visions of who we are, where we wish to go.

Since last fall I have become my mother’s caregiver, finding out her dementa/Alzheimer’s is worst than we thought but not as bad as it may become. Yet a new chapter in both our lives, lives interrupted by illness, aging, unclear paths untraveled by either of us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes depression became my companion, I felt betrayed in some ways by my sister and brother in law who bought a house and moved out of the family home after 55 years! It was just Mom, the dogs and I! I knew some of the steps to take to get the help, Doctor appointments, contacting the county/senior service, I knew but I didn’t do much about it. I stood stunned in my path, going numbly from day to day. Was there, is there an arrogant belief I should not be there? Not arrogant, just a shocked misunderstanding of where I was in my life. Did I ask myself is this what I called forth? If I called being a caregiver to my Mother it was not a conscious calling. Is this part of growing up, being responsible?  If it is part of growing up and being responsible is sucks!

An older male friend commented this way about my being in this state of presence about my Mom just yesterday: “Please know that in the process of your frenzy and fury over dealing with your mother that you are doing the work that honors both of you. (This is a better way to think about it then prompting her to talk about fourteen hours of labor!!!”  Yes, I am trying to move into the higher vibration of all of this.  and slowing this is coming to be, yet part of me is just numb or angry, feeling love in this process is a difficult to reach. As the quote says above; “but instead bring awareness and patience to the situation and know that problems are there to teach us and they are an inevitable step towards mastery.” I am far from mastery in this matter, I seek advise and guidance, sanity through photography… 

Yes, depression will still continue to shadow me, yes mistakes will jump up in my path, yet the journey continues, everyday the challenge to create, every moment that challenge to Be Present, to who I am and who I saw up as is unfolding.

Question of the day: Are Mistakes markers for your awareness?

Aspects of the Divine Mother

Reblogged from the reluctant bloger:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

May is a month of gratitude and celebration of the feminine

aspect of God

God the Mother

who creates and nurtures all things, including ourselves.

                  The beauty of May draws us out of hibernation into  natural mindfulness of the blessings and                            abundance of nature. Gratitude and mindfulness are intimately related, for as we practice                                  gratitude we come more aware, more present.

Read more… 430 more words

Re-blogging this post to Honor the Month of May and the Divine Mother. Hopefully I will get to write a new blog !

into another realm

The images here are something completely different for me, yet since I came upon this site while in Vermont last spring the abandoned burned out Motel spoke to me. I avoided it a few times, wondering what I can make of this space, what kind of photographs I could make from such a site. So being drawn like a moth to the flame, I finally drove off the main road to capture some shots.

These photos have haunted me since than and with the 150th Anniversary Exhibition for the Photographic Society of Philadelphia these are the images that kept coming to mind. These are completely different from anything I have done before, I have tried to ignore them but in the middle morning, 3:30 am, titles came to me, visions of these photographs repeated in my half awake state, finally causing me to get up and write the titles which I thought would be enough, not so.

I had to wash up, come down stairs, pet the dogs, make coffee, and preview the images which were burning in my mind. Even while working on them, and going through them I kept wondering, are these too dark, what is the story, what are you looking to convey? I think the titles say that, yet the story is in the photographs themselves.

I have been viewing a lot of contemporary photographs and I have been struck by their rawness, their sense of emptiness, even loneliness. Images of landscapes like these, and I wonder why someone is drawn to photograph such stark spaces?

Is it my dark side trying to present something, is it my desire to risk another side of my work that has not shown up before, influenced by modern photography? Yes, no, maybe?

Here are the images out of the camera, untouched:

Welcome

Loss

vision

Hope

Here are images that I contemplated with some enhancements, and treatment, which is something else I usually don’t do in my work.

Starkness

Loss

Hope

Okay, I made this real. I stepped out of my comfort zone. I am sure that I am going to get your thoughts and contemplations on these images and they are welcome.  I can only use three in the exhibition and they have to be submitted by Friday, (jpgs) do. The images still can be adjusted before selection and printing which needs to be done in the next few weeks.

Soul Journey

The quotes here are quotes I have collected over the past year or so, they have been selected to express the experience of the last few months. My own words at this time will not convey that which has been in process. These words resonate, inspire, enlighten, and shine life light on the journey past, present, and into the future.

