~ Circle Photographs ~
Images in Recognition of the
Roundness & Oneness of Being
12x12" Studies Project
In the Sanskrit language the word for Welcome is swagatam,
and swagatam literally means "I have come. I have
arrived." So who are you really welcoming?
Yourself. There is no other. Only the
Yourself. There is no other. Only the
One who dwells within us.
Ignorance is the root cause of all suffering. But when
we know subjective truth and objective truth, we
rise above suffering. Then we know that there
is only one Truth; both the subject and the
object, the seer and the seen, are
one and the same.
Gurumayi Chidvilasananda
from the book Resonate With Stillness
Introduction
One of the recurring formal and subject matter themes in my creative process has been--and continues to be--as you will see below, the Circle. Over the past few years I have been creating a series of projects based on recurring themes in my work (Click here to view all of my collections of "Theme-Related Photographs & Projects."). I was a bit surprised when I realized recently that I have not (until now) created a project regarding the circle especially since I have frequently made a point of speaking about my Symmetrical Photographs* as round images and "the very embodiment of the concept The Oneness of Being. (I will write more about this later, in the project's Afterword).
(*Note: I consider nearly every one of my Symmetrical photographs a form of sacred art. I began making them in 2011-13 in response to the many mystical experiences I had in Turkey during a two week tour in which I encountered multiple forms of Islamic Sacred Art. See my 2011-13 project "An Imaginary Book".)
*
The circle is a primordial-archetypal symbol that emerged well before the earliest recorded history of human consciousness. It is a natural, spontaneous expression of the sun and the moon; of wholeness, original perfection, eternity and the Self . . . all cyclic movement, etc. The circle is the most fundamental and transcendent visual representation of the True nature of everything that exists in the "entire sphere" of our universe.
Salutations to Shri Guru, who has revealed that state
which pervades the entire sphere of this universe,
composed of animated and inanimate objects.
English translation of Verse 67 from the ancient sanskrit text known as the Guru Gita
'God is a circle whose centre is everywhere
and whose circumference is nowhere'
*
In the early 1970's I read with great fascination the work of depth psychologist Carl G. Jung. From his many writings on archetypes, the Self, symbols, the creative unconscious, medieval alchemy and synchronicity I developed my MFA written thesis on the Symbolic Photograph as A Means to Self-Knowledge. Then, in 1987, my wife and I met Gurumayi Chidvilasanada who continues to be to this day the living head of the yogic path known as Siddha Yoga. Her teachings on the divine Self and her grace, which opened my Heart to a whole new level of understanding about Self and Symbols, have inspired me to use my photography as a way of contemplating and assimilating her teachings and the teachings of many other great yogic meditation masters. I understand now that the True power of a living Symbol is its radiance of grace which comes from an interior source that essentially is Unknown and Unknowable but is often referred to in Siddha Yoga as "the Heart," the "dwelling place" of the divine Self.
*
My recent photography project Mystery is based on the eleventh century philosophy known as Kashmir Shaivisim, one of the key yogic philosophies associated with Siddha Yoga. The primary text of Kashmir Shaivism is known as the Pratyabhijina-hrdayam, and one of the great teaching swamis of Siddha yoga, Swami Shantananda, wrote a wonderful book The Splendor of Recognition about that ancient text which consists of 20 sutras (brief, concentrated yogic teachings). In his his commentary on the last (20th) sutra Shantananda reminds us that in India life itself is understood to be a "turning wheel," the wheel of samsara, the wheel of recurring births and deaths. And he reminded us that everyone in the world experiences time in recurring cycles . . . such as the seasons of the year, and the many other forms of Time--the seconds, minutes, weeks, months and years--that manifest as our planet circles the sun, as the moon circles the earth. Similarly we now know how the atoms, each with their own system of protons and neutrons, are held in their circular orbits by an all-powerful nucleus.
Walk to the well.
Turn as the earth and the moon turn,
circling what they love.
What ever circles comes from the center.
Rumi
translation by Coleman Barks, from his book A Year With Rumi
Swami Shantananda says every human being in the universe is an embodiment of a subtle system of vibrant wheels of powers (often referred to in multiple yogic traditions as chakras). He says these wheels of powers "intertwine in our lives, creating a huge matrix of vibrational frequencies that pulsate with vitality and creative potential."
