STAY HOME
Still Lifes & Symmetrical
Photographs
Introduction
The two distinctly different sets of photographs you will be seeing in this project were made in the first two weeks of April, 2020 during the most intense period of the Coronavirus Global Pandemic in New York State. It was (and continues to be in early May) an anxious time in which New Yorkers have been asked to STAY HOME, and, when out shopping for food or other necessities, to wear a mask that covers one's nose and mouth.
I have been taking refuge at Home in two very important, meaningful ways: focusing on the Siddha Yoga Practices and teachings, and maintaining a steady, engaged involvement with my Creative Process in photographic picture-making, which includes of course, creating blog projects like the one before you now.
In addition to performing our usual yogic practices each day, Gloria and I have been very fortunate in being able to participate in an ongoing series of very powerful live-streaming video programs with Gurumayi Chidvilasananda from Shree Muktananda Ashram in New York State. The programs, entitled "Be In the Temple," have been broadcast live from inside the Ashram's Nityananda Temple; and they have been made available (at no cost) to anyone around the world who has access to a computer and can connect with the Siddha Yoga Website. These uplifting programs have included talks by Gurumayi, chanting, periods of meditation, sacred Indian music and poetry, and various forms of ritual worship of the golden murti (the statue) of Bhagavan Nityananda which is seated in the very center of the round, sacred space of the Temple. Also, after the Be In the Temple broadcasts members of the Siddha Yoga Meditation Center in Rochester, NY have been meeting online via Zoom Video Conferencing to share with each other our experiences of the program and Gurumayi's teachings.
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On April 4, 2020 I had gotten to the point where I felt ready to publish my latest blog project Snow Photographs, Winter 2o2o. Whenever I reach that stage of the process, I usually give myself a few extra days to step away from the project to clear my mind and refresh my eyes so that when I revisit the project, its pictures and texts, I am better prepared to review and edit the project one last time before publishing the project.
During those few interim days in early April I felt a strong desire to revisit my collection of books on the Italian painter Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) . Six years ago I had paid homage to this great artist with a multi-chaptered project entitled Still Life : Photographs Inspired by Giorgio Morandi, and now, once again, I felt drawn back to his work, to re-immerse myself in his gentle, quiet, contemplative visual world. Leafing through the reproductions of his paintings gave me a very sweet and reassuring feeling of the importance of art in our world. Looking at the paintings again and again, and reading some of my favorite essays about Morandi the man and Morandi the artist was like a refreshing vacation in which I re-invigorated myself by absorbing the creative, sacred energy that pervades his paintings.
After reading a particularly favorite essay about Morandi's working methods, I got up out of my chair feeling enthusiastically energized; I mean, the Creative juices were pulsating through my entire body, and I felt the strongest urge to make some photographs. I immediately got my camera and started walking around, inside our house, looking for things to photograph. In less than an hour's time I made a good number of photographs from which I selected the sequence of twelve images, presented below, entitled My Most Recent Morandi Inspired Photographs.
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The second collection of images in this project consist of symmetrical photographs. Two of the images were published in the previous project, Snow Photographs, Winter 2o2o (though in this project they appear in a revised transformed state). After completing the Winter 2020 project, I had intended to devote my next project solely to symmetrical photographs; however, after I made the Morandi Inspired Photographs on April 4, those plans needed to be changed This project has become something like a "report" of what I have been doing over the past month while being "locked down" at Home because of the Pandemic. After the presentation of both sets of photographs I will offer some additional introductory remarks, some written commentary on a selection of images, and an Epilogue which will conclude the project.
(Note: I encourage you to click on the images, especially the symmetrical photographs. This will allow you to view the images against a black background, and in an improved technical viewing mode that will render the images much sharper and with greater luminosity and tonal depth compared to the initial blog rendering of the images you see on your screen.)
My most recent
Morandi Inspired
Photographs
Morandi Inspired
Photographs
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Stay Home, Still Life #1 Kitchen, Granite Counter with Glass Water Vase, Avocado, Cherry Tomatoes
Stay Home, Still Life #2 Living Room, small glass-covered table with plant, lamp base, etc.
Stay Home, Still Life #3 Kitchen, Glass Tea Pot on granite counter
Stay Home, Still Life #4 Bedroom, Chest of Drawers, Mirror, objects
Stay Home, Still Life #5 Bedroom closet, heat pad
Stay Home, Still Life #6 Bedroom lamp
Stay Home, Still Life #7 Front Foyer, Corner with plants, basket, light switches, etc.
