The Brook
Symmetrical Water Photographs
Symmetrical Water Photographs
Made in the Brattleboro area, 2018
Part 4 : the WATER project
Part 4 : the WATER project
WATER Photographs : The Complete Project Titles
Introduction
I began photographing Broad Brook, which flows through Southern Vermont, in August, 2014. Since then, I've photographed in the brook every succeeding year. The photographs in this project were made in mid-October, 2018.
Gloria's sister Phyllis and her husband Jim (my good friend going back to our college days of the mid-1960's) had moved to Guilford, Vermont in 2010. Their house is on a hill directly across from the brook. Jim told me he wants his ashes buried near the brook. Knowing this has certainly affected my relationship to the brook; the photographs of the brook I made for the Angels project had initiated a friendship that has continued to grow in depth year after year through the various projects that have followed. Here is the compete list of Broad Brook projects to date:
2014: The Angels (see especially part three)
2015: Prayer and the Nature of Things (the Epilogue to my project Field of View)
2016: Death : A Meditation in Photographs and Text (Symmetrical Broad Brook Photographs)
2018: The Brook : WATER photographs, part 4 (before you here, now)
Each of these projects came into being spontaneously and with unexpected grace, and each has been something of a personal, inner journey. Broad Brook has become for me a living Being, a sacred Place, a mirror upon which I have been able to reflect upon myself and my life. My photographs of the brook--those radiant with the light of grace, which function for me as symbols--have unveiled many of my deepest heartfelt longings. My Creative Process in photography, and in particular the Broad Brook projects, have helped me "see" that my life is being carried along upon a great and powerful wave of grace.
"The water itself"
Just before Gloria and I visited Jim and Phyllis in mid-October, 2018, I was reading Gaston Bachelard's book Water and Dreams; I was writing the text for the third project in the WATER series, Falling Water; and I had been contemplating a story that Bachelard told . . . about a dreamer who had come to the realization that he had been seeing only reflections in the water--not "the water itself." The dreamer suddenly sees the water: it is blue; but the dreamer wonders if what he is seeing is truly water, for what he is seeing is "more beautiful and purer and bluer than the water of this earth." Perhaps the dreamer then becomes frightened or overwhelmed by the water's mysterious Beauty, for he states: "[I] dare not look at it."
I wondered, while preparing for our trip, if this year I might be able to photograph the "water itself" in Broad Brook. I tried to imagine what those photographs might look like . . . but I could not imagine them. Perhaps a hint had been offered in a brief excerpt from a talk by my Siddha Yoga Meditation Master, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, which I used as the Epilogue to my Falling Water project:
October 13, 1918 : Broad Brook
I photographed in Broad Brook on Saturday, October 13, 2018. I felt compelled to get close to the water, its movements, its changing forms, textures and tonalities. I realized while I was photographing that I was not trying to make articulate "straight photographs." Instead I was collecting "visual material" that I could use in the construction of symmetrical photographs with the four-fold process. As I was photographing in the brook I would "flash upon" subtle, abstract Imaginal revelations of possible forthcoming water images, but I never paused; I just keep on photographing. I have learned that thinking while photographing can be an obstruction to the flow of my process.
October 14, 1918 : Stickney Brook, Sunset Lake, Brattleboro Marina
The next day, Sunday, Jim offered to drive me to several other water places in the area. He wanted me to see the Stickney Brook, which is just outside of Brattleboro; then he drove me to Sunset Lake; and finally we stopped briefly at the Brattleboro Marina, which is located on the Connecticut River.
When we got to the marina I had no idea what compelled me to get out of the car. The sense of "place" was so different from the other places I had been photographing in, and from the car nothing seemed attractive to me. But I walked out on a wooden dock that took me further from shore and deeper into the bay. When I looked down into the water I saw on the very bottom of the bay a red color through the blue of the sky reflected on the water's surface. Autumn leaves had collected in these deeper waters . . . I made an exposure.
Entering the Water . . .