And throughout his book Swamiji focuses on the meaning of the words Pratyabhijna and hrdayam in relation to the ideas of "recognition," and as the "return toward knowledge." He asks: "What is it that returns to knowledge? What is it that seeks to remember? And what is the nature of that knowledge that's remembered?" He summarizes the many ways to understand the meaning of the words Pratyabhijna and hrdayam (the Heart) like this:
"In the entire universe there is [truly speaking, only] one knower, one knowledge, and one known. Pratyabhijna is the knowledge of the knower turning back to know itself. The light of the Self reflects on itself, always turning to its own rapturous presence as the only knowledge that exists. In the impeccable space of our own heart, love adores love, bliss revels in bliss, light shines on light, every action is an act of worship, and all perceptions are forms of meditation."
In the impeccable space of our own heart . . .
every action is an act of worship, and all perceptions are forms of meditation.
These last words resonate in a very particular way for me in relation to my creative process in photography, a word which means "writing with light." Photography has become for me a yogic practice, a form of "meditation-in-action," a means of worship, a form of prayer, a way to visually contemplate and assimilate the yogic teachings, especially those that constantly refer to "the light of the Self" and "the light of Consciousness."
The very best of my photographs, those which function for me as True, living Symbols, are for me a powerful expression of an ineffable kind of knowledge, a living energy, a Truth which is the manifestation of a "mystery" which I refer to as "Seeing with the Eye of the Heart." Each image that functions for me as a True, living Symbol is a revelation, a recognition, an unveiling of the grace and divine Presence which--the yogic sages tell us--dwells in that most impeccable space . . . which is seated in the center of the human Heart.
Walk to the well.
Turn as the earth and the moon turn,
circling what they love.
What ever circles comes from the center.
Rumi
*
Swami Shantananda's chapter on the 20th sutra,"The Vibrant Wheel of Powers" reminded me of one of the most haunting and meaningful (archetypal) dreams I have ever experienced. The dream involved what is often referred to in Siddha Yoga as the Primordial Sound, or nada, "the inner or unstruck sound."
In the dream . . .
. . . I found myself inside a dark, mysterious space filled with huge, medieval-looking "machine parts" which looked like very large wheels or gears. They were turning, very slowly. . . Perhaps I was inside something like a gigantic clock; that is to say, a clock of cosmic proportions! for the wheels and gears were suspended in an infinitely vast space filled with points of light ("starlight"?) that dimly illuminated what I was seeing.
Then I became aware of a humming sound; a very deep, low frequency vibration. It began to increase in volume and intensity of vibration, until the sound shook not only my entire body, but my very Being itself . . .
Then I became aware of a humming sound; a very deep, low frequency vibration. It began to increase in volume and intensity of vibration, until the sound shook not only my entire body, but my very Being itself . . .
Then I woke up. As I vividly remembered the dream, I became aware of a living, vital energy circulation throughout the whole of my being, a numinous feeling; a divine presence.
In the mid 1970's I read a book by Joseph Campbell in which he explains the concept of AUM, (or OM) which in the Hindu tradition is the primordial sound from which the entire universe was created. The primordial sound spontaneously emerged out of total silence; then from the vibrations of sound there emerged the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet; and then from the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet came words, and the words gave birth to all the created things in the entire universe.
Gurumayi teaches that the primordial sound is pulsating inside each and every one of us constantly. One of the most classic approaches to meditation is the silent repetition of the primordial sound OM in alignment with one's breathing-in and breathing-out. The goal of this approach to meditation is to silence the mind so that one can reach the point-of-origin of the sound within one's own Heart.
*
*
For Carl Jung, the circle, the square and the mandala visually represented the Self, an archetype of psychological wholeness, a state of Unified Being in which an individual's fragmented psyche, the conscious and unconscious, becomes re-united in an extraordinarily high level of psychological functioning: a state-of-awareness of the Oneness of Being; a fully conscious state of realization that transcends the limitations of duality.
*
J.E. Cirlot writes about circles in his book Dictionary of Symbols: "The circle or disk is very frequently an emblem of the sun. It also bears a certain relationship to the number ten (symbolizing the return to unity from multiplicity) when it comes to stand for heaven and perfection and sometimes eternity as well. For Jung the circle could stand for the ultimate state of Oneness. ~ We must also point to the relationship between the circle and the sphere, which is a symbol of the All."