Stay Home, Still Life #8 Office, corner: Globe, framed photos, vase with dried flowers
Stay Home, Still Life #9 Laundry Room, dryer door, ironing board
Stay Home, Still Life #10 Laundry Room soap containers, etc.
Stay Home, Still Life #11 Hallway next to the laundry room: a pile of winter hats, gloves, scarves, etc.
Stay Home, Still Life #12 Laundry Room, wall hangers
The
Symmetrical
Photographs
Photographs
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Reminder: click on the images to view them in a more refined technical mode.
The images will appear against a black background, and they will
be sharper, more luminous, and more tonally expanded.
Reminder: click on the images to view them in a more refined technical mode.
The images will appear against a black background, and they will
be sharper, more luminous, and more tonally expanded.
Stay Home, Image #13 Inverted Symmetrical (Snow) Photograph
Stay Home, Image #14 Inverted Symmetrical (Snow) Photograph
Stay Home, Image #15 Inverted Symmetrical (Snow Bird) Photograph
Stay Home, Image #16 Inverted Symmetrical (Snow) Photograph
Stay Home, Image #17 Inverted Symmetrical (Snow) Photograph
Stay Home, Image #18 Inverted Symmetrical (Snow) Photograph
Introduction (continued)
In this crazy, chaotic time of the Global Pandemic I have been blessed with the means, the grace, of entering into the deep silence and peacefulness of both the Siddha Yoga Meditation practices, the contemplation of the yogic teachings, and the making and contemplation of my photographs. Truly speaking, my practice of Siddha Yoga and my Creative Process of photographic picture-making have merged into each other and become inseparably One.
The straight photographs in this project were made in a new, though brief homage to Giorgio Morandi's extraordinary, heartfelt vision which unveils the inner essence of the things he had so lovingly collected, cared for, studied and contemplated over many, many years. His vision inspired me to see my own world, the one immediately surrounding me, with refreshed, more deeply seeing eyes.
Indeed, I feel that Morandi and I are kindred spirits, that we share the same one Heart. I experience his paintings as gentle revelations of the sacredness of Being. A holy presence pervades not only the things he paints but also the space that surrounds them, and the subtle light that illuminates his paintings as a whole. I have recently become particularly interested in the space that surrounds and exists between his beloved objects, space that is filled with a radiant aura of stillness and silence and a light that seems to emerge from inside his paintings.
When the grace of my yogic practices and the grace of my Creative Process in photography are operating together in alignment with each other, the photographs that are the fruit of that merging become vibrant with the Creative Energy which in Siddha Yoga has many names, such as Chiti Shakit, the Creative Power of the Universe, the divine Self. It is this creative energy, this grace, this Light of Consciousness which transforms some of my photographs into images which function for me as living Symbols, images which conjoin outer-world images with their corresponding inner-world, psychic-spiritual images. I consider my symbolic photographs a revelation and celebration of the Oneness of Being, and I feel that same presence in many of my most favorite Morandi paintings.
The Morandi-inspired photographs, their radiant grace, have served me as a kind of antidote for this dark time of great physical and emotional suffering and loss; in this time of invisible unchecked dangers, chaotic social-political-economic upheavals, and the fears these unstable times invoke.
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The symmetrical photographs are the most literal visual expressions of the Oneness of Being within my Creative Process. These "round" or "circular" mandala-like images represent for me the sacredness of all space, and they are quite literally vibrant with that ineffable spiritual presence which the yogic saints and sages say pervades the entire universe and every individual person and thing within it.
At the very center of each symmetrical photograph there is an invisible Point which represents the Heart of my Creative Process, that ineffable, unknown and most sacred space, the Origin point, from which symbolic images emerge. This Center point is the transcendent space in which the four repeated and mirrored source images intersect and unite with each other and become an entirely new, transformed image, a Sacred image in which the four repeated images merge into each another and give visible form to the Invisible-Formless world of the Oneness of Being.
During one of the recent Be In the Temple programs with Gurumayi it occurred to me that the symmetrical images are very similar formally to the round interior space of the Nityananda Temple in which symmetry plays such an important role in the overall architectural design of the temple, the design and placement of the flower settings that surround the enlivened (chaitanya) murti--the golden, radiant form--of Bhagavan Nityananda, and the murti itself. The murti is seated in the very center of the Temple's round space.
