Snow Photographs
Winter 2020-21 ~ A Pandemic Inspired project : VII
In Praise of the Christmas Spirits
"Spirit!" Scrooge cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me! I am not the man I was.
I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this
if I am past all hope?" ~ "Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground
he fell before it, "your nature intercedes for me, and pities for me. Assure
me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me by an
altered life?" ~ "I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try
to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present,
and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive
within me. I will not shut out the lessons that
they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away
the writing on this stone!" Holding up
his hands in prayer to have fate
reversed, he saw alternation
in the Phantom's hood and
dress. It shrunk, collapsed
and dwindled down into
a bed-post.
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Introduction
The photographs in this project were made in our back yard, and in The Meadow just beyond it, during three separate photographing sessions: two were before Christmas, 2020 and the third was on the day following Christmas. Though I shall continue my tradition, over the last six projects, to report on the Coronavirus Pandemic and the Trump Pandemic, the real focus of this project is the sacred nature of Christmas and the Spirits of Christmas.
The Coronavirus / Trump Pandemic Report
This project is part VII of a continuing series of Pandemic Inspired projects, and indeed as I was making the photographs which you will be being in this project during the Christmas Holidays, the Coronavirus Pandemic was ragging on.
The Pandemic has only gotten worse, day after day after day over the past several weeks. New records have been broken nearly every day for new hospitalizations and deaths, and a new more aggressive variant strain of the virus has been reported in over 33 countries around the world including the United States. Several vaccinations have become available; however, for many reasons including poor management planning on the part of the US Government, the vaccinations have been slow getting out to the people who are most in need of being protected. "Operation Warp Speed" had been expected to get out 20 million first doses of the vaccines to the elderly and front line workers by late December, and only 1/10 of that number had been achieved by New Year's Day 2021. At the current rate of operation, it has been calculated it would take years for everyone in this country to become vaccinated.
Since I last wrote about the Pandemic in project VI, each day has brought reports of the continuing political discord between the Democrats and the Republicans; between the House, the Senate, between Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump and his Republican, Corporate and criminal cronies. Many Republicans have stated how Trump has become a liability for them. The growing discord has resulted in anxiety-ridden delays for those in our country who are in desperate need of the financial assistance promised them in the form of an Economic Relief Bill for which they have been waiting for a very long time. It's tragic and inexcusable how such a wealthy country as the US can allow so many hard working and impoverished people to be suffering from lack of food and good medical services, a lack of sustainable jobs and adequate financial assistance. And worse, some of the deprivation is intentional and in many cases racially motivated. Though a Bill was at last passed in late December by the Senate, it provides less funding than needed. Mitch McConnell, however, has stated that the attempt to bring forth an additional bill in support of a proposed 2,000 dollar stimulus payment (by Trump and the House) has no "realistic path."
Several Republican Senate members have promised Donald Trump that they would object to certifying the results of the Electoral College when Congress meets on January 6, 2021. And Trump has tried (and failed) to get the Republican Secretary of State of Georgia to "find" 11,ooo votes that would reverse the results of the State's Presidential Election. (Trump may have once again broken the law by trying to interfere in this way with the election results.) ~ News reports are beginning to pour forth regarding all the lawsuits that await Trump after he is ousted from the Whitehouse on January 20.
In Georgia, on January 5 the state will perform a runoff vote for two Senate positions, the results of which could change the Senate majority in Washington from Republican to Democrats. I have no idea how long it will take to get an official decision on this major political event; and who knows what might happen on January 6 when the lawmakers meet to finalize the Presidential Elections, for violent protests in the streets of Washington DC by militant Trump supports are expected. So I have decided to publish this project at 1:42pmo n January 5, 2021, and I will continue my report on the political dramas now in process and which will go on, and on, and on in my forthcoming #VIII Pandemic Inspired Project.