*
In one of my most favorite books, The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard devotes the last chapter of his book to the theme "The Phenomenology of Roundness." Bachelard feels strongly that not only "life" but Being itself is "round." He cites Jules Michelet, from the book L'ouseau, in which he says "a bird is almost completely spherical." Then Bachelard takes this idea and merges it with the idea of the "roundness of being." ~ "A bird for Michelet is solid roundness, it is round life . . ." ~ "One feels that [Michelet] followed an image of 'concentration' and acceded to a plane of meditation on which he has taken cognizance of the 'sources' of life." ~ "Michelet seized the bird's being in its cosmic situation, as a centralization of life guarded on every side, enclosed in a live ball, and consequently, at the maximum of its unity."
*
One of the most important aspects of a circle, or a sphere, is of course its interior space, and even more importantly, its center point, as Keith Critchlow has already made quite clear in his book about Islamic Sacred Art. In Bachelard's chapter "Intimate Immensity" (in The Poetics of Space) he quotes Rilke from a poem dated August 1914:
. . . Silently the birds
Fly through us. O, I, who long to grow,
I look outside myself, and the tree inside me grows.
In Bachelard explores the idea of Intimate space is interior space he writes:
"Leibnitz's theme of space as a place inhabited by coexistents has found its poet in Rilke. In this coexistentialism every object invested with intimate space becomes the center of all space." (my emphasis on the word "center")
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To enlarge, click on the image once, and then once again
At the very end of The Poetics of Space Bachelard explores "the phenomenology of roundness" in relation to Rilke's image of a tree. He writes: "For a painter, a tree is composed in its roundness. But a poet [like Rilke] . . . knows that when a thing becomes isolated, it becomes round, assumes a figure of being that is concentrated upon itself."
Then he quotes Rilke again, from Poems francais:
Tree always in the center
Of all that surrounds it
Tree feasting upon
Heaven's great dome
Bachelard comments on these words: ". . . the imagination of round being follows its own law . . . The world is round around the round being."
Bachelard concludes the last chapter of his Poetics of Space with Rilke's tree imagery:
One day it [the tree] will see God
And so, to be sure,
It develops its being in roundness
And holds out ripe arms to Him.
* * *
Regarding the presentation of photographs below:
In preparation for this project I reviewed all of the new photographs I have published on my blog in the year 2023 following the series of "eye" surgeries and "seeing problems" I encountered beginning in mid January, after I had the cataracts removed from both of my eyes. I wondered how many of those images might qualify as "circle images" for this project . . . and indeed I found six images that seemed appropriate to present here, images that have become amplified in their importance to me (see in particular, Images #1 & #2) given the threat to my vision I experienced over several months following my two cataract surgeries and then the three aditional surgeries I experienced to heal the detached retinas in both eyes.*@
(*Note: for more details about my "eye" experiences in the year 2023 please visit my project The Pandemic Inkjet Prints Project, the section within my Introduction entitled "Regarding My New Printer, My Five Eye Surgeries, and Printing With A Bubble In Each Eye." The experience as a whole has helped to more consciously enjoy my vision of the beauty of world, and the beauty of my Creative Process in Photography.)
Following the "circle" images made in 2023, I have presented some relatively early circle images, and then the remainder of the images are presented without any further conscious intention of organizing the work chronologically. You will find under selected photographs titles and comments I have made on the images. In some instances I have provided links to projects that relate to a particular image. And following the presentation of images I have added an Epilogue and an Afterword.
Note: for those of you who are viewing this project with a desk-top computer:
you can enlarge the images below by clicking on them once, and once again;
you can also zoom-in- and zoom-out, and you can change the brightness of
the image on your screen. To learn more about how to get the highest
possible viewing quality for my bog published images click here.
Circle Photographs 2023
Image #1 Early morning dew on tomato cages (12x12" inkjet Study, October, 2023)
You will be seeing many images with a tonal matte surrounding the image, as above.
Most of these images are from my 2023 project 12x12" Studies. At the time
I was working on this project I was working on Book Five of the
12x12" Studies project. Visit this link The Studies Projects
Image #2 Bird Bath, in early evening light with a stone and reflections in the water (12x12" inkjet Study)
Image #3 My Garden Hat from the 2023 project "Return to Memphis" (12x12" Study)
Note: If I refer to a project title but have not hyperlinked it, simply copy the title, go to
my blog's Welcome Page, do a word search and paste the title into the search window.