Note: Bhagavan Nityananda was a great and beloved yogic saint of India, who in 1956 asked his disciple Swami Muktananda to found the Siddha Yoga Path. Just before Swami Muktananda died in 1982 he passed the power, the Chiti Shakti, of the Siddha Lineage on to Gurumayi Chidvilasananda.
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On Easter Day, April 12, 2020, Gurumayi presented a long talk via live-stream video from the Nityayanda Temple. She spoke about Easter as a time of renewal and transformation, and she encouraged all of us in the Global "Universal Hall" to transform both the world inside us and world outside us through the Siddha Yoga practices, the contemplation of the Siddha Yoga teachings, and through our actions, prayers and intentions. She said:
"Stay Home
OM
Stay Home
OM
Stay Home
OM"
Gurumayi words for a recent talk
she gave in the Nityananda Temple
Gurumayi commanded us to "Shelter in Grace." She has encouraged us to transform our Home into a sanctuary, a holy Temple, an intimate, safe, silent space in which we can dwell in the deep solitude that will allow us "to discern the faintest shaft of light," that interior, Self-luminous light of the Heart with which we can illuminate and transform any feelings of fear or helplessness that may bubble up within us during this crazy, trying time.
Transformation is of the utmost importance to me as a visual artist, and I strive to achieve a balanced tension between the realistic rendering power of the photographic medium and its facility for visual abstraction. I will be sharing with you, below, a series of commentaries in which I try to demonstrate and explain some of the ways I see and understand certain aspects of my photographs. But I feel it's important to remind you that there is an significant difference for me between writing commentaries and the process of contemplating images. (Note: to better understand the differences between commentary and contemplation I invite you to visit my recently published essay Contemplating Symbolic Photographs.)
Commentaries
on selected images
Fig. 1 Stay Home, Still Life #8 Globe, framed photos, vase with dried flowers
Fig. 2 Stay Home, Still Life #4 Bedroom, Top of Chest of Drawers with Mirror
Fig. 3 Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) 1920 oil painting 20x44cm
Fig. 4 Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) 1959 oil painting 25x30cm
Regarding My New Morandi Inspired Photographs
The tone, light and structural-formal similarities between my Morandi-inspired photographs and the paintings of Giorgio Morandi should be fairly obvious in the two sets of images above. As a matter of fact, long before I came to know and love Morandi's paintings I had been deeply preoccupied with the challenge of making photographs of things--both isolated things and things in their environment--that aspire to the high ideal of unveiling a thing's inner essence, When I finally discovered Morandi's painting I immediately recognized that he and I shared that same goal.
More recently I have been admiring Morandi's sensitivity to the spaces between and surrounding the objects in his paintings, and the atmospheric light that amplifies the pervading feeling of a sacred presence in and around and between his beloved objects. I also admire the tension in Morandi's paintings between realistic representation and the "abstract" formal reality of the painting as a whole. The two--realism and abstraction-- often coexist simultaneously in his paintings, and that is something I have wanted to articulate in my photographs as well.
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In my still life photograph with the globe, Image #8, I was surprised when I consciously realized the direct synchronous relationship of the image to the current Global Pandemic which was raging in New York State when I made the photograph. When I am photographing I try to avoid thinking; I want to allow my Creative Process to do what It needs to do. Thus when synchronicity occurs in my images, I consider it a gift, a surprise, the product of an open and intuitive relationship that I share with my Creative Process.
The globe image also includes a small framed photograph of me and my family (made around 1980) and next to it another small framed photograph of Gurumayi (dated around 1987). Gurumayi's active presence in my life during this peak period of the Pandemic in New York State via her live video stream programs Be In the Temple has been very, very important to me. The two framed photographs which appear together below the Globe was another unintended, unconscious synchronous recognition which the photograph revealed to me. Gurumayi's presence and support--and most importantly her grace--has been in my life, and my family's life for 33 years now, and she is constantly sending her prayers and blessings to all her Siddha Yoga Students, the natural world and the planet as a whole.
(Note; I certainly can appreciate how difficult it must be for people to understand the power and meaning such a holy Being like Gurumayi could have for me and the Global community of Siddha Yoga students. Gloria and I met Gurumayi in 1987, and her shakti, her grace was immediately recognizable to both of us as a palpable, living and transforming energy and presence. We both went into the two-day intensive, however, with feelings of great skepticism about Indian Gurus in general. I invite you to visit my project Photography and Yoga for full details regarding my personal experience in the intensive.)