Regarding this Project
Because of the increased dangers of the Pandemic my wife Gloria and I felt we had to call off our traditional Christmas gathering with our children and their families. Fortunately, though, we were able to connect via zoom conferencing, and I was able to get out and photograph the first snowfall of the winter, which this year occurred a week before Christmas, with 8 inches of snow covering the Finger Lakes region of New York State when I awoke on the morning of December 18. This project includes photographs made on three mornings in December 2020: on December 18, December 21, and then on the morning following Christmas day, December 26.
The Christmas Spirits were certainly present (for me) in those three, brief picture-making sessions (it was very cold each of those days). Thus I am happy to say the grace of the Holiday Season is shining radiantly, for me, in many of the 21 photographs I have presented here despite the horrors of the Pandemic and all the endless antics Trump and his Republican followers have been up to lately (for example Trump's pardoning of many dangerous prisoners and corrupt politicians).
Indeed, my creative process in photography has provided me with a means of taking refuge from the crazy-bazar world we are living in, with all the grief, political lying and misinformation, and mishandling of the Pandemic. I also have had my yogic practices to help me through all the bad news, plus I have indulged in some of the Christmas Holiday traditions I love so much, including: watching my growing collection of film versions of Charles Dickon's A Christmas Carol (I especially love the new video The Man Who Created Christmas); and I have delight in several parts of the newest Tabernacle Choir program entitled Christmas Day In the Morning (filmed December, 2019) featuring Kelli O'Hara & Richard Thomas. Two of the Choir's new Christmas Songs have been running through my head non-stop, especially the beautiful American folk carol, Singing In the Land and the African spiritual, Oh Watch the Stars, See How They Run which is sung as interludes between Richard Thomas' reading of Pearl Buck's story, "Christmas Day In the Morning." And, as I was preparing the 21 photographs for publication in this project I have been listening continually to two of Valentin Silvestrov's sacred choral pieces entitled "Two Christmas Lullabies" (from the CD album To Thee We Sing): Silent Night and Sleep Jesus Sleep.
I am certain that the grace, the True Spirit of Christmas is embodied in these photographs I have made after the first snow of the season, for they have been inspired by the wonderful words, below, and the music which praise and celebrates the purity and holiness of a new born child and the transcendent Spirits of Christmas:
"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it
all the year. . . . I will live in the Past, the Present
and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall
strive within me. I will not shut out
the lessons that they teach."
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1. Singing in the land . . . Singing in the land
I'm a long ways from home.
Singing in the land . . . Baby of Bethlehem.
O sister, don't you want to go to heaven?
O brother, don't you want to go to heaven?
Singing in the Land . . . Baby of Bethlehem
2. Praying in the land . . .
3. Mourning in the land . . .
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Oh watch the stars, see how they run
The stars run down at the setting of the sun
Oh watch the stars, see how they run
With additional lyrics by David Warner
Go find the Child, see where he lays.
Behold the Lamb, see how he Loves
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Silent night, holy night,
The light of the morning star is bright.
The holy child is so pure.
Sleep, my star, in heavenly peace
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Sleep Jesus, Sleep.
You will be rocked to sleep
And lullabies will be sung to you.
Sleep, Jesus, go to sleep, close your eyes.
Lullay, lullay, dear Heart, sleep, Jesus, sleep.
The relationship between poetry, music, yogic meditation, praying and making photographs is, for me, very close; indeed they are essentially one and the same for me. The light of a morning star, the silence that pervades the snow-covered land, the peace of a child sleeping . . . are all forms of grace that have become for me a presence in the 21 photographs you are about to see.
Each of the three mornings that I when out in the snow to photograph, the light was soft and gentle from a cloud-covered sky--the kind of light that can seem to emerge from within the snow and whatever else I was photographing. It has seemed to me that snow itself is the very embodiment of silence. And I love the way snow magically transforms the world; its pure white tones bring new light to the places, things and landscapes familiar to me.