Image #4 Chewed gum on a round plate (2023 "Return to Memphis" project ~ 12x12" Study)
Image #5 Plant silhouetted against an early evening sky (12x12" Study, 2023)
Image #6 Round Seeds on glass in the space between two planters (12x12" Study, 2023)
Earlier Circle Photographs
This is probably my earliest circle photograph in this project. The
image invokes a remembrance of the "Ouroboros," an ancient
symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail;
an image interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic
renewal, or a cycle of life and death. (click here)
The Steve Lacy project is my visual response to
this great jazz composer/performer's music.
Image #8 Line drawing on a city street (1985-90?)
I took this picture perhaps fifteen or twenty years after I married my wife, Gloria.
Just a few weeks before we were married, in August 1969, she was hit by a
car in Brooklyn, while trying to cross a street. When I came looking for
Gloria I found a crowd standing around a drawing on the street; there
was blood inside the drawing . . . which was a tracing of her body.
She had been rushed to the nearest hospital by the time I had
arrived on the scene. Though she was badly hurt she did
survive the ordeal. We were able to get married on
on schedule and a few years later she gave birth
to our two wonderful children.
Image #9 (Solarized & Inverted Leaf Collage, 1974/ 2010)
see my https://thedepartinglandscape.blogspot.com/2010/11/in-woods.htmlproject In the Woods
The word "Inverted" refers to a photoshop technique for rendering an image in its
opposite tonalities: whites become black, reds become green, etc.
Image #10 (Fox curled up in a circle)
Visit this link: Thing Centered Photographs
Image #12 (basketball hoop and net)
Image #13 (rain covered window and screen)
Image #14 (Miniature Pony and its reflection in a puddle)
Image #15 (Basketball hoop and automobile tire)
See my 1994-2000 Studies Projects
Image #16 (Snow Puddle)
Image #17 (Circle of light over a pad of yellow paper and white paper)
Image #18 (Ceiling light from a lamp below)
Image #19 ("Seeing with the Eye of the Heart")
Image #20 (Cake decorator wheel with two pieces of blue tape)
See my Morandi inspired project Still life
Image #21 (Oval bowl, circular canning jar lid under water)
Image #22 Ancient Ruins fragment (Turkey)
Image #23 Boy and girl inside a circle getting acquainted with each other
Symmetrical Image #24 (Tree Shadows on a vine covered granite wall)
Symmetrical Image #25 (paper plate and plant shadows)
Symmetrical Image #26 (Plant leaves surrounding by a framed photograph)
See my project The Pandemic Inkjet Prints
Image #28 (A chair pranaming in a circle of light)
Image #29 (Boy, surprised by a blue ball with a yellow tail)
Image #30 (Serving tray, reflection of a tea kettle and a golden illuminating lamp)
from my Still Life project in homage to Morandi
Image #31 (Green garden hose under a table with red flowers on top)
Image #32 (Inside an amber salt lamp)
Symmetrical Image, #33
(from my project "Creation-Dissolution of a World")
Image #34 (Sawed tree trunk)
Image #34 (A ball of Straw thrown through a swatch of light)
This image is from my first Studies project, 1994-2000 click here
Symmetrical Image, #35
(from my project "Homage to Frederico Mompou")
Symmetrical Image, #36, (Snow, plants, dark shapes)
See my collection of Snow projects
Image, #37 (Turtle and bubbles in a back yard pool emerging from underwater)
Hard Edged Photographs
Image #39 (Circled Photograph)
This image is from my 2003-07 Triadic Memories project. It consists of nine different
sub-titled projects. The following projects contain "Hard Edged" images.
Image #40 (from my Triadic Memories project, "Circled Photographs")
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Image #40 (from my Triadic Memories project, "Circled Photographs")
Line Drawing Portraits
Image #40 (A "Line Drawing Photographic Portrait" from my Giacometti homage
My "Line Drawing Photograph Portraits" were made in 2007, however in 2017
I decided to include them in my multi-chaptered project
Each Line Drawing Portrait began as a soft focus portrait image, then I decided to
experiment with the images by adding the lines on "top" of the "faces." When
I began working on the Giacometti project in 2017 I recognized similarities
between my Line Drawing Portraits and Giacometti's portraits.
Image #41 (from my "Line Drawing Photograph Portraits" project)
Image #42 (from my "Line Drawing Photograph Portraits" project)
Image #43 (from my "Line Drawing Photograph Portraits" project)
Image #44 (from my "Portraits" project, Homage to Giacometti)
Image #45 (from my "Infinite Beauty" project)
This image is from another multi-chaptered project, my 2011-13 project "An Imaginary Book"
which consists of more than eleven chapter including the Epilogue. The chapter entitled
Infinite Beauty : Images of Never-Ending Continuity consists of photographs inspired
by the sacred art of Islam which I discovered during a trip to Turkey in 2011.