When I photographed during those two days I stopped thinking about water falls, puddles, lakes, brooks, rivers . . . and concentrated on photographing Water . . . as intuitively and as spontaneously as I could. There were moments when I became aware of being fully immersed in the flow of my Creative Process. In such moments the distinction between myself and the water suddenly dissolved: I had entered the water I was photographing Imaginally, and the water had entered me. It no longer mattered if I was photographing reflections or "the water itself," for grace had overtaken any intentions of my own.
A wondrous thing had happened:
all the reflections had become grace;
all the mirrors had become grace.
Grace had revealed that everything is grace.
--Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, from her poem "A Thousand Mirrors"
This collection of symmetrical photographs includes images taken in each of the places I had visited in Vermont, however since the images are clearly not about place, but rather about Water, I have identified each image only with a sequential number. ~ After the presentation of the photographs I have provided additional commentary on the project including four "Readings" of selected images from the project.
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W A T E R
Photographs
Part 4
Vermont, October 13 & 14, 2018
Note: Broad Brook was not photographed for this project
Image #1
Image #2
Image #3
Image #4
Image #5
Image #6
Image #7
Image #8
Image #9
Image #10
Image #11
Image #12
Image #13
Image #14
Image #15
Image #16
Image #17
Image #18
Image #19
Image #20
Image #21
Image #22
Image #23
Image #24
Image #25
Image #26
Image #27
Image #28
Image #29
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Commentary
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This new collection of symmetrical Water photographs has awakened the remembrance of a magical epiphanic experience that changed my life in 2011 while traveling in Turkey. The experience, of interior light and Divine Presence, initiated a remarkable series of other projects which I have gathered together under the categorical title: The Sacred Art Photography Projects.
The Self-Luminous Qur'an
These new symmetrical images are for me visually and spiritually related to an exhibition of illuminated Qur'ans I experienced in Istanbul, at the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum. Each stunningly beautiful Qur'an on display was opened to either a single or double-page illumination, and as I was immersing myself in the wonder of what I was seeing, one of the Qur'ans suddenly "came to life." The double-page image appeared to be breathing and pulsating with light. As I became entranced by its living presence and beauty, the book became more luminous than the other Qur'ans on display. An extraordinary Light--not of this world--appeared to be coming from within the image itself, and I felt a palpable sacred Presence growing within myself as well as emerging from within the illumination.
The images in this project visually resemble Quran illuminations and calligraphy I have seen and admired in Turkey, and in the many books I have collected on the subject. (See the two examples I have reproduced at the end of this project page.) More importantly, however, these new symmetrical water photographs have a spiritual presence that is very much like what I experienced when viewing the Qur'an illuminations in Turkey. In large part, this presence seems to be attributable especially to the quality of interior light within the photographs, and the rhythmic movements of the repeating forms.
A multi-chaptered project unfolded as a result of my experiences in Turkey. See "An Imaginary Book" and in particular its first chapter, Prayer Stones for more details about my many experiences of Islamic Sacred Art in Turkey. When I was creating Prayer Stones the need to make symmetrical photographs emerged from within my Creative Process. To learn more about the process see this link: The fourfold symmetrical process. After the Imaginary Book project was completed, many additional Sacred Art projects followed, including the project before you right now.
"Grace had revealed that everything is grace" -Gurumayi Chidvilasananda
The Sacred Art photography projects have deepened my commitment to and expanded my understanding of photographic images which function for me as symbols. I have come to recognize and appreciate in a much clearer way the importance of grace in my Creative Process, and the transforming power of grace which gives my symbolic photographs what for me is a transcendent meaning, a Divine Presence. The Sacred Art projects have also strengthened and clarified the relationship of my Creative Process to my practice of Siddha Yoga Meditation. It is clear to me now that my experiences in Turkey, and in particular my epiphany of the self-luminous Qur'an, was directly related to my practice of Siddha Yoga Meditation and the grace of my teacher, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda.
Miraculous experiences like those I encountered in Turkey are initiated by grace, an ineffable creative energy which opens the Heart. When the Heart is open one's vision becomes interior rather than exterior--that is to say, one's seeing is through the "eye of the Heart" rather than through ordinary sense perception. It is the grace of the Guru which makes the Light of Divine Presence palpably Self-evident. In Siddha Yoga the teachings are quite clear that the Guru, God, Shiva and the Self are One and inseparable; there is nothing that is not Shiva, even those things that seem to us undesirable. Real understanding takes time, experience, and an opened Heart.
