March 16. 8:45 AM. 2024.
a little sassy, not at all salty
Beauty in the Bleak
In my experience, an image arrives like a friend, eager to share something. I receive them, and then they become conversation partners. They impart insight as I engage with them- validating a certain natural synchronicity.
Last week, I took a walk, near my home. It’s a path I take routinely, so I didn’t expect to have a fresh experience; And yet, I know that inevitably I do. The words of Madeleine L’Engle came to me (She spoke of Lent, and the month of March, alike): “Strange bleak season in the Church year; strange bleak season in the part of the world in which I live. In March I am ready for spring, and spring is not here.”
Strange bleak season, “Am I also too eager for spring?”
In a wide-angled viewpoint, much of what I see, in the landscape of mid-March, appear to mark loss. The vegetation at the edges of the path is frozen, and wind tossed. The ground cover waits for another season, and I am tempted to ask, “Reposing seeds, are you eager for Spring?”
And then, a few feet ahead…
This seed-shape…visible once I put my attention there. Initially forlorn in appearance, I focus on its exquisite beauty, which is enhanced by the camera’s aperture. I could see, then feel, the course of its protective curve. Even though I couldn’t see inside, thoughts about metamorphosis follow. But on this day, I embrace the encapsulated message not to hurry the season. There is beauty in the bleak.
Hidden Chamber
There,
just over there,
lies beauty.
(we look, we find)
What other latent messages are carried in this season?
Join me in a workshop and sharing group, to explore photography as a contemplative practice. http://www.ingridcyros.com/contemplative-photography
What Inspires You?
What inspires YOU? These three words form such a simple question, right?
As a contemplative photographer, a second question follows…What about this parade of bejeweled urchins inspires me into daydream? The juxtaposition of shells against frosty pane, conjure up memories of warmer days reaching for washed up treasures. What are the astonishing treasures in this day?
My curiosity led to inquiry. I did not know that turbulence, crashing waves, actually make the larval urchin develop faster, as it forces them into a settlement home. Fascinating! What turbulence in my life has it fostered growth? hmmmm. More to ponder. As the temperature plummets outside, today, I travel in thought to those warmer days, questions and discoveries abound.
A BIG question..."How often?"
A workshop participant asked, “How often are we to take pictures and write in a journal?” It’s a good question. It’s a big question. A few things come to mind.
I can compare it to physical exercise: Like a muscle, a spiritual discipline develops with regular exercise. That’s why it is called a “discipline”? In all seriousness, I grow spiritually, and am inspired, when I photograph something and write about what the image evokes. Like physical exercise, it is how I start my day (not all days), and the day unfolds, I unfold, in a fuller way, when I do it. A musician or artist knows this. Yoga, prayer, it all operates the same way, I think.
Regular writing with an image is enlightening, stimulating, thought provoking. This prompt is a launching point: “What is going on in my life that is revealed in this image?” This question is the basis for many a journal entry. I don’t do it EVERY day. We all have our patterns or rhythms, and I don’t force it when I just don’t have the energy. Life does get in the way. That’s usually a good thing. Write about it!
I find that my practice is more regular when I am in a group or leading a group- I show up. Accountability is built in. Moreover, when I have something to share with someone else, I am more eager to do it. That’s why I love to garden. It is a joy to give away fresh tomatoes, or preserved raspberries. I love to cut and arrange a bouquet for guests who come for an overnight stay. So, that’s how Contemplative Photography sharing groups became part of the workshops. I love the intimacy of connection between participants as they witness and share photographs and journal excerpts with one another.
Like pauses between the notes of music, critical parts of the composition, I pause for moments of silence- sometimes I remember to pay attention. I refrain from picking up the camera and pen. A pause might be 5 minutes, or a few days. Instead, I simply notice. I witness. I sip in a breath of awe. Isn’t that the definition of a holy moment, or the inbreaking of the Divine? I think so. I feel it. So, give yourself a break. The creamy yellow zinnia whispered such to me. What I saw was its beautiful reach on a sturdy stem which set it apart from the rest of the plant. It was punctuated by the space between it and the other blossoms. I swear that its petals shimmered and winked, as if to say, “This one’s for you.” Glory.