The inspiration to travel to Turkey was in part because of the music of
American composer, Morton Feldman. His music inspired my 2003-
2007 project Triadic Memories. The Infinite Beauty photographs
of 2012-13 are directly related to the Feldman inspired
photographs entitled Chromatic Fields.
Symmetrical Image #46 (Eye Shadows) Giacometti - Epilogue project
Regarding the
Symmetrical Photographs
Related to what I have just mentioned above, my response to the sacred art I saw and experienced in
Turkey (especially Illuminated Qur'ans and Architectural decorative designs) inspired the project
"An Imaginary Book" in which I constructed for the first time my Four-fold Symmetrical
Photographs. As I mentioned in my Introduction to this project above, the
symmetrical images are for me "round" or "circular" images, and the
visual embodiment of the idea of the Oneness of Being.
Symmetrical Image, #47, (from my "Celestial Gardens" project)
Celestial Gardens is one of the projects in "An Imaginary Book"
Visit my Water Themed Projects to see all the titles related to Broad Brook & Broad Brook Road
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Symmetrical Image, #49 (from a "Broad Brook" project)
Symmetrical Image, #50 (from a "Broad Brook" project)
Symmetrical Image, #51 (from a "Broad Brook" project)
Symmetrical Image, #52 (from the 12x12" Falling Water PROJECT)
click here to visit the project
Symmetrical Image, #53 (from the "Rising Sun" project)
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Symmetrical Image, #54 (from the "Blue Pearl" project)
Symmetrical Image, #55 (from the "Blue Pearl" project)
Symmetrical Image, #56 (snow drift and plants)
"Field of Vision"
Symmetrical Photographs
Symmetrical Image, #58 (from the "Field of Vision" project)
I can't explain this work conceptually. These images are very important for
me, perhaps because they came so easily, spontaneously, in silence,
without thinking. There is lots of interesting writing that
comes with the pictures, if you are interested. Please
visit the project Field of Vision. The images here
are 12x12" Study versions of the images in the
original project, which are longer in
format vs. the square format, here.
Symmetrical Image, #59 (from the "Field of Vision" project)
~ More Symmetrical Photographs ~
Symmetrical Image, #61 (Bedroom lamp and shadow)
The symmetrical images work most "naturally" with subject matter from the
natural world. I have tried often to make symmetrical images of subject
matter from the culture I live in, as in the above image. They often seem
too surreal to me, and thus less ineffable. You can be the judge for
yourself, what I say about my own work is not as important as
your own person revelations.
Symmetrical Image, #62 (Inside a washing machine / the"Icon" project)
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Symmetrical Photograph, Image #65 "The mouth" (snow mounds and plant stems, inversed)
Symmetrical Photograph, Image #66 (from the "Blue Pearl" & "Blue Angel" projects)
I like best when subject matter is not recognizable, or transformed in such
a radical way that the subject matter is no longer an issue in terms
of how the images mean. In this case the subject matter is air
bubbles left behind by a sea lion in its zoo swimming pool.
Symmetrical Photograph, Image #67 (Broad Brook, Pool)
Chromatic Field, Image #68 (Inversed, Circled Chromatic Field : Moon behind birds on lines)
Chromatic Field, Image #69 (Inversed, Circled Chromatic Field :Moon behind leaves)
The two "moon" images immediately above are chromatic field images which
Symmetrical Photograph, Image #70 (Tree shadows on tree trunk)
Symmetrical Photograph, Image #71 (Garage roof as view through trees & leaves)
Symmetrical photograph, Image #72 (ceramic bowl on a round table, 12x12 version)
At dawn I was walking along with a monk
on his way to the monastery.
We do the same work, I told him. We suffer the same.
He gave me a bowl, and I saw
The soul has this shape.
Rumi
(trans: Coleman Barks)
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Symmetrical Photograph, Image #73 (Maple leaves in a blue sky)
I have always thought of this image as a mythic bird, the kind that
has wings that twirl like the rotating propellers of a helicopter.
The bright yellow ring of leaves near to the center of the
image really seem like they are moving to me.
Symmetrical photograph, Image #74, "Khidr" (green foliage, Broad Brook Road project)
One night a man was crying Allah. Allah.
