Window~Meadow
Photographs
Part III of the "Window Pictures" project
View through our picture-window with interior reflections
of our fireplace below and a framed photograph above
Introduction
This third collection of photographs for the Window Pictures project deals specifically with the relationship between the windows in our house--which interfaces the outer world--and the meadow--which interfaces our back yard on its eastern border and the tapering woods on its western border.
Here is the link to Part I Window Pictures : Surfaces, Reflections, Views, Perception
Here is the link to Part II Symmetrical & Square Window Pictures
Since the end of April, 2020 (which for me personally was the beginning date of the Coronavirus Pandemic and the series of photography projects that have been inspired by the Pandemic) I have restricted the subject matter for my photographic practice to the interior of our house, its many things and spaces, and the meadow which is directly behind and to the west of our house. I was inspired to make this decision when I saw (for the first time) a sign flashing on Highway 490 (which connects Canandaigua to Rochester, NY) with the injunction STAY HOME ! (Visit my collection of Pandemic Inspired Photography Projects.)
My wife Gloria and I moved into our house in Canandaigua, NY in the summer of 2008 after I retired from teaching photography at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I began photographing the meadow the moment we moved into our house (I fell in love with it at first sight when we were looking at houses in the Rochester-Canandaigua area earlier that same year in the spring.) When I launched my photography Blog in November, 2010, The Meadow was one of the first photography projects I published in the Blog. Over the past 12 years I have continued to add new images to The Meadow project so it has always been an ongoing affair, a work in progress.
I have a very close relationship with the meadow; it feels and looks to me like a sacred Place. The space immediately above the meadow feels particularly charged with presence. As of July, 2022, there were about ninety images in the project. After I complete each new new blog project, if it contains meadow photographs I carefully consider adding some of them to The Meadow project if I see that they will contribute to the existing collection of images in some interesting way.
In the center of the west side of our living room, there is a large picture window, about six feet high and five feet wide. It looks out and over our backyard and the meadow. On either side of the picture window there are two smaller windows, equal in hight to the picture window. (Above those three windows there are smaller windows; they are called transom windows.) To the north of those windows there is a large double glass sliding door next to our dining area that opens out onto our back deck which offers a similar but slightly closer and less restricted view of the meadow. Because out house sits on top of a hill about 12 feet above the ground level of our back yard and the meadow, any photographs made from our living room windows or the deck provide a moderately elevated view of our back yard and the meadow. We also have a full walk-out basement beneath our "one-floor" house, and the west side of the basement has two short double-sets of windows and two sliding glass doors, smaller that the ones immediately above. The basement windows provide an interesting, nearly ground level views of our back yard and the meadow and woods beyond.
Of course I have walked throughout the meadow on foot many times and have made many photographs from that ground view. (See "Prelude image #2 & #3). However for this project, with the exception of the three images in the Prelude section, I have included only images of the meadow which were made from inside our house through a window, or images which clearly reveal the window's presence within the image (via surface details, reflections, the inclusion of a window frame, etc.).
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The meadow is a very beautiful stretch of land which appears to extend all the way to infinity in its southern-to-northern pointing directions. The woods that runs all along the meadow's western border appears to taper at the ends as if it is dissolving into infinity. And there are two ponds inside the meadow. Our house is situated between the two ponds. The north meadow pond is several times larger than the smaller pond in the south meadow, but the larger pond is further away, the smaller pond is very close to our property. When the light is just right the ponds can appear to become like conscious illuminated eyes which are looking back at me.
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Our house is one of a total of forty houses that have very carefully been designed in response to the formal character of the shape of the meadow. All the back yards interface the meadow on its east side, and we collective are responsible for the care of the meadow area which is protected by law because it is part of an important water shed in our area. The 40 lots snake around the meadow in such a way that every homeowner gets a different, privileged view of the meadow, the ponds, the woods, and even the large rolling hills that lie beyond the woods. Gloria and I can see the hills only as long as the trees in the woods remain leafless.