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My still life Image #4 is related to Image #8 in a fascinating, synchronous way as well. The image depicts a series of relationships between the things on the top of my chest of drawers and reflections in the mirror which also sits directly on top of the chest of drawers. Two things are of particular interest to me in the photo in regards to how they relate to the Pandemic: to the left of the picture frame, and up against the horizon line--and reflected in the mirror--is a small bottle of hand disinfectant; and then further to the right there is a blue aura with a white "star" or "sun" within its center. This blue aura is quite similar in shape and color to the globe in Image #4. Also, the "sun" or "star" image appears to be illuminated from within by the same light that is coming through the bedroom window reflected in the mirror. ~ That image of the "sun" or "star" in the blue aura is on the cover of a very important booklet entitled Does Death Really Exist? authored by Swami Muktananda, Gurumayi's teacher. Certainly, Death has been on my mind lately: for many weeks in a row around 700 people died every day in New York State from the Pandemic.
For many years I have made it a daily practice to look at Swami Muktananda's book on my chest of drawers to remind me of Death and to inspire me to live each day of my life as fully as I possibly can. I have read Does Death Really Exist? many, many times, and I have made several photography projects which have been visual and textual meditations on Death. As I worked on each of those projects the teachings in Muktananda's booklet were always at the very front and center of my awareness.
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The unexpected, spontaneously made sequence of Morandi-inspired photographs has been a gratifying pleasure and joy for me. (It is wonderful how artists inspire each other through the works they create.) The mood of the photographs, the light and tonalities which pervade all twelve of the images have the same feeling of introversion, of turning within which dominate Morandi's paintings. My photographs and his paintings, and the way they resonate with each other, is for me an affirmation of my strong feeling that we are indeed kindred spirits.
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Fig. 5 Inverted Symmetrical version of the image below
Fig. 6 Positive Symmetrical Image (from "Snow Photographs, Winter 2020")
Fig. 7 Inverted Symmetrical version of the image below
Fig. 8 Original positive version, from "Snow Photographs, Winter 2020"
Regarding the Symmetrical Photographs Inside-Out
The symmetrical photographs is this project are to some extent a reaction to this unstable and threatening time of the Coronavirus Pandemic, a time when our entire world has been turned "upside-down." I have felt it necessary and appropriate to create some images which transform the visible world with the four-fold symmetrical image construction process in which I mirror the same one source (straight) photographic image four times--above and below, left and right. And I have carried the transformation even further by turning the images in this project "inside-out." That is to say, I have inverted the tonalities of the four conjoined source images. (Note: Inversion is a Photoshop tool that reverses the tones in an image. For example light tones are turned into their dark toned counterparts, and vice versa; colors are inverted as well--for example the color red is turned into its complementary color, green, and so on.)
The two pairs of images above, Figs. 5 and 6, and Figs. 7 and 8 illustrate by direct comparison how the inversion process has transformed the two original lighter toned symmetrical images. Those lighter toned symmetrical images were included in my Snow Photographs : Winter 2020 project. The two darker, inverted images, were made specifically for this project.
Fig. 9 Inverted Symmetrical Image (constructed with the image below)
Fig. 10 Positive Straight Photograph (from "Snow Photographs, Winter 2020")
The above light-toned straight snow photograph (Fig. 10), was used as the source image with which I constructed the dark-toned inverted symmetrical image (Fig. 9) immediately above it. All of the symmetrical photographs in this project (except Image 19, below) are dominantly dark toned because their source images were light-toned snow photographs .
(Note: Image 19, above, was constructed with a straight photograph of a potted plant which I took inside our house during my brief Morandi-inspired picture-making session on April 4, 2020)
Within most of the inverted symmetrical photographs in this project "sparks" or "cracks" of light appear, "light" which seems to come up from from inside the center of the dark toned images. This "interior" light relates to something Gurumyi had said recently in one of her Be In the Temple talks. She said, in the depths of the sanctuary that exists within each person's own Heart, that place to which we can always turn inwardly when we need to experience peace and quiet, stillness and safety . . . in that sacred space we can see "the faintest shaft of light."
Epilogue
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Regarding Seeing
Regarding Seeing
Stay Home, Epilogue Image (Inverted Symmetrical Photograph "School of Fish")
"Everything you see
is not what you think it is."