His lips grew sweet with the praising,
until a cynic said, So. I have heard you calling out,
but have you ever gotten any response?
The man hand no answer for that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep
where he dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick green foliage.
Why did you stop praising? Because
I've never heard anything back.
This longing you express
is the return message.
The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.
Your pure sadness that wants help
is the secret cup.
Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.
There are love dogs no one knows the names of.
Give your life to be one of them.
(A poem by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks from his book A Year With Rumi)
To learn more about Khidr visit the Afterword in my project:
Broad Brook, in Vermont is very lively brook with waters always flowing
downstream. But many of the photographs I have made of the brook,
its stones and water, into symmetrical images seem very still,
like silent, luminous pools of water, as in the image above.
Symmetrical photograph, Image #76, (from the project "A Walk in Twilight Garden")
Symmetrical photograph, Image #77, "Angelic Presence" (Broad Brook Road project)
Two writers I have grown to love are Henry Corbin and Tom Cheetham. Both have
written wonderfully about angels which has influenced my photography in many
ways. For my multi-chaptered project The Angels I devoted an entire chapter
to their writings on angels and related topics. Visit this link Text Excerpts
from which I have selected the following words by Tom Cheetham:
"In Manichean legend, when, after death, on the Bridge to the other world, the soul meets its Angel [Celestial Twin, Heavenly Counterpart] in the figure of a beautiful woman, she says, "I am thyself." / The Angel Holy Spirit is, as we know, in each case unique. Henry Corbin's mystic [Ibn' Arabi] 'knows that he is the eye with which God contemplates himself; that he himself, in his being, is the witness by which God witnesses himself, the revelation by which the Hidden Treasure reveals itself to itself.'"
"The power of the creative imagination, the gift of Gabriel, the Angel Holy Spirit, enables each of us, if we consent, to give birth to the Angel, whose grace allows us to see all the world as an icon. For we give birth not only to God, but the world itself, transfigured in the light of a personal vision." Tom Cheetham, Green Man, Earth Angel
(Note: Tom Cheetham's reference "Henry Corbin and his mystic Ibn' Arabi," is a reference to Corbin's astounding book Alone With The Alone ~ Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn' Arabi. I highly recommend Corbin's book, and Cheetham's four books about Corbin and his ideas:
1) The World Turned Inside Out 2) All the World An Icon 3) After Prophecy 4) Green Man, Earth Angel.
Epilogue
_______________________________________
Symmetrical photograph, Image #78, "The eternal present, threshold of renewal"
The image is from my project
"Every day is special in its own fashion. You must be vigilant, poised for the
divine moment on the threshold of change, the moment of transition. The
past is not completely gone yet. It lies behind you, but it has no hold
on you any more. The future is before you, approaching like a
fresh wind, and yet its features are dim and its responsibility
is still unknown. In this divine moment, you are free. This
is the eternal present, the threshold of renewal and
promise. . . . the moment that is
divine with possibility.
The great ones continually live in this moment. They never sink into
. . . the state of forgetfulness. The great ones perceive every moment
as a miracle filled with Shakti, filled with grace.
If you don't think every moment is filled with ambrosia,
you haven't seen Shiva's [God's] play. You haven't
worshiped Him in the form of the moment--
as time, as infinity, and as the eternal
sphere, the eternal space.
Gurumayi Chidviasananda, from SYDA publication Resonate With Stillness
*
Afterword
_______________________________________
Perhaps you have noticed that all of the images in this project have been presented as square formatted images with tonal mattes (borders) around the images, though in their original published versions in my blog projects some may have been rectangular images with no matte- borders. All these image exist as ink jet prints, 12x12" in size; and they are part of my 2023 project entitled the 12x12" Studies project. The project now consists of four books (or collections) of images ranging in date from early work to the most recent. It is my intention to represent as many aspects of my work as I can identify within the confines of the 12x12" format. (Not all of my most favorite images can be successfully transformed into square images. Book Five of the project 12x12" Studies will be available in the near future. To see my complete collection of "theme related" photographs and projects click click here.)