The Imaginal World
These water photographs are for me symbolic revelations of, in yogic terms, the Light of grace. In addition to the yogic teachings, I like very much what Henry Corbin and his Sufi mystics tell us about the ineffable light from the interior world. They say that the transforming energy and the interior Light which emanates from symbols originates in a space or "world" that exists between matter and spirit, a world where the physical becomes spiritual, and the spiritual becomes physical. This realm of in-betweenness, this place of origin of symbols, was named by Corbin, the Imaginal world.
Martin Lings and Qur'an Calligraphy and Illumination
Later I will present some commentary I have written on four selected photographs in this project. But first I thought it best to write a little about the Tradition of Quran illumination and calligraphy. The best book I have read on this subject was authored by Martin Lings (1909-2005) entitled Splendors of Qur'an Calligraphy and Illumination. The carefully selected and reproduced images in his book are extraordinarily beautiful, and I especially like the way Lings places emphasis on the sacred and symbolic aspects of the calligraphy and various formal aspects of the illuminations. He writes not only with scholarly authority, but even more importantly to me, he writes with experiential knowledge and understanding, for Lings was a Sufi, and many who personally knew him considered him to be a Sufi saint.
Islamic Sacred Art
Of course the calligraphy and illuminations we find in copies of the Qur'an are considered two of the most important forms of Islamic Sacred Art because of their direct association with God's Revelatory Words. Lings defines the function of Islamic Sacred Art--and in particular, the art placed in the context of the Holy Qur'an itself--as being "parallel" to the divine Revelation. In its purest form Sacred Art embodies the grace of God's Revelation and thus serves, according to Lings, as an authentic vehicle for the Divine Presence.
The calligraphy and the illuminations placed especially at the very beginning of the Qur'an serves to prepare the student, devotee or contemplator to receive the divine Message. The sacred energy within the imagery and the Divine Words of the Qur'an have a transforming affect upon the seeker which supports his or her process of returning to the original Primordial State--the Oneness of Being.
In the strictest sense of the term,
[Sacred Art] is a means of causing repercussions
in the human soul in the direction of the Transcendent.
Martin Lings
The Traditional Artist
Lings explains that Islamic Sacred Art--and indeed, any True Sacred Art--is noticeably absent of the artist's presence--absent of any personal or subjective expression. Traditional Artists offer their work in service of the Book's Divine Message. This requires of the artist a willingness to surrender his or her ego and "Let God" do the work. In other words, the artist strives to come into full alignment with God's Creative Will and this requires a deep self-effacing purity of intention.
Liberating the "Mysterious Totality"
One who makes Sacred Art will conceive of his duty, writes Lings, "not as a capturing of the Divine Presence but rather as a liberation of its mysterious Totality from the deceptive prison of appearances."
I find this quote particularly interesting in relation to the way photography was commonly thought of in its early history--as a mechanical and scientific means of "capturing" the objective appearances of a thing, a place, a "moment." In terms of popular culture, Kodak advertised their hobby-cameras and their "snapshots" with a promise that the images would "hold forever" the customers' most personal cherished memories. Regarding the fine arts aspect of the medium, Alfred Stieglitz in the 1920's and Minor White in the 1950's introduced the idea of the photograph as Equivalent, an idea that is related to how I conceive of the symbolic photograph.
Those earliest beliefs about the photographic medium continue, to this day, to help uphold the veils that keep the Divine Presence, and the mysterious Totality a "Hidden Treasure."
The Hidden Treasure
There is a famous hadith (a saying of the Prophet) that states: "I was a Hidden Treasure; I desired to be recognized; hence I created the world so that I would be known." In many religious traditions it is at least intellectually understood that God dwells within everything in the Created World because it is God's Creation and God dwells with his Creations. However, if this idea remains in the "head" only rather than becomes a living Presence within the Heart, the things of this world are "as nothing" writes Lings:
The things of this earth are as nothing
compared to what they symbolize.