“We must remember that REAL change takes time. Growers are inchworms. Lasting transformation is an incremental process, one “soulstep” at a time. We can have all the peak experiences we want but the real work happens between the peaks, while laying down and integrating on the valley floor. This may frustrate us, but it is the only way to craft an awareness that is authentic and sustainable. Divine perspiration…” Jeff Brown

 

 

“Although the journey home is often difficult, its also wondrous. On the materialistic treasure hunt, satisfactions are fleeting. On the inner treasure hunt, your satisfaction builds. It’s so beautiful to touch a new plateau of awareness, to view your self with a broadened lens, to shape your self with your own two hands. Every time I unravel a piece of my karmic thread, I feel the God-self come a little bit closer.. ” Jeff Brown

“The art form of the Soulshaping journey is knowing when to assert, & when to surrender. There are times when utilizing our will is perfect in order to excavate our path from the deep within, but there are also times when glimpses of path float to the surface only when we’re in a receptive state. Some shaping happens through our own efforts, some happens when we lay back & let the universe do the shaping for us.” Jeff Brown

 

“With respect to path, I feel the primary goal is to identify our unique soul-scriptures, to walk in our own two shoes & no one else’s. Not to say that every moment will be blissful-we still have to deal with the world etc- but to reach the stage where we know that we are where we are supposed to be on our Soulshaping journeys. Not where someone else told us to be, but our own true-path. This is what I wish for us.” Jeff Brown

 

“When you walk through the gateway of your sacred purpose, you walk into yourself. Blessingly buffered from the madness of the world, your purpose filters out those relationships and energies that undermine your expansion. Infused with vitality and a clarified focus, new pathways of possibility appear where before there were obstacles. Life still has its challenges, but you interface with them differently, coated in an authenticity of purpose that sees through the veils to what really matters. The rivers of essence rise up to meet you, carrying you from one wave of expansion to another…” (Soulshaping) Jeff Brown

 

“Going with the flow” means listening to your inner guidance ~ not sitting back, waiting and doing nothing. In order for us to get in touch with our inner guidance we need to spend time in meditation stilling the mind. When the mind is overactive, it is impossible to receive clarity. 15 minutes of stillness ~ everyday ~ will open up the tubes and channels to your higher self and open up the “flow” of communication from your higher wisdom. In order to go with the flow, you must first be in the flow.” ~ Sabrina

 

“God, the supreme artist, uses our life for the creation of art. We are the instruments through which the force of life expresses itself. We express our art in everything we say, everything we feel, and everything we do. The creation is ongoing, it is endless, it is happening in every moment.” ~ Don Miguel Ruiz

The journey is always full, it is our perspective that gives in life, shares its meaning. I am grateful for the journey, I am grateful for my friends and followers who kept silent while still asking… I am Love!

Don’t be perfect. Be you.

“Don’t be perfect. Be you.
Don’t be what you think they want you to be.
Be what you know you are.
Don’t look outside yourself for anything. It’s all within!”

~Jackson Kiddard

My friend shared this quote this morning on his FB status. My response was saying yeah but my insides feel like a mess. His response to me was that spirit was perfection, our inner state is Perfect. But what happens when the inner state doesn’t feel perfect, that truly the shadows have come to rest upon my days and play havoc with my mind.

And than I went to see what the daily reading was from Pocketful of Miracle, in which Joan Borysenko share this prayer:

“Great Spirit, help me awaken to the peace of mind that is my own true nature, my birthright in You!”

It seems sometimes it is only the words I have to comfort me, the awareness comes from the words, they are the light on the darkened path, as well as the bright light on the path that leads me forward. At sometime in the past few weeks it seems I have taken a step back or a road less traveled, or one that I have been on before and have not completely searched and cleared out the demons or made peace with them. 

This whole blog maybe about telling on myself. It may be about that fact that on Saturday June 9, with the grace of God, I will be sober 23 years. I haven’t had a drink or a drug in all that time one day at time. Yet my emotional soberity has not followed such a rigorous path, or has it?

As I stepped back into the practice of my program, the program of recovery on a regular basis a little less that a year ago, even though the language and principles (spiritual principles of AA) have always been a guiding source of light during my search for my relationship with a Higher Power. It was the humans, the daily living among people in and out of the program that throws me into darkness.

Knowing I am not perfect, the ego always wants to lead the dance instead of being a partner and sharing the harmony we can make together I become confronted by who I think I am, maybe even who people think I am, most telling who I think people are suppose to be.

Even after all this time, I don’t have it right, I don’t want to have it right, I just desire to not expect, I desire to allow life to be, even when I don’t know what that Being is. Going within feels frightening right now. Going within feels dark, it tells “you are not perfect, you lead with your ego, you have too much expectations of those around, and even yourself.” Or maybe it is not that maybe it is the fear that Marianne Williamson shares about…

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

As I began to step up my practice, use the tools of recovery, to empower myself to listen to the voice from within, to open up once again to let people in, to make friends, to take on new projects. Fear stepped in too, the feeling of abandonment and risk came calling. It all began to seem like work. Of course there was joy there, there was inspiration. So what shows self sabotage, reluctance, the monster “not good enough”, people began leaving… or did they?

So who is this guy 23 years later? with all the flaws and character defects still intact… was i this person drunk? have I learned anything in the past 23 years? sometimes it feels like I have not. Yeah the old timers say, “well you didn’t drink today.” and that is a blessing in itself.