The yogic teachings that I have come to love so much since I began practicing Siddha Yoga in 1987 say that the very nature of the Soul, the divine Self, is stillness and silence. Swami Muktananda, the founder of the Siddha Yoga Path, was asked by a student of yoga: "What is the soul?" and here is how the great yogic saint responded:
The soul is that which activates the inner psychic organs and the outer sense organs. The soul is the witness, the watcher, the seer of all the activities of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. The soul exists at the junction between the incoming and outgoing breaths. ~ This is one way of understanding what the soul is, but if you want to experience the nature of the soul, you have to close your eyes and become completely silent. Only in inner stillness can the soul be experienced. Swami Muktananda, from Selected Essays, essay #2: "You Are Who You Think You Are."
If through daily meditation we see God's light sparkling within, the veil would be drawn aside, and we would be able to see creation as it really is. ~ As we meditate more and more, the divine conscious light comes into our eyes. Our eyes see the same light outside us, and we know the universe to be nothing but that light. ~ All that we see is made of the supreme Lord. The Shiva Surtas state, "The Self is the dancer in all these forms." Swami Muktananda, from Selected Essays, edited by Paul Zweig, the 1995 SYDA Publication, essay #9: "Nothing But the Self."
When I contemplate the snow photographs presented here, my mind becomes still; I experience a deep presence within myself that is of the very nature of silence. May the images in this project touch you in some meaningful way. After the photographs I welcome you to read some commentaries I have written on a selection of the images.
May 2021 be a year of sparkling light, good health and inner renewal for us all.
The Photographs
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I encourage you to click on each of the images. This will enable you to see the image rendered with greater
sharpness and within a dark viewing space. A second click will enlarge the image for a more detailed viewing.
#1 The wing of a snow angel
#2 Beautiful crack in the iced-covered meadow pond
#3 Red limbed bush after the first snow of the season
#4 Three snow covered stones on a raised bed plank & green onions
#5 Snow covered cloths line pole, and a bird in the tree!
#6 Snow covered step and bush
#7 Snow covered raised bed and six partially visible stones
#8 Snow drift in the foreground; snow covered raised bed and stones in the background
#9 Snow covered meadow & mowed plants creating a cross configuration
#1o Snow covered large stone surrounded by little stones and plants
#11 Snow covered mowed meadow plants creating a circle configuration
#12 Snow covered raised bed plank & plant stem with red thorns
#13 Red limb of a living bush, and a pink stone (Seeing with the Eye of the Heart)
#14 Inversed Symmetrical Snow Photograph
#15 Symmetrical Snow Photograph
#16 Inversed Symmetrical Snow Photograph (with green elements)
#17 Symmetrical Snow Photograph (constructed with image #3)
#18 Inversed Snow Photograph
#19 Symmetrical Snow Photograph (Snow Angel, #1)
#20 Inversed Symmetrical Snow Photograph
#21 The Secret Calligraphic Language of Plants
Commentaries
on selected photographs
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Blood-like Arterial-like RED
Red limbed living bush (click on the images to enlarge)
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Red bush limb and a pink stone (Seeing with the Eye of the Heart)
I went out into the first snow of the winter season 2020-21 early in the morning of December 18. The light was soft and gentle; the 8 inches of fresh snow seemed glowing from within. I felt excited by being in the pure snow and the cold, still air, and I was deeply affected by the power of silence that pervaded the land. The snow, the light, the silence transformed my backyard and the meadow into a new, luminous Silver World.
I wandered over to the back patio area under our deck and photographed a step with a bush next to it (see image #6). After making the exposure, as I slowly backed away from the scene to see if another more distant view of the step might yield an interesting photograph . . . I felt a gentle tapping on my back. A little spooked, I turned around to see who was there. The red limbs of a very lively looking bush appeared to be lunging out to greet me with excited, opened arms!
I had never seen that bush so red and so animated, so full of life before! After I regained my composure I pointed my camera into the center of the space defined by all those deep red limbs and quickly took a photograph (above, top) without much consideration for composition. The gesture of photographing was more about acknowledging the thing's living presence rather than a self-conscious attempt at make an "interesting" photograph.
