Seeing Things
~ Four New Inkjet printed photographs, with Commentary ~
An Inkjet Print Project, mid-June, 2026
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Quirky Photograph (Propane tank with a bird dropping on it, and a fantasy garden below it)
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Introduction
There are lots of things to see in this straight but "slightly crooked" photograph. I took the picture with my digital camera just a few days ago at a construction site that was on the grounds of an amazingly beautiful flower garden that was part of a family business that specializes in growing and selling the beautiful flowers called Irises. While my wife Gloria was looking for flowers to bring back home with her, I wandered around the many beautiful garden spaces created for their customers to simply enjoy, and I came upon the back of the owners' house which was an old refurbished farm house undergoing yet another additional modification. It looked like they were expanding the house by adding a new wing with a walkout basement.
I took two photographs at the construction site which I like very much, and both are included in this project: 1) the white metal tank picture above, and the picture of a ball of tree roots that had been recently pulled out of the ground and was just sitting in the bright sunlight near a pile of freshly dug earth.
I will comment first on the image above.
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When I first looked at this image file and decided to make a print of it, I was first drawn to the yellow cord that's in the center of the image with a pine needle caught behind the yellow wire against the white metallic tank. I think the tank is for storing liquid propane fuel. Above the yellow wire, I was fascinated by the blue metallic cover on the top of the tank which looks to me like some kind of helmet. The yellow wire appears to be either emerging from under the helmet and moving down toward the ground, or it is trying to hide under the helmet after having gotten itself up to the top of the tank.
To the left of the helmet there is a ladder lying on the ground next to the new concrete foundation wall for the basement being added to the house. To the right of the helmet, and on the very top edge of the tank, there is what appears to be a ring on a chain that is hanging down the side of the tank.
Below the tank, there is a "fantasy" miniature garden with repeating, green, straight & curving lines, and green triangular & oval shapes which have been constructed with grasses, etc. Toward the right side of the garden, under the green shapes, the yellow cord makes another surprising appearance in the way that the cord makes an inexplicable sharp, right-angle turn and then it leaps up and toward the right edge of the lite-gray matte surrounding the picture, and simultaneously as it also leaps down and to the right toward the bottom of the matte's edge.
From the bottom left edge of the photograph a plant leans to the right towards the center, at about the same angle as the yellow line that has sprung up from the "garden" and off to the right edge of the photo.
Now . . . I admit there is some pleasure in simply writing about what I see in a photograph, but there is an uneasy feeling that lies below the surface of my "seeing" this quirky image . . . for I used a two-fold symmetrical construction* process to transform the bottom part of the original straight photograph into a "fantasy garden."
(*Note: I duplicated the garden part of the image, flipped it upside down, and conjoined the copied image to the original bottom edge of the image of green plants.)
I left a few things unmentioned, but I don't think it would help me understand the image any better. Its not so much the things themselves that I enjoy seeing but the whole thing, as it is, the way all the things are conversing visually with each other. The image--in total--is oddly humorous, or perhaps even irrational . . . but nonetheless enjoyably "quirky" for me.
(See my 2024 project Quirky Photos)
I usually take pictures on impulse and figure it out later after I can see the picture and what I had been seeing before I made an exposure with my camera. I know there are two kinds of seeing that go on when I am making a photographs like this: I am imagining what I am seeing as a possible photograph; and then I later see what is actually happening in the picture itself. In other words, first there is an intuitive kind of seeing (seeing photographically, or seeing inwardly--imaginatively--outward things), and then there is a more consciously mindful or intellectual processing of what I see in the picture itself.
Oh, of course, I have not gotten around to mentioning the bird dropping which I included in the title I placed under the image. That bird dropping is the most understandable thing about the photograph, it seems to me. It may have been the "thing" that inspired me to make the straight photo to begin with, but, then, "Who really knows?" or "Who cares?" or "Who cares why I took the photo?"
What I care about most is the unified whole of the image, its graceful play of the things within the picture's frame. Deep down somewhere in the image, or in myself, there is a hidden meaning or understanding, some kind of knowledge lingering, waiting to be encountered, recognized:
It is said there are two kinds of knowledge. One, the outer knowledge,
implies forgetfulness of one's nature, ignorance of inner realities, the
ego-sense of "I" and "mine." The other kind of knowledge is that
of unity. It arises by . . . grace . . .
This knowledge takes one beyond the reach of death, time, and
limitation, to [supreme Consciousness], the supreme Self . . .
Swami Muktananda, from the SYDA Foundation publication Resonate with Stillness (July 8 contemplation)
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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.
When you experience the Truth, you realize there is no difference
between the seer and the seen; in fact they are one and the same.
Swami Chidvilasananda, from the SYDA Foundation publication Resonate with Stillness (July 18 contemplation)
These two quotes are yogic teachings by two of the True gurus of the Siddha Yoga Lineag, the yogic Path I have been practicing since 1987. The Great Yogic Beings teach that what we see in the outer world have been projected out onto the screen of the mind from the inner world, which is often referred to as the Heart, the divine Self, God, or supreme Consciousness.