Martin Lings
Water--it's transparency, its internal Light, and its ability to reflect the light of the outer world--is a living symbol of the "Mysterious Totality." Photographs which merely describe the reflections of light on its surface, however, will most probably be absent of grace, while those images which are alive with the transforming power of grace have the spiritual power to transcend the deceptive appearances of duality and unveil the Hidden Treasure, the Oneness of Being. The grace which transforms images into Symbols, open our Hearts and bring us into an intimate face-to-face relation with the Divine Presence which dwells not only within the Created things of this world, but within our own Hearts as well.
Our sun sat in the sky
Way before this earth was born
Waiting to caress a billion faces.
Hafiz encourages all art
For at its height it brings Light
Near to us.
Hafiz, THE GIFT, trans. Ladinsky
The Sacred Power of Letters and Words
I can see, within the symmetrical Water photographs, "Letters of Light," "Words of Light," and infinite "Patterns of Light"--all playing upon or within the forms and surfaces of the Water. These photo-graphic "Calligraphic" Light Drawings are Beautiful, and Beauty is a form of Divine Presence for as the well know haditih states: "God is Beautiful" and "God loves Beauty." The Light that is the grace of Beauty brings us near to the Divine Presence.
The power of God's Words, and the power of each letter of the Arabic (or Sanskrit) Alphabet must be acknowledged. Samer Akkach, in his book Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam carefully and articulately explains the symbolism of the letters of the Arabic Alphabet, and he makes it quite clear that much of a letter's meaning is symbolized within its visual form. The letters of the Arabic Alphabet are indeed a Divine Creation, a very powerful means by which God provides the Qur'anic Message, though sometimes the message comes in mysterious ways, in cryptic forms and metaphors.
In Hinduism as well there is an entire Cosmology based within the symbolism of the letters of the Sanskrit Alphabet. For example, in Kashmir Shaivism the Creation of the Universe begins with the Primordial sound vibration, OM which then divides into the two sounds Ham and Sa, which are the natural sounds of our breathing-in (Ham) and breathing-out (Sa). From these two sound vibrations, each letter of the Sacred Alphabet is unfolded; and then the letters combine into words, and the words combine into sentences. Thus all the things of this world are constructions of Sacred Sound Vibrations, each vibration being a manifestation of God's power or grace. Swami Shantananda, in his excellent book Splendor of Recognition, provides a fascinating introduction to the Matrika Shakti, the Sacred Power contained in the Letters of the Sanskrit Alphabet, Words and Speech.
When I contemplate these symmetrical Water photographs, I feel that in some intuitive way I do "read" the images--their letters and words--despite the fact that I don't know their "language," I don't understand their "meaning." However, just as there is a way of seeing that is focused through "the eye" of the opened Heart," there is also a Sacred Knowledge which is Hidden within the Heart. It is the grace of the symbol--the grace that opens the Heart--which gives us access to the most Sacred Knowledge, which is the Oneness of Being.
The World is a Book
There is a saying in Islam "The World Is A Book," which essentially means that the Created World is a manifestation of God's Divine Words. The "World" (its infinite number of individual, unique Created things) is said to have originated from a Hidden Book (the Archetypal, Guarded Tablet) in Heaven.
The Most Celestially Beautiful Forms in Heaven
Lings informs us of a teaching in the Qur'an (sura LVI, verse 78) which says that the Archetypes of Qur'an calligraphy and illumination also exists in Heaven, in the Hidden Book. Thus, each Letter, each Word, the Calligraphy and the Illuminations within the Holy Qur'an--all are, writes Lings, "descended from the most celestially beautiful forms in Heaven."
"As Above, so Below"
"Light Upon Light"
The wonder of water moving over that rock in the stream
justifies existence.
The swish of a horse's tail--again I am stunned
by the grandeur of the unseen One
that governs all
movement.
~
How does God keep from fainting
looking at Himself all day?
Light is moving like a stream, and
the myriad celestial beings
applaud.
Jalaludin Rumi (l207-1273)
LOVE POEMS FROM GOD trans. Ladinsky
Correspondence, and the Harmony of the Universe
Just as it is possible to see words and letters of the Alphabet in the symmetrical Water photographs, it is equally possible to see an entire World, or Book in an image--if the image is functioning for the contemplator as a living symbol.