That image has now become one of my very favorite and most important photographs in this project. It embodies for me the Spirit of Christmas in so many ways (though, Truth be told, my first child-like association to the red color of the limbs was to Santa's (Saint Nicholas) traditional suit of red clothing with the snow-white trim.)
The other image above, of the pink stone and a single Y shaped red limb from the same bush, is also one of my favorites in this project. I made the image a week later--on the day after Christmas. I had returned to the red limbed bush to see if another image was waiting for me to be discovered . . . and there was! (The pink stone is barely visible in the first, top image. Try clicking on that image twice so you can view it enlarged.) The red limb appears to be tenderly embracing the pink stone, whose heart (or is it an eye?) has opened in response to the limb's loving, compassionate touch.
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I sent via email the image of the red limbed bush, and a few others, to a photographer friend of mine, Dick Knapp. He had been working on a series of photographs made in the cold of winter, and had shared them with me via email; I was inspired by his courage (and enthusiasm) to be out in the cold making photographs, and I think it was his enthusiasm for making photographs, despite the cold, that had motivated me to get me out into our first snow of the season in the Finger Lakes of New York State.
(Note: I had been feeling very introverted by the cold, rainy weather that had preceded our first snow storm; and I was feeling down about the Pandemic, and all the political turmoil going on in our country; I was sad that Gloria and I would be spending Christmas together alone this year, without our children and grandchildren. So in general I just did not feel like being outside photographing in the cold. Once I did get myself outside in the fresh snow and began photographing I really enjoyed it! See links to all my snow inspired photography projects here.)
A few days after I sent the some of my new snow image to Dick--in a gesture of sharing my Creative Process with him . . . and as proof! that his inspiration really did motivate me to get outside in the cold and make some photographs--he wrote back with a surprising and fascinating response to the red limbed bush image. I have included three excerpts from Dick's email below, and I have colored them red.
You will find the word "terrifying" in the first of the three sections in which he refers to the red limbed bush, and I feel I should explain why the world is in quotes. It should be noted here that I never said anything to Dick about being terrified by my image of the red limbed bush or my surprised encounter with it before I took the picture. Either Dick picked that up intuitively through the image, or he was responding to something I had said to him earlier during a phone call, or perhaps in an email I had written earlier to him regarding a batch of pictures he had sent me which he had made in the cold of winter in a shopping area. The subject matter he had photographed consisted of commercial Christmas decorations and lights used in store front window displays. In a brief off-the-cuff comment I made to him about those pictures I did say something about how that subject matter was "terrifying" but I hadn't been clear about how I was using the terms. I was reacting to the stylized nature and vacancy of spirit in the subject matter he had photographed. I felt that the subject matter seemed completely lacking in the regard for the sacredness of the true (Traditional, religious) meaning of the Christmas Holidays. ~ So, in Dick's commentary on my red limbed bush photograph, when he uses the word "terrifying" (in quotation marks), he is referencing the brief unexplained comment that I and sent to him.
I feel deeply grateful for the words Dick sent me about the red limbed bush, and the ice pond image, even though I did not quite get that in the second section of his commentary was indeed writing about the ice pond image and not the red limbed bush photograph. Learning this from him later did not change how important his commentary was for me. The totality of Dick's commentary had opened me to some rich memories and challenging new understandings which I will write about after the presentation of his text in, red letters, below:
Red limbed living bush
. . . the vibrant red, presumably still living bush in the cold snow, fallen and splayed out in the foreground. What is “terrifying” about this phenomenon front and center, Steve? I know it is for you, but why?