As A human I am beyond perfect, as spirit I was born perfect. Just being me in the imperfect perfection of living life on daily basis. 

unsatisfied appetite

“As an artist, it is central to be unsatisfied! This isn’t greed, though it might be appetite.” Lawrence Calcagno

Haven in the Ghetto, by Gregory Pestegord

Even though I have not written it almost a month, did you miss me? I have been out and about viewing, attending, researching, socializing, being inspired, been awed, been confused, and as of late even frightened.

I have photographed, I have entered a juried art show, and disappointed the work was not selected this year. Was I fully committed to that venue this time? No, I almost missed the dead line for submissions, and sent them in via email which was a form of submission this year. Yet alas competition was a challenge and more people have been entering so it make the juror job that much more difficult.

So with ego bruise, disappointment offers another opportunity, which may or may not have presented itself. The gallery exhibit in Vermont is still on the table, and hopefully this weekend the plans will be framed and hung. I received a message of a local library call for artist just this morning, so the work that was not selected in the juried show can be submitted to that exhibit. Yay!

In the past week a few of my photographs have been included in my friend Don Brewer’s DoN Arts blog to go along with a Studio tour we did a few weeks back at 915 Spring Garden St, Philadelphia Pa. I could write a whole blog about that experience, and I just might yet Don, interviewed many of the artist that we viewed, so check out his blog.

Before I went to Vermont I ask about writing a blog for the Photographic Society of Philadelphia’s 150th Anniversary, and I had not realized I had not heard a response until a few weeks ago while at a PSoP Solo exhibition reception when I saw Eileen for the first time since returning, and I ask her if she received me request, and said she had responded via email, which I never recalled seeing. Eileen is the president of the Society. She offered to share a PDF she had of the Philadelphia Photographer magazine from 1866, in which are minuets of the first meetings of the Society, included is the founding members names and some of their discussions about photography, mostly equipment, for photography was an emerging form of creativity.

Back in the Day

OffI was down the path, following names, searching for photographs, of the members, as well as photographs by the members. It seems most roads lead back to this PDF and to the Library company of Philadelphia, which has it linkage to all other archives around the city.  On Wednesday Don and I ventured to the Free Library for what I thought was book about the Society, which it is but is a reference book, not a memoir of the society useful but not what I was looking for. Of course during our inept search of the racks we discovered a treasure of Photography art books which can and will be a source of information and inspiration. In our frustration we were directed to the Print and Picture Room, that space is awesome in itself, we were greeted by the curator Aurora Deshauteurs, to a whole box full of stereoscopic images, which was one of the forms that early photography was printed, well these two art geeks where in haven. We viewed and photographed via iPhone some of the prints I thought where of first use to begin the society blog.  So stay tuned.

believed to be a photograph by one of the first Members of PSoP! John Moran
1864

As I mentioned above Don and I had his friend toured the studios at 915, one Sunday afternoon, the Tuesday before was the Solo Exhibit at Cafe 12 for a PSoP member John Bacillie, who photographs street art, graffiti and such, he tends to play around with the photographs as well.  The next Monday PSoP’s Vice-President Morris Klein had a reception at Brown Street Bar, a local corner bar in the Fairmont area of the city. Morris collection is his ode to Philly rendered in his unique HDR style.

Morris Klein at his reception discussing his work with a friend !

Then the next Sunday was the Plastic Clubs 100th Annervsary members only exhibition, in which many of the members of the Photographic society belong to as well, and about half of the awards of the collection where photographs by our members.

Plastic Club members exhibit!

There has been a few other events, yet as you see I have been wetting my appetite, filling the well, spending time with companions who encourage each other to do the work, envisioning the art world as an abundant source of  inspiration, challenge, as well as great opportunity. The city of Philadelphia is a cultural artistic venue once the doors are opened and the light shone, which it has been for me in the past few months.  Early on I had hesitated to join the Photographic Society of Philadelphia because it sound pretentious, and my own fear of stepping out. Now I have stepped in, have been welcomed, and have become involved! Was it that unsatisfied appetite that caused me to venture forth, or the seeking of artistic knowledge and recognition that has been central to me present state of being?

The poetry of Fog

The fog is an illusion—
A master of disguise,
Which hides the tangible
Before our very eyes.

But when the fog has lifted
Everything’s still there,
And the tangible
Only seemed to’ve disappeared.

In the early morning
Or late at night,
The fog descends
Upon various sites.

It gives an air of mystery
That has long prevailed.
Dangerously intriguing
Is the fog’s foggy veil.

© W.S.2009

Walterrean Salley

The Dense Fog

I see not what others see
The fog is used to blind me
That fog of routine that is of life
Unable to see what is near
It is near impossible to hear
Only the little light makes it through
That light is what I see
The possibility of unhindered vision
But that is only for a moment
For tomorrow the fog will roll back
And that is how all life is
For my generation and yours
This fog is here to stay

Stephen Mueller