Gurumayi Chidvilasananda
The Discipline of Yoga, Chapter 5, "Who Is Looking Through Your Eyes"
The word Yoga literally means Union. There is an ancient yogic scripture, called the Siva Sutras, which contains 77 aphorisms about the divine Truth, the One Great Lord of All named Siva. The Siva Sutras form the foundation of the spiritual tradition known as Kashmir Shaivism, the philosophy so dearly loved by Swami Muktananda. The teachings as whole can be summed up briefly in one short statement, which is the title of a book written by Swami Muktananda: Nothing Exists That Is Not Siva. In other words, the entire world is a form of Siva; Siva exists in everything visible and invisible . . . including the Heart and eyes of every human being.
Gurumayi explains in her book The Discipline of Yoga, that it takes great discipline to see God in everything. In fact she devoted two chapters in her book to "The Discipline of Seeing." Here are some excerpts from her book:
The One who is seated in the eyes, that One truly sees. . . . As long as a seeker does not recognize the true Seer, . . . that which abides in the eyes, then [the seeker's] gaze goes everywhere, without any real purpose . . . If the One who dwells in the eyes has not been perceived, then perception . . . does not have any greater meaning . . . That One, the Principle, needs to be communicated through your eyes because it is that Power that enables you to see. So meditate on this great One . . . As you meditate on this Principle, you realize the true purpose of the eyes, the true purpose of perception.
When the Seer and what is seen become one, when you recognize the unity between them, great ecstasy explodes within you. Your perception is cleansed, it becomes divine.
The poet-saints [of all the traditions] understood that the true purpose of their eyes was to see the form of God. . . . They livid with one strong yearning: wanting darshan, the vision of God. Through [their] intense acts of remembrance and surrender, they did, in fact, see this entire universe as the light of God.
A Sufi poet-saint said:
O Lord, please let me see You,
for You are dearer to me than my own breath.
You are truly the light of my eyes.
Ram Tirth, a modern saint, sang:
Since the eyes of my heart were opened,
I am able to see deep within.
Even when I look at the world around me,
I find my Beloved wherever I turn.
In the language of the saints, it is when the inner eye opens, when the eye of the heart, the subtle eye, becomes active, that a person truly begins to see, truly begins to understand, truly begins to live in the light. The eyes begin to fathom the mystery of the Truth. Gurumayi Chidvilasananda The Yoga of Discipline, Chapter 5, "Who is Looking Through Your Eyes?"
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The final aphorism of the Siva Sutras speaks of the simultaneous awareness of the divine both internally and externally. This Unity Awareness, this transcendence of the dual nature of the Universe, is known as Pratimilana. Gurumayi has of course spoken often about the goal of yoga, the individual soul's conscious and unbroken reunion with the Universal Soul, the divine Self. I will close this Epilogue with a quote in which Gurumayi speaks of Pratimilana in relation to a yogic text known as the Siva-dristi.
The words Siva-dristi mean seeing God in everything, seeing with the eyes of Siva, seeing with the "outlook" of Siva. May Gurumay's grace-filled words serve as a Benediction for this project which has been created in a time when blessings are in great, great need around our entire, beautiful, struggling planet.
Pratimilana is the song of the soul. The soul wants to be reunited. The Siva-dristi says, follow sadhana [yogic practices] with this awareness, meditate with this awareness: I am Siva. My body is Siva, my senses are Siva, my mind is Siva. Everything within me is Siva. Everything about me is Siva. Siva is inside, Siva is outside. I am Siva. Siva is me. As you practice sadhana with this awareness, pratimilana is experienced naturally and spontaneously. When the heart aches, it aches with the longing to be one with Siva. It is this practice, this awareness that makes it possible. . . . As you practice this awareness --I am Siva, I am That I am, I am that Siva-- you live in the sweet reunion, pratimilana." This quote by Gurmayi Chidvilasanana is from an unpublished 1989 manuscript as cited by Swami Shantananda in his book Splendor of Recognition, the chapter entitled "Sutra 19."
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This project was announced on my blog's
Welcome Page on May 5, 2020
The Siva Sutra Rock Photographs
Straight Photographs & the Four-fold Symmetrical Image Constructions
Photography and Yoga
Visit the Welcome Page to my Departing Landscape photography blog which includes the complete listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and much much more.
Straight Photographs & the Four-fold Symmetrical Image Constructions
Photography and Yoga
Visit the Welcome Page to my Departing Landscape photography blog which includes the complete listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and much much more.
A Prayer
Sung by Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli, Lady Gaga & John Legend
with Lang Lang at the piano, each performing in their
homes during the "One World: Together" Global
Citizen Broadcast, April 18, 2020
to see and hear their performance