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This project is the second in what I hope will be an ongoing series of new miniature projects--that consists of a small collection of newly printed inkjet print images accompanied by some written "commentary." It Is Always ONE (dated June 6, 2026), the first project, included commentary based primarily in ideas and teachings central to my experience and practice of Siddha Yoga Meditation. I have unexpectedly just added some additional yogic teachings to this second project from the Swami Chidvilasananda, the current, living head of the Siddha Lineage, and her teacher Swami Muktananda who passed away in 1982. I read these two quotes the other day before I went into my morning meditation practice, and they fit so perfectly into what this project was headed toward that I decided to included them here and now. Such is the workings of the grace of my Creative Process, and the grace of my yoga practice.
Both this second project, and It Is Always ONE, include images of recently made inkjet prints that I have been collecting under the blog title The 2026 Inkjet Print Digital Archive Project (22 images, March-June 2026) However this present project differs from the first in that three of the four images you will be seeing here are all images made in the last few days with my digital camera (the one exception, I will explain later.) I hope to see more of these mini projects emerge in the future, and preferably containing mostly new works. It does seem like I am beginning to come out of what for me has been a longer than usual pause period in my Creative Process, waiting for the time when new work needed to once again emerge.
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The title of this second project Seeing Things came to me the other day after making the image of the tree roots (below) at the same construction site where I made the picture of the bird droppings on the propane tank.
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Seeing Things Image #1 Inkjet Print, Photograph 18x18"
A Thing-Centered Photograph (Tree roots encountered at a construction site)
When I took this photograph, I was actually experiencing something like a figure-ground perceptional confusion. "What am I looking at? What am I seeing?" Whatever it was, it looked very much alive to me . . . like a dark wild animal, with an abundance of visual energy that had somehow emerged from its intensely luminous and textured visual surroundings.
Of course, what is central to the picture--and what has been placed quite consciously in the center of the picture's frame-- is the roots of a tree that had probably had to be dug up for the construction of an addition to the old farm house I wrote about earlier. If you enlarge this image and look at the roots close up, you will see ambient light in some of the shadow areas, and lots of green color in the background with a few spots of red here and there.
I have identified this image in my title as a "Thing-Centered Photograph" which has been a constantly recurring theme in my work going back to the mid-1980's when I read for the first time the American poet, Robert Bly's wonderful book, News of the Universe, which I have written about in several of my past blog projects including "Thing-Centered Photographs" (2022) and the earlier blog project entitled Poetry for The Departing Landscape (2007-2012).
In News of the Universe Bly traces the idea of Consciousness as it evolved historically through poetry, and he concludes the book with poems written by saints from multiple traditions. His chapter devoted to what he calls Object Poems or Thing Poems are about the way every thing or object is just as much alive with consciousness as we human beings are. (Note: my link Poetry for the Departing Landscape contains several excellent Thing poems.)
I read News of the Universe 4o years ago, and it still is one of my most beloved books, one that has continued to inspire my Creative Process to this day. The idea that all things's are pervaded by consciousness just thrilled me for it confirmed my own experience as a picture-maker. And then, two years after I first read Bly's book I met Gurumayi and took my first meditation intensive with her, in which I actually experienced her grace and the kind of living Consciousness Bly had been writing about and sharing with us through his Introductions to his various thematic selections of poetry.
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Seeing Things Image #2 Inkjet Print, Photograph 18x18"
Quirky Photograph (Propane tank with a bird dropping on it and a fantasy garden below it)
I took the photograph of the tree roots first when I entered the construction site (situated in a beautiful farm with an extraordinary Flower Garden, and rows upon rows of blooming Irises). After I took the tree roots photograph I turned around and there was the propane tank with the bird droppings on it, etc. . . . and the farm house, under construction and just barely visible in the background.
Since I have already written earlier about this image, I just wanted to add, that this Quirky photograph is, in some ways, also a Thing-Centered photograph (I'm thinking here about the pine needle caught beneath the yellow cord against the metal tank). It happens quite often that many of my photographs contain more than one of my recurring subject matter or conceptual themes. (See this listing of many of my Theme-Related Projects.)
In regards to the Quirky nature of the photography, back in the late 1990's I came upon the conscious realization that the six years long project entitled Studies (1994-2000) was largely inspired by the music of Thelonious Monk (a great jazz composer and pianist) whose compositions and solo piano improvisations were always playful, heartfelt and inventive in the most fascinating and quirky ways. (He had an amazing ability to hit all the wrong notes--with the oddest spaces between them-- and yet it all came out sounding perfectly beautiful!)
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Hanging vine, curtains, screened window, deck rails, green woods, diamond of light
I printed this four-fold symmetrical photograph very recently, but its source image (see Fig. 1 below) was taken with a digital camera many years ago and though I tried several times to make it into a symmetrical image, I could never get a satisfying result (until just a few weeks ago, in May, 2026). I happened to see a previous symmetrical version of the image one day while looking for something else, and I got the inner directive from my Creative Process to: ". . . play with it just one more time. There's an interesting symmetrical photograph somewhere in there."