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I think of The Meadow project as a poetic document. I have tried to give visual form to the idea that the meadow itself is a living, breathing, changing Thing that has its own consciousness very similar to my own. It is my hope that as the body of work grows in number and depth of subtlety and complexity, the work as a whole will reveal the meadow's beautiful living presence in its fullness. I consider this third part of the Window Pictures project an additional important contribution to The Meadow project . . . even though I understand that the images of the meadow in this project are generally less about the meadow and more about the window's presence and its interface of interior and outer spaces. In some images the meadow may be reduced to only a felt presence, and I am in fact very interested in any photographs that reveal presence in any way.
Though I am fascinated by photography's "veracity" I am more interested in photography's ability to transform the apparent world, and its potential for revealing that which is invisible and that which is meaningful in ways not sayable. In other words, I am interested in photographs that function for me as True, living Symbols.
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I decided to created this third part of the Window Pictures project after completing my Nocturne project in July, 2022. I had made some Nocturne photographs in which I became very conscious of the window glass as the "place" where the outer world and the inner world meet and overlap, or intersect, or merge.
I had an experience while working on the Nocturne project in which a bird flew up from the side of a road Gloria and I were driving on and nearly hit our car's window. That recent experience invoked the memory of two photographs I had made in 2019, images which initiated the first part of my Window Pictures project. I wrote commentary on these two images in Part One. (See the two images immediately below.)
Tracings of hand prints and drawings our two grand children had placed
on the interior surface of our picture window.
"The Bird Ascending" Trace impression of a bird on the exterior surface
of our picture window
A photograph made for the Nocturne project, but used in this project instead.
(Rain on picture window with red bird feeder hanging form the back deck
behind a mist-covered window, with a dark meadow in the background)
I had made many photographs of the surfaces of our windows for the Nocturne project, more than I could use, including the image above of a red bird feeder behind a mist covered window, so this project has given them a place to be and be seen. In fact this image (#6) and image #5 below helped to initiate the creation of this third part of the Window Pictures project.
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The presentation of photographs in this project begins with a Visual Prelude which includes three photographs of the Meadow along: one made from our back deck at sunset, one made on the ground level within the meadow after a snow storm, and one made in the space between the meadow and our back yard garden beds on a foggy day this summer.
The photographs that follow the Prelude deal with the meadow's Presence in my photographs that were made inside our house and in some way or other involve its windows. Some are recently made images, others are from past projects. Under each photograph, if it was published in a previous project, I have provided the project's title which can then be used to search the hyperlinked project title listed on my blog's Welcome Page.
Welcome to the Window-Meadow Photographs, part III of the Window Pictures project.
Visual Prelude
Three Meadow Photographs
Prelude : Image #1 After Sunset, summer, 2022 taken from our back deck (sky is being reflected in the smaller south pond)
Prelude : Image #2 Snow covered north meadow and pond Snow Photographs, Winter 2020 project
Prelude : Image #3 (Spring 2022) Fog, Bird feeders, Bird houses, from "The Letter" project.
This is the space between our back yard garden beds and the meadow.
Meadow-Window Photographs
Made recently for this project
#4. Living room: misted picture window and two smaller side windows, transom windows above, summer morning (2022)
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#5. Rain drops in the form of a bird on our picture window with a dark meadow space in the background (summer, 2022)
#6. Rain on the smaller window with a patch of red behind it, with a dark meadow space in the background (Summer, 2022)
Commentary:
Image #4, was made early in the morning of August 2, 2022, just as the first light of the rising sun was falling on the northern-most section of the woods behind the meadow and its north pond. These three windows, and the smaller transom windows above, are in the living room area of our house. This space transitions directly into the dining room area to the right of these windows where two large sliding glass doors open onto the back deck which overlooks our backyard and the meadow. We have placed some dark stylized images of birds on the inside of the larger windows to try to prevent birds from flying into the reflected space of the meadow and sky on the outer surfaces of the windows.