I encourage you to click on the images (once and if possible a second time) and study the images in intimate "face-to-face" detail. The enlarged images will appear sharper and more luminous, so you'll be better able to see how the many repeating forms within the image collectively create a vibrant, radiant, mysterious Totality with a center-point, which is its Imaginal origin. Often a detail of an image will consist of multiple constellations each with its own center-point from which multiple reflections of itself appear--above and below, left and right. The symmetrical Water photographs, through the grace of their symbolic function, harmoniously conjoin the Heavenly Archetypes with their corresponding counterparts on earth.
From the contemplative point of view, both single and double page illuminations
are necessary, for the single page represents a single microcosm whereas
both pages together are an image of the harmony of the universe
and of the integration of the microcosms into that harmony.
Martin Lings
Wherever ye turn, there is the Face of God
Qur'an illuminations are imbued with mirroring geometrical symmetries which, Lings writes, "echo the verse Wherever ye turn, there is the Face of God." He adds: "The multiplicity of the world is as a non-transparent veil, whereas [Qur'an illuminations and other forms of Islamic Sacred Art] present the multiplicity of the world as a veil through which oneness can clearly be seen."
Light Upon Light
All the symmetrical water photographs in this project, if they are functioning as symbols, represent the conjunction of "interior" and "exterior" images of Light: the light from the Sky Above, reflected upon the surfaces of the Water, and a Light which emerges from deep within the Water Itself. A symbol is an image which unites these two Archetypal sources of light; and a symbol is radiant with the Light of grace, that Light which unveils the Oneness of Being, or Unitary Reality.
There is a phrase "Light Upon Light" from the Qur'an (Sura 24, verse 35) which speaks of God as "the Light of the heavens and the Light of the earth." This phrase is a direct reference to the Oneness of Being, the union of interior Light and exterior Light.
Of the numerous English translations I have seen of verse 24:35, I especially like the following brief excerpt from the much longer verse:
When this veil is rent and a door opens in the heart,
like springs toward like. Light rises toward light,
and light comes down upon light,
It is Light Upon Light
It is Light Upon Light
Qur'an 24: 35
The Great Light of Consciousness
In Kashmir Shaivism, the philosophical foundation of Siddha Yoga, there is the concept of the Great Light of Consciousness. The teachings explain that everything--the whole universe--above and below--within and without--everything should be seen, understood or recognized to be a manifestation of the "Light of God," the "Light of Shiva." The outer-world appearances, when perceived merely through the senses, function as veils behind which the luminous divine Presence gives light and life to every Created thing. However, when through the yogic practices, and the grace of the Guru, one's ego becomes purified enough that the Heart opens--if only momentarily--the veils of separation dissolve and one's vision becomes transformed and redirected through the "eye of the Heart." This way of seeing (seeing inwardly outward things; seeing intuitively, with the "eye of the Heart") reveals the Hidden Treasure, the Divine Truth that the entire universe is bathed in divine Beauty, in divine Luminosity, in divine Consciousness. There is Nothing that is not Shiva; the entire universe is the "Great Light of Consciousness."
Swami Shantananda, states in his book The Splendor of Recognition: "Consciousness is Light--not a light that can be seen with the eyes, but the light by which the eyes see. This light is the capacity of Consciousness to illumine and reveal, to make things appear and manifest."
The power of the symbolic image is that it's grace can make the "invisible" (the "Hidden") visible; grace can unveil the Divine Presence hidden within, beneath or behind the surfaces of the things of the world. Grace opens the Heart, and therein dwells the "Light of God," the "Sacred Knowledge" of the Oneness of Being. It is said that we all are either consciously or instinctively longing for and seeking this re-union with God, the return to the Primordial place of Origin.
"As Above, so Below"
"Light Upon Light"
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"Readings" of four
Selected Photographs
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I had traveled to Vermont this year (2018) wondering if "water itself" could be photographed, and this new collection of symmetrical photographs are the fruits that have spontaneously, miraculously emerged from my Creative Process. I have selected four of the 29 images in this project to write about, four images which function for me as symbols. It occurred to me that, after all that I have written above regarding the Qur'an, calligraphy, illumination, the World as a Book and the Power of Words, it seems appropriate to refer to my discussions of the four images here as "readings."
