In the Presence
A 12x12" Studies Project
January 15, 2024
Today . . . Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are
hundreds of ways to kneel down and kiss the ground.
Rumi, a Sufi mystic (English version by Coleman Barks, A Year With Rumi)
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The sages have told us:
Know the One in your own heart, and then you
will understand the heart of each person.
When you recognize divinity with yourself then that is what
you long to see in others; and due to that longing, that
is what you are able to see in everyone else.
Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, Resonate With Stillness
The 12 photographs I have presented in this project were made a few years ago, in late Fall, just a few days before a dear friend--that Gloria and I cared very deeply about--passed away from a long and difficult disease. I have always wanted to publish these and other related photographs as a blog project but I wasn't able to find a way to present the most personal material in a manner that her family could feel comfortable with. I am content with what I have to present here. Perhaps later I can add one or two other pictures.
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A month before she entered into home hospice care we stooped of to see her on our way to Vermont to spend a few days with Gloria's sister and her husband. We were able to stay with our friend only two hours because she was feeling sick and very tired from her last chemo therapy session. She insisted nonetheless that Gloria take her to a bakery in the nearby town so she could buy a special treat she loved and wanted to share with us and our relatives in Vermont.
While they were off to the bakery I took a short nap on the living room couch (pictured below). When I awoke I felt a strong spiritual presence that seemed to pervade the entire living room. Our friend was a long time student of yoga and various other spiritual paths, and she meditated every morning--after her cup of coffee--in front of the puja she had placed on the window sill between the couch and her wood-burning fireplace. It is commonly understood amongst meditators that a special kind of meditation energy (known in some traditions as Shakti) will accumulate in a space and in the objects in that space when someone meditates regularly there over a long period of time. That energy helps the meditator go into meditation more easily, more quickly, and perhaps more deeply in subsequent sessions.
I know, from my own experience, that this is a very real phenomenon, and the sacred presence I felt in our friend's living room did indeed encourage me to meditate a while until Gloria and our friend returned from their trip to the bakery.
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We visited our friend a month later after she had entered into the process of home hospice care a few days. I felt frightened as we neared her house. We were told that she had gotten very thin and was suffering a lot of pain. She had been trying to stay of pain medications that would prevent her from a conscious awareness of the process she was going through.
When we arrived she looked quite beautiful despite her obvious state of emaciation and exhaustion. I talked to her for a short time; we shared some memories and joked around a bit. This helped me to relax and get in touch with the love and respect I felt for her and the very challenging life she had endured with so remarkable dignity and hard-won understanding.
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After we talked I felt like taking a walk outside. I strolled slowly around the house to the back yard and then through the gardens at the top of the hill which overlooked the road that passed by the front of her house. The light had become magical, and it compelled me to get my camera and make some photographs.
As I started making photographs gradually everything I was seeing seemed to be calling out to me to be photographed; everything appeared to be radiant with grace, divine beauty. I felt once again that sacred presence I had experienced a month earlier when I woke up from my nap on our friend's couch in the living room.
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Earlier that morning I had asked the woman in charge of the hospice process if I could make some photographs inside our friend's house. When she saw me walk into the kitchen with my camera (after photographing outside) she told me I was welcome to take pictures of whatever I liked. Then, much to my surprise, a little later, after our friend had come downstairs to be with some other visitors, the woman came up to me and said to confidentially that I could also take pictures upstairs if I was interested while our friend was downstairs.
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I took over sixty photographs in three brief camerwork sessions during the two days we visited our friend at her home. The 12 images I have selected for this 12x12" Studies Project are my very favorites. Each one seems radiantly alive with the light and the sacred presence I had experienced while I was photographing.
Being in the presence of our friend who was actively--and consciously--involved in her process of dying helped me get in touch with That which "lives in my own heart . . . and in everyone else's heart." The experience focused my "seeing photographically" through the Eye of the Heart rather than through the fearful eyes of the ego. Each photograph I made in this meditative-like mode of being became like a prayer (an act of "kneeling down" and "kissing the ground") illuminated with an interior, other-worldly light. I became aware that the beauty and love I was seeing and feeling in the outer world was equally present within myself.