Images #5 & #6 were made in June and July, 2022 while I was working on the Nocturne project. They are (for me) powerful images, similar to others I published in the Nocturne project: "night images" illuminated by the "inner moon." ~ The meadow in these two images is barely visible; it has been reduced to a dark atmospheric background presence. It's interaction with the moisturized outer surfaces of the window glass, is minimal but none-the-less important in its understated way. ~ I am seeing the outer surface of the glass from inside our house; as I carefully study the cryptic markings on the surfaces, the markings seem remote to me, due no doubt to the darkness of the imagery, and perhaps the space between the two pieces of insulated glass.
Image #5 : there is a relationship between the wavy horizon line of the tops of the trees in the background, silhouetted against the slightly lighter tones of a nocturnal sky, with the form created by the rain drops on the outside surface of the window glass. The rain drops form an image of a bird with its wings wide apart as if it were caught in a stilled moment of its flight, gliding, silently in the twilight.
Image #6 The red color in this photograph is like a glowing, pulsating heart. The color was surprising to me. Gloria had wanted to try hanging a bird feeder for humming birds out by the deck. They are attracted to the color red, so she purchased a feeder and we hung it outside of the right smaller window next to the picture window. After many days, and with no birds showing up, we took the feeder down, but left the hook up, perhaps for hanging some potted plants later. You will see the hook in some of the other pictures, below.
#7. Early morning mist on outside of sliding glass door, bird image on inside glass surface, (Summer, 2022)
#8. Early morning mist on outside surface of sliding glass door. The image was made from outside on the the deck
#9. Early morning mist on outside surface of the picture window, the meadow & woods in the background
#10. Early morning mist with tears on the outside surface of the picture window, tomatoes ripening, meadow, woods in background
#11. Still life with house plants and tissue box, meadow & woods, early morning mist on the outer surface of the picture window
Commentary:
Images #4, 7, 8. 9, 10 and 11 were made in early morning hours of August 2, 2022. The sequence of images 7-11 actually depicts the unfolding of the light of the rising sun over the houses, the meadow and the woods. At this time of the year the light hits the woods at the far north end of the meadow then slowly shadows of houses begin to become noticeable as they are projected upon the meadow and the woods. I usually avoid photographing that spectacle of projected shadows from the houses. It seems to me inappropriate given the sacred nature I feel pervading the meadow.
(Note: there is one image of the house shadows on the meadow included in my project The Meadow. See Image #16, in the South Meadow section. And in Image #3o of the North Meadow section you can see a few of the houses which sit close to the north end of the meadow pond. The fog hides the fact that these owners have taken twice as much of the shared meadow land for their extended back yards as most of the rest of us. These owners were the first to build houses in the development and presumably they feel entitled to encroach upon this sacred land. Please try to forgive me for my frustrated attitude here. I have tried my best to address this issue with the HOA to no avail. Despite some problems with having an HOA and a shared meadow space I love the meadow and our place next to it, here.)
Window-Meadow Photographs
Selected from Earlier Projects
14. THAT ineffable invisible interior PRESENCE project
15. Returning Home project
16. The Conference of the Birds, II project (Picture window, Sun & Moon, reflections of partially opened door)
17. Homage to Robert Ryman, II project (Sliding glass door, reflections of dining room lights, sunset over meadow)
18. Nocturne project
19. Grace, Photograph, Symbol, Universe project
20. The Creative Process, Ch.2 project (view through our picture window, with storm over meadow, interior reflections)
21. View through our picture-window with interior reflections of our fireplace below and a framed photograph above
22. Homage to Giacometti, pt. 4 Early morning fog on the Meadow viewed through our fogged picture-window plus reflections
23. View through our steamy, tearing picture-window : early morning snow on the meadow and the trees beyond
24. Growing Light project (Basement window, sunset over meadow)
Studies
Miniature Photographs
25. Snow Photographs : Homage to Harry Callahan project
Two views through our picture-window made seconds apart.