Beautiful crack in the ice-covered meadow pond
You have been out in the cold and ice for so long, you are comfortable there and now something blood-like, arterial-like, is presenting itself, breaking through, and this new is terrifying you somehow, but nonetheless in an explicable way. This new is inner and not outer, but something gradually bubbling up, no longer iced over, from the repressed into conscious awareness, and such an occurrence is indeed frightening to the ego. Something within is mounting a siege on the old in the darkness and my latest [series of photographs] is the battle being waged there for you and me (and everyone else) to see projected in my work.
The RED is its signature color, to my way of thinking, either the blood being shed on the battlefield, OR, either Jesus sweating blood in Gethsemane and/or Jesus on the Cross with a soldier stabbing him in the side, the blood outpouring, it being collected for new life forward. Or something like that. In my imagination, at least. . .
When I read these words Dick had sent me, unexpectedly, they invoked the memory of an important meditation experience I had one summer in the late 1980's or early 1990's while my wife and I and our two children were visiting Gurumayi Chidvilasananda at Shree Muktanada Ashram in the Catskill Mountains of New York State.
I had been struggling at that time with some old feelings of anger and grief about my step-father (he had died around 1967 from an unusual, unexpected medical occurrence). I don't know how aware he was about the things he had done and said to me and my mother that hurt me so deeply (emotionally). But I later discovered that I had stuffed all those feelings away inside myself, and that eventually they would be needing to be expressed and released.
"Blackie" (my step-father's nick-name) probably was addicted to gambling and alcohol long before my mom married him. I remember one incident which occurred before they married that makes me think that my mom surely must may have known or suspected that he was at least a drinker if not an alcoholic; but I also understand that she must have felt that marriage was her only means of caring properly for me and my younger sister after my biological dad died just before my tenth birthday.
In any case, many of the worst memories I have of Blackie and his drinking are directly related to events that occurred during holidays, and most especially the Christmas holidays; and they all involved angry or mean acts and words that emotionally hurt both me, and my mom.
Before my biological dad died, Christmas had been my most favorite time of the year; a time of great excitement, anticipation, magic, fantasy . . . After my dad died all that childhood joy and excitement about Christmas dissolved. Christmas then became a time of deep sadness for me, filled with the memories of my dad and those wonderful idealized childhood memories of the Christmas Holidays. Christmas was a time of great stress and mourning for me, and of course for my mom as well. And after my mom remarried those memories of idealized Christmases turned into nightmares.
My mom remarried when I was a young teenager, and after a brief time Blackie's drinking and gambling began to increase dramatically. Nearly every weekend would become a time of dread for me; and the Christmas Holidays became even more dreaded for me, not just because of the things he did, but because of the old idealized childhood memories that I was wanting to cling onto.
I did not really begin to process the deeply repressed hurt and angry feelings I had suffered from Blackie's drinking until long after his death (1967). It was after I first met Gurumayi Chidvilasanada, in 1987 and began practicing Siddha Yoga (click here) that the deep work of grieving and forgiving began.
In the late 1980's or early 1990's I had a powerful mediation experience while my wife and I and our two children were visiting Gurumayi at Shree Muktananda Ashram in the Catskill Mountains of New York State:
I had been doing some volunteer work at the ashram one morning helping several other men move a large collection of old metal bed frames from a storage shed into a truck. As we were passing the steel frames to each other, one of the men cut his hand on a sharp piece of metal, and his hand started bleeding. ~ That evening, during a program with Gurumayi, as she was leading us into meditation an image of a bleeding hand spontaneously emerged. At first it was an image of the bleeding hand I had seen earlier that day. But then the image turned into the bleeding hand of Jesus hanging on the Cross. Then that image of Jesus turned into an image of my step-father.
That meditation experience was hugely transformational for me. It's grace initiated an inner healing process that would gradually lead to a heartfelt, compassionate acceptance of Blackie's presence in my life and forgiveness for the emotional hurt that he had inflicted upon me.
*
As I have already said, the red color of the limbs of the bush in the top photograph was associated with Christmas for me, as seen from a young child's perspective. When I made the image, on December 18, Christmas was still a week away and I was feeling sad that Gloria and I would not be with our family as usual this year because of the Pandemic. Dick's commentary on that image then sparked memories of my past experiences with my step-father and the meditation experience at the ashram.