However, there is problem: the "meaning" of images which are functioning for the contemplator as a true or living symbol is essentially ineffable, for its meaning transcends the dual nature of language and intellect, and a symbol's meaning will always be unique for each contemplator, and the meaning could change from one viewing to the next.
It is only human to resort to either a formal analysis of such images, or to project a familiar narrative upon the images. In the hopes that some poetry comes out of this effort, I offer the following readings on each of the four images selected for this brief sequence, all the while remembering that my words are not the meanings of the images.
The Four Photographs
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(1) Image #1
(2) Image #27
(3) Image #28
(4) Image #29
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The Four "Readings"
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(1) Image #1
~ Click on the image to enlarge ~
The first Reading
Image #1, is essentially a black and white image, dominated by calligraphic-like dark lines "drawn" upon the silvery luminous-gray tonalities of the water's surface. This Image of Light, and the two images that follow it, have linear and graphic-repeating patterns that resemble Qur'an illuminations and calligraphy. When I invoke the term "calligraphic" I am thinking of the Beautiful Words that constitute the Holy Qur'an, and the Beautiful lines and rhythms and shapes which give the Divine Words their visible form within the Qur'an. Its possible that if The Word has a subtle visible presence in any of these project's images, perhaps it's because of my mystical experience of the self-luminous Qur'an in Turkey. The memory of that experience, which has continued to haunt me in the sweetest way, could no doubt get projected into the photographic imagery.
The vertical column of black lines that radiate from the center of the image to the top and bottom of the picture's edge reminds me of the way falling water connects the Sky Above with the Earth Below. ~ Though this image is most obviously about surface and lines, nonetheless there are visual murmurings of a living, undulating presence just below the water's surface. This aspect of the image anticipates an important thematic concern that dominates my attention in the third and fourth images of this brief sequence of four photographs.
This luminous image, radiant with grace--the Light of divine Presence--is a Visual World in itself, with its own unique pictorial language; at the same time it initiates an overarching tonal and graphic transition that moves through the quartet of images: (1) from overall luminous gray tonality, to (2) an overall blueish gray tonality (with a few shapes of red), to (3) overall blue and red tonalities, and finally (4) an image dominantly red with a subtler corresponding dark blue presence.
(2) Image #27
~ Click on the image to enlarge ~
The second reading
Image #27, has the character of a delicate flower; a sparkling "watercolor-and-ink" drawing of dark lines seemingly etched into the water's soft, blue-gray surface. The image is opening outward from the center like the unfolding of an other-worldly Archetypal, Heavenly, Imaginal flower. It is opening with a shimmering, tender, luminous vitality. ~ The center of the image is surrounded by two green blades of grass; and to the left and right of the center there are a few red "blossom-like" forms. ~ The image is also animated with mask-like faces with eyes that look out at me. Some of the "faces" are playful, and others are relatively intimidating. ~ The "opening flower" motif suggests metaphorically the idea of creation or manifestation. ~ This image serves as a transitional image between the first--which is relatively quiet and monotone--to the third image which is dramatically, vibrantly, colorfully energetic.
(3) Image #28
~ Click on the image to enlarge ~
The third reading
Image #28: The color red, though mixed with blue, has become all pervasive in this image of increased visual intensity as compared to the previous two photographs. The lines of the repeating diamond motif--which radiate out from the center--suggest infinite, enthusiastic Imaginal expansion which extends beyond the picture's frame. ~ The Water's surface is prismatically vibrant and luminous; the blues and reds seem to be dancing together with great abandon. ~ The whole image seems at first glance to be dominated by excited surface events: waving lines of light, multiple varying textures, and a seemingly infinite number of yellow-orange and red pieces of vegetation. Upon closer scrutiny however, I notice that the vegetation pieces are in fact dangling or suspended in the Water just below the surface. This brings me to a deeper level of awareness of the space below the Water's surface: the space is layered, and the layering goes deeper and deeper into an interior space that descends toward the center of the image. ~ The visual force of the repeating diagonal lines of the diamond shape motif also direct me toward the center of the photograph which is a much deeper color of red compared to the other vegetal reds in the image.