Evocative Contours
Irish Pilgrimage: Tender, Sturdy and Thin Spaces
Irish Pilgrimage 06.09-19.2022 Kerry Way, Glenbeigh
Thin Places: spaces where the veil between worlds lifts and becomes transparent; heaven and earth meet. The presence and prayers of generations make the veil evermore thin.
On Irish pilgrimage, time flowed differently from the cadence I left behind – not so linear. It drifts and swirls in fluid reverberations.
The physical landscape tenders such translucent places - in the contours of sacred ruins and holy wells, oblique stones, and in the blueprint of nature. In fields, forests, seacoast, bogs and hills- the landscape provides “soul-shelter” and arouses an awareness of the sacred…by soil saturated by the holy.
Within each step, each moment, and every pulse, there are also thin places that I carry within, my own internal landscape, drawn from a well of encounters and relations. In that place, the past touches present, tender questions arise and summon my attention, beckoning me to notice seeds of insight within them, which I had not seen before.
Each Breath, and Every Pulse
Within each moment
with every footstep
climbing, winding and turning
Within each breath, and every pulse
heaven and earth touch
God of the spiraling path,
You satisfy my hunger
in such small and
in expansive,
enfolding,
enchanting,
and delicious ways.
The Landscape of Grief
Today would have been his 84th birthday.
10 years ago, my father died of an aggressive cancer, having lived just 21 days after his diagnosis. There are many gifts I received from him. I carry them. Primary among them was how in words and example he taught me to “pay attention”. An expression of this, was a parting gift that he gave to me, his Nikon. It became a source of comfort -To carry it, and to use it to chronicle my grief, by the images I took and used, for writing in my journal.
Coffee, camera, and a journal
For 21 days, I took a picture a day, and wrote about the feelings, memories, and thoughts evoked. The pictures that I took, mirrored my inner landscape. On some days, grief took the shape of a tangled fence, empty building, or changing tide. On other days, I could see the contour of a path forward.
I titled the collection, “My Mourning Journal”. It became a lifeline. It pulled me through, when I felt lost. Grief can be like that- It felt like an initiation into a club that I did not choose. On most days, it felt like a lonely journey through a liminal landscape, without a GPS.
The journey of grief does not fit into a tidy timeline. The stages were not ordered or neat, as some might say. But I found the documentation of images and words helped to tether me to something concrete.
It wasn’t about the productivity, but the process. To go outside, was stabilizing, and uplifting. Upon return home, I could escape time and place, when I wrote. It became a practice that opened up a way to stay connected to my father, and at the same time, relocate myself in a new and different place, in my life.
Like the fog, as I photographed, something began to lift.
As I shared my work, it became a vehicle for healing dialog with others. That’s the thing. It is not so lonely, once we share. In the sharing, we heal.
Within the struggle there have been hidden pearls.
And throughout the isolation of Covid 19, I think this practice is equally relevant. This has been a time of collective, communal loss. It has felt surreal, right? The creation of a photo journal time capsule, can offer a way for you to encapsulate thoughts, and feelings- the jagged edges as well as the blessings. We honor who and what was lost, as well as document discoveries. A journal can serve as a map, or an invitation to the way forward, into the next stage of our journey. I can see the glistening contours. Can you?
Contact me if you would like to start your own journaling practice, @ ingridcyros@comcast.net
Sharing Experience and a Recipe
Picking blueberries as an act of contemplation…
Those little blue orbs stir me. As I gently twist and pull them off the bush, I recall various places I have been in August, when the blues are ready to pick. I recall favored patches by Lake Caspian, in VT- Perhaps this is one of the sweetest for the view of the Green Mountains. More likely, it’s dear plucking companions, Dave and Jenny, and the pie Jenny makes to cap off the experience.
The blues also remind me of the annual 10-lb box we purchase roadside, as we drive home from summer stay in Nova Scotia. The slightest tinge of red, in the blueberry fields heralds another season.
There will be no 10-lb Canadian souvenir this year. Due to the pandemic, Gretchen and I pick locally, at Cider Hill, in Amesbury. Under the hot sun, we lift masks to taste subtle differences between Jersey, Blueray, and Chandler varieties. If this marks a new tradition, it would be okay. Time in the field, lost in time, under the bluest sky, is a delicious celebration.