I think of my Studies photographs as brief, direct, to-the-point visual improvisations, something akin to short musical etudes, or exercise pieces, the ones that transcend purely technical kinds of lessons. The Studies photographs are usually smaller in format relative to most of my other photographs, thus when it comes to my blog project publications, I make the Studies images smaller on the blog page. (You can click on the images to enlarge them.) ~ I consider the collection of Morandi inspired Still Life projects a Studies project.
(Note: The Studies photographs and projects are an important part of my photographic practice; to learn more, click on this link: Studies Projects.)
26. Studies : Sufism
Early morning winter scene, viewed through our picture-window;
Gloria returning to the house after feeding the birds in pink light. 
27. Morandi inspired Still Life, Chapter 2,
Snail climbing up our picture-window in the early evening light
28. The Creative Process, Chapter 1
Reflection of our picture-window view of the Meadow and sky
reflected on the glass covering a framed photograph of the meadow
29. The Creative Process, Chapter 1
Blurred Figurative Reflection in picture-window, S meadow & pond in the background
30. Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 5
Winter squash on skewed table glass in front of our picture-window
31. Morandi inspired Still Life photographs, Chapter 3,
Reflections in our front door window of hanging Christmas lights 
32. The Creative Process, Ch.2 project
Lamp reflected in window, S meadow and pond in background
Light fixtures reflected in the sliding glass door against a dark meadow sky
Afterword
Surfaces, Spaces, Interfaces
In my last project Nocturne I wrote about Chopin's "night music," 21 brief compositions which to me are effulgent with the light of longing, the light of what the yogic sages call the "inner moon." There is a sense of unbounded space in some of the Nocturnes, and an ineffable kind of light that I associate with the yogic teachings regarding the divine presence that dwells within the unbounded space of the human Heart. In one of my texts for the Nocturne project I wrote:
"What could be more vast, more luminous, more mysterious than the space of the human Heart? Swami Muktananda [founder of the Siddha Yoga Path] taught that everything in the universe exists within us, in the unimaginable vastness of the Heart, of the inner Self, a space that knows no boundaries . . . and from which everything emerges into the outer world. Muktananda stated in many ways that the space of the Heart is far greater than the universe itself; it is a vastness that is nothing less than God, the Absolute, the Oneness of Being." from my project "Nocturne"
34. Backyard & Meadow, North Pond
This view from our back deck looks over one part of our garden and past our mowed lawn--which, along with the shadow tones, marks the interface of our property with the shared meadow space--and on toward the northern part of the meadow. The larger north pond can be seen above and to the right of the bird house. The tapering woods marks the interface of the west border of the meadow with some other (unknown) privately owned property.
I also know the Earth belongs to no one. It "belongs" to the mystery of the Oneness of Being.
The Space Between
I wrote, earlier, about the space between the double pane insulated glass windows that separated me--and the interior world of my house--from the outer world . . . our back yard, the gardens, the space between our gardens and the meadow, the meadow and its ponds, the woods beyond the western border of the meadow, and the hills beyond the woods. So many layers, in-between spaces and interfaces of apparently separate spaces.
All this has reminded me of a poem written by the 18th century German poet, Novalis, which I found in Robert Bly's important book News of the Universe poems of twofold consciousness, published by Sierra Club in 1982. Novalis wrote:
The seat of the soul is where the inner world and
the outer world meet. Where they overlap,
it is in every point of the overlap.
Novalis
This poem is particularly meaningful for me in relation to the photographs I have made and included in this project of the surface events which have spontaneously appeared upon both the interior and exterior sides of the windows in our house, with the presence of the meadow lurking behind them. And, in relation to my daily practice of meditation, one of the most important yogic teachings regarding meditation is the placing of one's conscious awareness on the space between the inner breath and the outer breath. The yogic sages tell us that this intermediary space, which is a place of perfect stillness, a place of perfect silence, is the dwelling place of the divine inner Self.