When I near the center-point of the image I feel myself being pulled--as if by a magnetic or gravitational force--into its space. This space is an entirely different visual world, with a different quality of Light and presence.
I have entered the unfathomable Imaginal depths of the center-point, the Origin of the Water Image. Eventually I will become aware that this space is functioning as a bridge which will take me into the fourth image of the sequence.
For now, however, I must emerge from the depths of my interior journey. I want to stand back in order to see the image as a whole again. ~ It looks different now that I've experienced it from the inside. And then I notice: the image is looking back at me. ~ I come closer and enter into a face-to-face relationship with the image. This nearness to the image is intimidating, nearly overwhelming, but exhilarating as well. Being inside the image is a completely different kind of experience. ~ The image expands and contracts . . . as if it is breathing. When it contracts, the patterns which at first seemed to imply a never-ending continuity outward, now appears to be pulling back into itself, toward the center. Is this "pulling back into itself" something that is happening in the image? or is it happening within me because of my own longing to go back inside the image?
"Islamic art is based in the theory of transcendence.
What would be a suitable aesthetic vehicle for this ideology?
The Creation of patterns which carry the implication of never-ending
continuity . . . patterns that suggest infiniteness as a quality of transcendence.
Lois Ibsen Al Faruqui
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(4) Image #29
~ Click on the image to enlarge ~
The fourth reading
Image #29, with its luminous but dark patterned reds and even darker blues, is an extraordinarily deep interior space. I am below the surface of a very deep water. The visual rhythms and geometrical progressions take me into a space that I believe to be even deeper than water. Perhaps I am below the Earth's surface. ~ I have been transported here through the Imaginal space of the Center of the third photograph (Image 28).
Perhaps I am in the Center of the Earth, for I feel as if I'm becoming absorbed by the throbbing Light and Heat of an internal Fire--perhaps molten liquid stone, perhaps the Imaginal "blood and marrow" of a spiritual Earth.
Perhaps I am in the Center of the Heart, in the fire if its grace--the fire of purification. It is said everything originates in the Heart, everything exists in the Heart, and that everything longs to return to the Heart. The great Siddha Yoga Saint, Bhagavan Nityananda said:
The Heart is the hub of all sacred places. Go there and roam.
This image is not jut Red, it is also Blue, a Dark Blue which I associate with the kind of Light one would find in the waters of a sacred underground lake illuminated by a "subterranean sky." ~ The blue colors correspond with the reds; indeed their patterned shapes are facing each other, reflecting each other, breathing into each other, becoming vibrantly alive and bound up in each other in an ineffable union: it is "Light Upon Light." ~ I am reminded of an earlier project: The Blue Pearl, and a passage from a poem by Rumi about the eternal mystery of Love:
I turn my face to you, and into eternity;
we have been in love that long.
Rumi
But I must come out of my meditation now, out from the inside of the image. ~ I am looking at the photograph from the outside, and I see that this image too is looking out at me from the inside.
Pulsation of Love
While working on this project I decided to re-read an early collection of poems by Gurumayi Chidvilasanda. The collection was first published in 1990 with the title Ashes At My Guru's Feet. In 2001 it was published in paperback as Pulsation of Love.
The very first poem in the collection is entitled "The Fire of My Love." It is an expression of Gurumayi's intense and eternal love for God, and her equally intense love for her Guru--Baba Muktananda. (I feel compelled to reiterate a most important fact which must be understood here: Gurumayi teaches that God and Guru and one's own inner Self are inseparably One and the same. Thus Gurumayi's love for God and her love for her Guru is bound together by her unbroken experience of Union with the Great Light of Consciousness, which I will write more about soon, below.)
In her poem Gurumayi takes us into the crystal which is her heart. She invites us to picture the colorful patters of the fiery flames . . . and to imagine the heat of the fire's brilliant blaze. Indeed, when I read her poem I immediately recognize in its imagery my red (and blue) photograph, Image #29. ~ Here is Gurumayi's poem:
The fire of my love blazes
through the crystal of my heart.
Just picture the colorful patterns
of the fiery flames.
Just imagine the heat
of the fire's brilliant blaze.
When that fire of love is reflected
through the crystal of my heart,
you can imagine what its glory must be
and how divine a sight it is.