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Before we left our friend to return to Canandaigua, we were able have a few last precious moments alone with her in her bedroom upstairs. Death and love were palpably present in those last moments we spent with her. We knew we would not be able to see our dear friend again before she passed on. When she became tire and closed her eyes Gloria and I closed our eyes and chanted together a yogic mantra for her and her family; and we offered some prayers to support our friend in that inevitable moment when her soul would soon be leaving her body . . . free to embark upon its unknown journey.
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The images in this blog project exist as 12x12" inkjet prints. See the Introductory and Epilogue Texts for my first collection of 12x12" Studies Photographs which explain how the 12x12" project relates to my creative process, why I have printed the images in the square format, placed tonal mattes around the images . . . and more.
After the presentation of the photographs I invite you to continue on to the project's Epilogue which contains a symmetrical photograph and a collection of additional quotes.
Note: if you are viewing this blog project with a desktop or laptop computer, I encourage you to visit this blog link: Regarding some Possible Options for Viewing My Photography Blog Project Images.
The Photographs
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12x12" Image #1 In the Presence Walking in our friend's garden, on the top of the hill overlooking the road in front of her house
12x12" Image #2 In the Presence A sunlit plant on the side of the hill in front of our friend's house
12x12" Image #3 In the Presence A small luminous white stone on top of a large dark blue stone in our friend's back yard
12x12" Image #4 In the Presence Our friend's living-room couch with a blue blanket and a mirror reflecting the light on the ceiling
12x12" Image #5 In the Presence The living-room puja with three images of yogic saints
12x12" Image #6 In the Presence The living-room wood-burning fireplace with sunlight skimming its surface
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12x12" Image #7 In the Presence Looking up the stairwell that goes to our friend's bedroom on the second floor
12x12" Image #8 In the Presence The second floor landing, late afternoon light. (The hallway on the left goes to our friend's bedroom)
12x12" Image #9 In the Presence The bedroom window . . . as the sun was about to set over the hill behind the back yard
12x12" Image #10 In the Presence Our friends reading glasses, her pen, notes & computer
12x12" Image #11 In the Presence The bedside lamp, a second pair of glasses, tissues and our friend's pillow
Epilogue
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12x12" Image #12 In the Presence Symmetrical Photograph : Decorative garden grass and colored stones
Gloria and I began practicing Siddha Yoga in 1987 after we met Gurumayi Chidvilasandana the first time and received her grace (spiritual initiation, or shaktipat) during a two day meditation program with her. We both feel that Siddha Yoga has been for us--and continues to be--a True and very special, wonderful yogic path.
The Siddha Yoga Path was founded by Swami Muktananda upon the command of his teacher Bhagavan Nityananda, both of whom were among the most revered Siddha Guru's (fully enlightened teachers) of the modern era. Before Swami Muktananda passed away, he transferred the power and authority of the Siddha Lineage to his disciple, Gurumayi.
Baba Muktananda wrote an essay (printed in booklet form) about death that has been very important to me. The quotations below (in blue script) are excerpts from that remarkable text entitled Does Death Really Exist?
A person can attain everything in this world,
but once time has passed
he cannot get it back.
Everyone must die.
We must remain aware of this
because we have to prepare ourselves well
for the final journey.
~
One day the body will drop away.
In this world, everything that comes
also goes.
But the Self is ageless and unchanging.
Death cannot reach it.
Therefore, live with this awareness:
"The Supreme Truth lies within me;
the flame of Supreme Truth is shimmering
and shining inside me."
That light is the Self.
~
The moment of departure is set at the time of birth,
and it does not change by even a minute.
Death is the one thing in this world
that is always on time.
~
There are two things you must remember
all the time.
One is God, and the other is
your own death.
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This project was published and announced on
my bog's Welcome Page
January 15, 2024
Related Blog Project Links
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.