Bly also introduces the poetry of the French poet Francis Ponge who wrote a poem entitled The Pre' which is often translated as The Meadow. Ponge, later, also published a book about the making of the poem, entitled The Making of the Pre' which includes notes, manuscript pages, photographs, drawings, etc. The poem and the book have had an important influence of this third part of my Window project and my ongoing project The Meadow. It has been said by writers like Bly that Ponge's poetry "gives voice" to the "things of the silent world."
Though I have written so much about the symbol in previous blog projects (its importance to me cannot be overstated) I must also present here, yet again, this time in the context of the poem by Novalis, the idea that the True, living symbol is an image that conjoins inner-world images with their outer-world counterparts. Through the agency of grace, apparently separate but related psychic and physical images meet, become overlapped, and then merged into each other in the articulate pictorial form of a photograph. This manifests an image radiant with grace, or shakti, radiant with the divine creative power of the universe, radiant with the Oneness of Being. In other words, symbolic photographs are the visual embodiment of grace, and thus are empowered to awaken in a viewer who actively participates in the image, the awareness of their own inner Self or the individual soul which how it is referred to in the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta and according to Swami Muktananda's personal experience:
The Absolute is real, the world is unreal: this is the only truth.
Without knowledge of the absolute Self there is no end to
suffering. He who knows the One in all attains peace.
The Absolute is the individual soul.
This quote is from Muktananda's book Play of Consciousuness
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Directly related to my idea about the symbolic photograph as an image which embodies the Oneness of Being is the Henry Corbin's Imaginal World, the intermediary or in-between plane of reality. Corbin speaks of the Imaginal world as an ineffable "reality" that exists between the visible and the invisible, between the senses and the intellect, between the physical and the spiritual. The Imaginal world, he says, is the "place of Origin" of symbols, the "place of transformation." It's the Place where the physical turns into the spiritual, and where the spiritual turns into the physical.
Human language is based in duality; symbols are based in the mysterious, ineffable realm of the human Heart, a space of perfect stillness, perfect silence, a space from which (the yogic saints tell us) the created world emerges into being. The Heart is at the very center of the Universe, at the very center of the Self, at the very center of the Oneness of Being.
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I will close this Afterword with an excerpt from the writings of Tom Cheetham who has devoted four excellent books to Henry Corbin's ideas. If you have a desire to know Corbin's work, of course you should read Corbin's books, but before you do that I strongly recommend you read Cheetham's four books. The quote that follows is from Cheetham's Green Man, Earth Angel:
Corbin discovered ancient [Zoroastrian] cosmology imagined anew in a context fundamentally in harmony with it, in the work of the twelfth-century Persian mystic . . . al-Suhrawardi who first articulated a clear grasp of the world of the Imagination, the world intermediary between sensation and intellect that Corbin was to call the Imaginal world.
. . . It is in the imaginal world that the alchemical transformation takes place. It is the place of the visions of the prophets. The Presence of God in the Burning Bush, the apparitions of Gabriel to Mary and to Mohammad, all the events of sacred history are perceived by means of organs of perception that open onto this world and its myriad beings of light.
In order to experience the Earth as an Angel, to hear the voices of beings calling to us in the twilight, to encounter another person in any sense at all, we have to be able to perceive . . . the Presence at the summit from which they all descend. All of us, however dimly, perceive events in the imaginal world, and the task of transformation requires the development of the senses that open into that world. Tom Cheetham, Green Man, Earth Angel
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This Project was announced on my blog's Welcome Page
August 11, 2022
The Window Pictures project has three parts:
OTHER RELATED PROJECTS:
The Meadow An on-going project
Thing & Meadow Photographs September 2022
On my blog's Welcome Page, following the "Gratitude" section of my Introduction, there is a section entitled Collections of Theme-Related Pictures and Projects. It consists of a listing of hyperlinked thematic titles, each of which contains links to projects related to particular theme. Here are a few examples of themes especially dear to me: Music Inspired Projects, Sacred Art Photography Projects, Death-themed Projects and Water Photographs.
Welcome Page to my The Departing Landscape website/blog includes the complete listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and more.