You know my love exists for you;
and when you touch it,
its patterns sweep
through my entire being.
Every pore of my body is
a spark of love for you.
Seeing with Unveiled Eyes
Gurumayi's guru, the great modern day saint of India, Swami Muktananda, who founded the Siddha Yoga Path upon the command of his guru, spoke and wrote at great length about the Light of Consciousness (Citi Shakti) and the nondual philosophy of Kashmir Shavism. In the following excerpt from his book Nothing Exists That Is Not Shiva he writes about the "veil that covers the eye that sees." It is, he says, the grace of the Guru which removes the veil so that Truth can be perceived.
Guru's Grace is the Divine Creative energy that flows through everything in the Created world: words, images, sounds, the substances of the Earth, everything in the universe. When we recognize the presence of grace in a photograph, for example, we may become aware that the focus of our vision has become turned inward such that we are seeing through the "eye of the Heart." This kind of interior vision is not limited by the ego, by cultural, familial and religious dogmas. Grace has unveiled our vision, and the Light of the Divine Self which pervades everything becomes revealed and recognized: this entire universe is the play of Citi, the "blissful Self-unfolding of Consciousness."
In fact, this universe is not a universe. It is not an illusion as the illusionists
hold. It is neither the void nor atoms nor nature nor a modification of
some basic substance. Though it appears to be matter--appears to be
earth, water, fire, air and ether--it is only the play of Citi and the
sport of Kundalini. It is the blissful self-unfolding of
Consciousness. It is the play of the many from the
One and the One in the many. Behind the
differences lies the undifferentiated;
the undifferentiated manifests
differences. It is the
nondual
becoming dual and
reveling in that play. Differences
lie not in the objective universe but in the
veil that covers the eye that sees. The lotion of
the Guru's grace rends that veil and gives the yogi
the eye to see Truth. The yogi is bound only as long as he
apprehends the play of Consciousness as the universe. When there
is no universe, how can there be bondage? The moment the concept of
universe is eliminated, one becomes a jivanmukta, a being who is liberated in this life.
from Swami Muktananda's book Nothing Exists That Is Not Shiva
from Swami Muktananda's book Nothing Exists That Is Not Shiva
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Epilogue
I often feel that a project like this one must have an Epilogue. It can't just end; it needs something that can serve as a blessing. Thus I am offering here a brief but Light-Hearted poem by the great Sufi Poet-Saint, Hafiz.
In the poem Hafiz speaks of God's "Beauty," God's "oasis of Light," and God's "own private chamber." Of course we know that an oasis is a fertile place in the desert, a place where Water is found to be Present. God's "oasis" and God's "private chamber" are metaphors, it seems to me, for the human Heart. And the "Light" that floods God's oasis is the Creative-transformative power of grace. Regarding "beauty," there is a well known hadith, a saying by the Prophet Muhammad, which states: "God is beautiful, and God loves beauty."
May the Light of grace emerging from within the words of the poet-saints quoted in this project, and may the grace present in the symmetrical Water photographs in this project, dissolve the veils of separation--if for only a brief moment--so that each one of us can see our own Divine Beauty, our own Divine Light, our Oneness of Being.
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You are one of us now
Because you cannot forget His beauty.
I see you have the luminous afflictions
From visiting His oasis of light,
From visiting God's own private chamber.
Hafiz, from: THE GIFT
trans. Ladinsky
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This project was published as part 4 of the WATER project.
I announced this project in the "Latest Addition"
section of my website's Welcome Page on
December 2, 2018
WATER Photographs : The Complete Project Titles
Other Related Links
Here is the compete list of Broad Brook projects to date:
2014: The Angels (see especially part three)
2015: Prayer and the Nature of Things (the Epilogue to my project Field of View)
2016: Death : A Meditation in Photographs and Text (Symmetrical Broad Brook Photographs)
The Angels (2014)
The Photograph As Icon (2014-15)
Photography and Yoga (2015)
The poems quoted in this project were taken from Illuminations.
Welcome Page to The Departing Landscape website which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and more.
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Examples of Qur'an
Illumination & Calligraphy
Click on the images to enlarge
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