Making jam is an act of devotion…and modification.
Once at home, the ritual of jam making begins, which translates as “steamy hot kitchen”. After discovering that pectin has been “sold out” (Covid-19 canning projects?), I decide to make this year’s batch of blueberry jam without pectin. I also choose to reduce the sugar, preferring to taste the berry over the sweetness. It requires a bit more time to boil the berries and sugar, but I am pleased with the sticky results (recipe below). Also, I pulse the blueberries a few rounds, in the food processor - it works like a charm. At the end of the hour, this year’s harvest is sealed and labeled: A vessel of sapphire-sweet (memories included).
Once in a while, in the midst of the daily and ordinary, something reveals itself- an unexpected recollection…an overture. God is present everywhere. Even, or especially, in the berry patch.
How do you cultivate ways of seeing? Where and when do you gain greater clarity and keener insight?
Blueberry Jam (Reduced sugar, without pectin)
YIELD: 6 half-pints; Plenty to share!
Ingredients:
5 cups mashed blueberries (Approx.. 2 quarts)
¼ bottled lemon juice
2 cups sugar
Instructions:
1. Place a small plate in the freezer to test the set.
2. Prepare 6 half-pint jars in a dishwasher, or by washing and boiling them. Place lids and rims in a saucepan and boil to sterilize them.
3. Combine mashed (or food processed) blueberries and lemon juice in a large, heavy saucepan over low heat. Bring the berries up to a boil.
4. With heat kept on high, add 2 cups of sugar. Bring to a full rolling boil. The mixture should boil vigorously until it is fairly thick, 20-30 minutes. When a spoonful of jam, dropped on a cold plate holds its shape and you can leave a clean trail by passing your finger through the mixture, it is ready.
5. Remove jam from the heat. Ladle the hot jam into clean, hot half-pint jars, leaving ½ inch space at the top. Place lids on top and screw on the bands/rims. Place in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.
6. Remove and cool. Add a label, with date.
Last Pick
Is it hunger, or desire, that lures me out in the mist, and into the depth of raspberry thicket?
Final rubies…liberated from the stems they cling to.
I reach.
The pink globes are most compelling, today - Those berries not quite ready, holding on.
I hold on.
Rain, too gentle to hear, knows of this dance between holding, and releasing.
Nature teaches me of impermanence. A berry, a dog…
What will this day include besides a batch of jam? And that’s miracle enough.
Berries condensed encapsulate a season.
I will remember, with gratitude, all that She delivers.
Bitter and sweet.
Depth of Focus: Lessons from a Photographer
My father was an avid, photographer. Before he died, he gave me his Nikon camera. The use of his camera reinforces the life lesson he taught me: “pay attention”. I learned from him that the natural world is full of lessons, if only we pay attention.
At first, technical aspects of the camera challenged me. I made mistakes, and I learned about focus, and “depth of focus”: Where you stand, and what you choose to focus in on, makes all the difference. Enter into this picture with me …
In the foreground, where my footsteps stop, is a frosty windblown dune. On the left, stands a wooden fence, partially toppled. What lies beyond, is not in focus. The field of focus is not deep enough for us to view beyond the frozen sand dune. A more expansive picture might clearly reveal a stormy sea, with waves crashing onto shoreline.
Beyond this moment, this present day “storm”, we do not know what lies beyond. What we know from experience is that storms pass, though the landscape may be changed by them. If we narrow our focus, we might notice just what is right in front of us, this day. That’s enough. So, “pay attention”. Breathe deeply. Now is the time to be still. Go within. Pay attention to your breath, and you might even notice the beauty within this storm.
Where you stand makes all the difference in what you see and experience.
o Look out a window- What do you see? What does it speak to you?
o Close your eyes and imagine yourself on the beach, in a forest, or in your favorite spot in nature. What do you hear, see, smell, feel?
o What can you learn from nature?
o Try writing a Haiku, which is a form of concise poetry. Haiku can distill an experience into three lines: The first line is 5 syllables; the second line is seven syllables and the third line is five syllables. Share it with someone?
May the memory of sun and sand soothe your spirit, and song of spring birds be your delight.