"Squaring the Circle"
____________________________________
In my graduate school days when I was studying Carl Jung's research on Medieval Alchemy, I came across the alchemical idea: "Squaring the Circle." There are many interpretations for this term available, but I prefer the Alchemical Treatise of Hermes, The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus which states "That which is Below (Earth, Matter = square) corresponds to that which is Above (Heaven, Perfection, Consciousness = circle) to accomplish the miracle of the One Thing." (See my Water project, part 2, which addresses this idea: As Above, So Below - The Mirror in the Temple)
Hermes is also known for this statement:
"God is a circle whose centre is everywhere
and whose circumference is nowhere"
The "Miracle of the One Thing" is a reference to the Alchemical symbol The Philosopher's Stone which was a term referring to the Magnum Opus (the Great Work), the alchemical process of wedding (conjoining) "male" and "female" matter to achieve an "alchemical union," of corresponding opposites--which is represented by the most perfect material, Gold, and in Jungian terms the Self, or more generally "perfection, enlightenment, heavenly bliss" etc.
For me, square images are the perfect photographic format. An image in which all of its sides are equal provide its viewer, its contemplator, with a very concentrated image centered within that space. Indeed, the center-point of a square photograph is the Heartspace of the image. In a square image, and certainly in my symmetrical photographs, the center is the point-of-origin of the image, the most concentrated of all sacred spaces; the Place where grace begins to form the image from the inside-out.
Photographic images radiant with divine presence, with grace, the "light of the Self" have been transformed from serving merely as an image which describes or records outer-world appearances, into a living image that has the ineffable power to mirror back to the viewer his or her own divine presence, the Self, That which dwells in the center of every Human Heart.
In the yoga that I practice the teachings of the sages often refer to the "inner" and the "outer" worlds; they say everything in the universe (the outer world) has come from the inner universe. In this regard the goal of my creative process is to unite inner images (images within me) with their corresponding outer-world imaginal counterparts. With grace that union will generate what I call the Symbolic Photograph, an image alive for me with divine presence; an image illuminated with an interior radiance . . . with grace, the light of the Self, the Oneness of Being.
It is in this sense that I often refer to my Creative Process in photography--and the photographs that come through me, through my Creative Process with grace--as a form of meditation. Images made with grace have an ineffable presence which is alive with universal power (the yogic term is Shakti) and an unsayble meaning. Symbolic Photographs pulsate with transformational potential which can manifest in a viewer or contemplator in any number of infinite ways. Such images provide their contemplators with glimpses into their own Heart, the dwelling place of the divine Self.
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When an image is functioning for me as aTrue, living symbol I feel myself entering into a state of mind--a state of Being--which is deeply still, silent, timeless and yet intimate. The grace that enliven's a photograph, that transforms it into a True living symbol, also imbues that image with a subtle kind of knowledge that is beyond the mind's ability to understanding, beyond the limits of intellect and human language, and yet is nonetheless integrated into one's Being.
When I am making photographs I have learned that the most meaningful images come through me rather than from me. That can happen only when I allow myself to surrender to the will, the grace of my Creative Process. In this act of surrendering, a kind of seeing is made possible that is channeled through "the Eye of the Heart" rather than my mind. This "surrender" is very much like a meditative state. Sometimes, when I am photographing I experience myself as both, simultaneously, the seer and the seen. Indeed, just as the goal of yoga can be stated in many ways, and one way that is stated relates, for me, directly to my goal as a photographer. And that is: Seeing God in Everything.*
(*Note: Bachelard writes in his book The Poetics of Space about a mode of being in which the poet experiences: "I am the space where I am." In the yoga that I practice, the phrases "I am That" and "The seer and the seen are One" carry a equivalent meaning. ~ See my multi-chaptered photography project: Photography and Yoga.)
When I view and contemplate photographs which are functioning for me as a True, living symbols, I feel myself opening into that same interior space which allows me to photograph with the "Eye of the Heart." It is in this sense that vision which occurs through the grace my Creative Process, becomes a "circular process," a process which conjoins inner images with their outer-world corresponding counterparts.
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All this, I hope, explains the meaning behind my statement that the four-fold Symmetrical photographs are "round" images. I would also say that any image that is functioning for me as a True, living Symbol is a "round: image. All images radiant with grace provide the viewer or contemplator with an opportunity to glimpse experientially the divine presence which dwells not only within the image itself but also within his or her own Heart, or the divine Self with dwells in the very center of a person's Being. This is what I mean by the words in the title of this project: the "Roundness & Oneness of Being."
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This project was published and announced
on my blog's Welcome Page November 24, 2023
Related Blog Project Links
Contemplation of Symbolic Images
Please visit the Welcome Page to my blog The Departing Landscape. It 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.