The second photograph I took, a week later, of the red bush limb and the pink stone seemed an affirmation to me of the healing that was still continuing within me regarding my feelings toward Blackie. Every Christmas many of the worst memories still haunt me. But this recent Christmas experience, and the images associated with it, this has brought more healing.
Dick's insightful commentary about my photographs, and his sharing them with me, is an excellent example of the healing power of grace (the "dance of the Self.") Throughout my 33 years of yogic meditation practices with Gurumayi I have been blessed with an untold number of experiences of her grace, many which have manifested through my Creative Process in photography. The photographs in this project, made during the Christmas Holidays this winter season, and Dick's comments about two of my images, is but a small part of a much larger, unfolding process of inner healing and transformation that is continuing and constantly ongoing. At the heart of my Creative Process are the yogic practices, Gurumayi's grace, and those photographs which have come most spontaneously to me as gifts, images which are radiantly alive with transformational energy--with grace; images which unveil and celebrate the Oneness of Being; images I like to refer to as symbolic photographs.
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Calligraphic Language
The things of the world have been trying to speak to me, oftentimes with noticeable urgency, as if there is something I must understand that pertains to their inner nature. One of the ways they speak to me is through a visual "language" that I intuitively perceive to be meaningful, but which is of an altogether different order of meaning, a different system of communication, a different "language." I try to articulate my experience of things and their need to "speak" to me through a particular kind of photograph I like to refer to as "Thing Centered Photographs."
I'm fasciated by images, like the two above, which are very simple looking in their directness and the formal relationships within the picture's frame. The two images are on the periphery of functioning for me as "thing" centered photographs, however they are different in the way that the subjects I photographed present themselves to me. That is to say the plant forms appear, to me, to be trying to communicate with me through a calligraphic symbol system, a visual language which goes beyond my intellect's familiarity with words as a means of understanding. The "calligraphic language" of the plants, as they appear in my two photographs above, are not decipherable; they depict a "secret" language . . . based perhaps in the Heart of the world rather than of the brain in the head. My role as photographer, in regards to this particular kind of visual exploration, is to stay out of the way so that what the plants need to say to me can be clearly seen and understood on their own terms, not mine. My role as a contemplator of this kind of imagery is to quiet my mind, open my heart and . . . listen. There will be moments--and it will becomes obvious to me when the time is right--that it will be perfectly appropriate for me to become an active and equal participant in the silent dialogue.
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"The Self is the dancer in all these forms."
Swami Muktananda
The top photograph in this sequence of six images was taken at the South Pond (the smaller of two ponds) in the meadow behind our house. It looks like the shadow of a tree limb has been cast down onto the surface of the ice; or, perhaps a tree limb is submerged under one or more layers of ice. However, there was no sun shining that day, and there are no trees close to the pond; so what appears as a tree limb was most probably a crack in the ice. I have returned to that place on the south pond several times since I took the picture, and the "tree limb" form is no longer visible in the ice.
*
The quote by Swami Muktananda I used in this project's Introduction, "The Self is the dancer in all these forms" can mean so many things, but for now I want to draw attention to the relationship between the darker shapes in each of the images, and then the relationships of those darker shapes to each other and within the overall gestalt of the downward vertical visual flow between the six images. I often refer to the visual relationships between images as a silent dialogue, a communication between images that transcends words.
In this sequence of six images there is, first of all, a visual relationship between the little white shapes of snow in the first image to the little dark shapes in the second image. Their visual "dance" then continues on between the dark shapes in the second, third, fourth, fifth and six images. ~ This "dance" of shapes running through the full sequence of six images does impact the way I see and feel about each of the images individually. And then there is the cumulative affect of these relationships, a secret visual language that carries meaning beyond what words can say. ~ The "dance" that exists between the six images becomes a more animated and meaningful presence for me when I can keep all the images consciously alive in my memory, and in my imagination, as I scroll down through the sequence repeatedly, and study each image separately.
In the spaces within each of the six individual images, and then in the spaces between the individual photographs themselves, a subtle, invisible image is being spontaneously created in the viewer's imagination. It is an image that is in constant change. This kind of imagery manifests yet another kind of meaning--one that exists beyond the visible and the invisible, beyond the known and the unknown. The great Islamic-Sufic scholar Henry Corbin has written in depth about an Imaginal World that exists between all things, but especially between inner and outer images. A True, living symbol is an image which brings corresponding inner and outer images into alignment, into conjunction, into Union. This realm of meaning, which I like to refer to as The Oneness of Being, is I believe equivalent to or at least closely related to the concept of the soul as Gurumayi and Swami Muktananda have often talked and written about it, for example, in regard to the incoming and the outgoing breaths:
The soul exists at the junction between
the incoming and outgoing breaths.
Swami Muktananda
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The Symmetrical Photographs
The last two images I will comment on are what I call four-fold symmetrical photographs. They are constructed images in which I use a single straight photograph duplicated four times. I conjoin the four identical together such that each one is reflected or mirrored in the others, above and below, left and right. The point where the four images meet and conjoin is at the very center of the symmetrical configuration. It often seems to me that the center point is indeed the point of origin of the image as a whole. It's as if the symmetrical photograph has unfolded from the within the center point into full bloom.
The top photograph reminds me of the wings of two angels. I have made many snow images over the years that have something to do with angels, and I do take the presence of angles quite seriously, for an angel is a very real form of consciousness, and partiularly for students of Sufism. Henry Corbin, the great Sufi scholar--for whom I have the greatest respect--and has written extensively about angels. (Note: click here to see many textual excerpts of Corbin's writings about angels, along with the writings of Tom Cheetham, who has written wonderfully about Corbin and his ideas)
The second image is an inversed four-fold symmetrical snow photograph, that is to say an image which I have transformed not only by the four-fold process but also by turning the tones "inside-out." In other words the original tones photographed, such as white snow have been reversed, transformed into black or dark tones; the dark tones of plant forms in the white snow have become white forms in black space.
Inversed images often emit a different kind of light; it's as if light radiates outward from within the white shapes in the dark field; as if the white shapes are openings which allow light to flood upward from within the interior world--a world that is nothing but light. The white forms in the second photograph are like cracks in black ice through which the light of the unconscious leaps out into an altogether different, new plane of Imaginal reality.
I associate the bottom image with the Menorah, and I have seen sacred sand paintings, made by the native peoples of New Mexico and other South Western states which share some resemblance to this symmetrical image and others I have made.
(Note: I started making symmetrical photographs in 2011 when I traveled to Turkey and became enthralled with Islamic Sacred Art. ~ click here to see my first project involving symmetrical imagery. ~ To see my online collection of Sacred Art Photography Projects, click on the titled link.)
Most of the symmetrical images I have produced have for me an, Iconic quality. That is to say the images seem larger than life and as such have the ability to immediately, spontaneously still my mind and center me in the depths of my heart which is filled with a sacred kind of silence. In other words, the symmetrical images often function for me like Traditional mandalas.
I have presented seven symmetrical images in this project, and I've placed them, together, at the end of the sequence of 21 images. Some of the symmetrical images have been constructed with straight images that were presented earlier in the sequence. I enjoy seeing both versions of the same image presented within the same project. I have done this in many other projects for I find that the two versions of the same one image often inform each other, they shed new light on each other in unexpected, surprising, even revelatory ways for me.
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This project was announced on my blog's
Welcome Page January 5, 2021
Related Project Links:
Welcome Page to The Departing Landscape blog which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating from the most recent to those dating back to the 1960's. You will also find on the Welcome Page my resume, contact information . . . and much more.