[Fig. 1] Source image for the symmetrical Image #3
If you know my work, you know that I have said--no doubt too often--that the four-fold symmetrical images are a perfect visual analogy for the concept of the Oneness of Being. Essentially they are constructions of four identical photographs conjoined above & below and left & right. If an attempt to created a four-fold symmetrical image gracefully transforms the four straight images into a completely new, transformed image that is alive with its own radiant invisible interior light, the image will often will invoke in me the distinct feeling that the image has emerged from the very center point of the image.
On the other hand, it always remains very difficult for me to comment on my symmetrical images. However, and this is new to me, I must say that bringing the idea of the Center point in a symmetrical photographs into such close proximity to my previous discussion of my Thing Centered photographs has yielded a new understanding, a revelation through a kind of synchronistic experience that has occurred within my Creative Process.
I think the difficulty in finding words for the meaning of symmetrical images lies in what I call their symbolic nature--that is to say, the images which are pervaded by the subtle light of grace. The meaning of True, Living Symbols has to do with the ineffable nature of its conjunction of visual form and content, its transcendent Unitary Reality, its Oneness of Being, which essentially is ineffable, timeless and unchanging. In Siddha Yoga the Oneness of Being is equivalent to the concepts: the divine Self, the Heart, and supreme Consciousness.
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Seeing Things Image #4 Inkjet Print, Photograph 18x18"
A houseplant, in a vase, in bright sunlight & shadows on folded sheets of cardboard
This last image has, for me--at first glance--a striking, nearly black&white, nearly abstract appearance . . . until the greens eventually show up in the plants, followed by the blue and yellow colors on the cardboard at the bottom edge of the frame. The shadows of leaves have for me a powerful, magical transforming visual presence, as does the long vertical and horizontal shadows that run up and along the left side of the plant and across the image just above and behind the top of the plant.
The image at first invoked in me a slightly intimidating feeling of mystery and spatial disorientation; then as I looked closer, and saw a masked face peeping out at me from the leaf shadows on the right side of the image, a transformation occurred. "Another world" made its presence known to me, one that in some ways echoed my experience of the tree roots photograph.
This image has what I like to call an Angelic presence, and it is centered mostly in the dark space between the leaves of the plant and their shadows cast upon the foreground cardboard. I also feel that presence in the leaf shadows on the right side of the image, which became all the more intriguing to me when I noted that the source of those leaf shadows is invisible.
The picture as a whole looks and feels like a ritual space to me, and certainly this supports my feeling that the image is "not of this world," but rather the transcendent world of what Henry Corbin called the Imaginal World.
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Just a few nights after I printed this image and looked closely at it . . . I had a dream in which I saw--or experienced-- the image in a way that startled and fascinated me. I don't remember ever having any other dream about a photograph I had just made:
I was looking down at the image as if I were suspended in the air or sky above; the light and darks formed a kind of visual gestalt that reminded me of luminous scientific images I have seen of outer space (as in Fig. 2, below). The mystery that pervaded my dream impressed me very much, in a very enjoyable way, and the experience has made me respect and appreciate my fourth photograph in this project even more, now.
[Fig. 2] Hubble Telescope photo of the cosmos
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Henry Corbin was a wonderful scholar, mystic, and student of Sufism; his writing is ultimately rewarding, but it is not easy reading. Thank goodness for Tom Cheetham and his four books that placed Corbin's ideas in a more understandable context and in a manner that makes me feel grateful . . . beyond words!
I will conclude this project, then, with a few brief text excerpts from Tom Cheetham's book Green Man, Earth Angel The Prophetic Tradition and the Battle for the Soul of the World. My selections of texts focuses on Angels which I feel are relevant to my personal experiences of the #4 image in this project:
The Turn Inward, the Guide & the Angel of Revelation
Corbin's account of the turn inward toward the Darkness within reveals a dual challenge which can only be met if we are oriented initially in such a way that we cannot confuse the blackness of the abyss of evil . . . with the terrors of annihilation stemming from the encounter with the Hidden God.
The Angelic Heavenly Twin
Every being . . . has a Fravarti, a celestial counterpart, in the world of Light. And so every being has a dual structure that defines its orientation in the struggle toward the Light. The quest to unveil this heavenly twin defines the moral and spiritual destiny of the soul of every human being, and of the soul of the world itself.
The Alchemical Task & Imagination
The task is to actualize, on this earth, the "Energy of sacral Light" that transforms, transfigures, and glorifies the soul of all beings. This transformation is an alchemical process: . . . the goal is the transmutation of each being into a more subtle, more definite, more real state.
Corbin discovered this ancient cosmology imagined anew . . . in the work of the twelfth-century Persian mystic . . . al-Suhrawardi. Suhrawardi's project was to fuse Zoroastrian angeology with Platonic and Neoplatonic cosmology and the prophetic revelation of Islam. It was 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. . . . the place of the visions of the prophets.
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.
(Note: this quoted material ins from my blog project The Angels, part IV: Text Excerpts from the writings of Henry Corbin and Tom Cheetham. Also, you can see a collection of my Angle projects here.)
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This project was published on my blog's
Welcome Page on June 17, 2026
Related Projects:
Studies Projects see especially the 1994-2000 Studies Project
Welcome Page to The Departing Landscape website which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography blog projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume,
contact information, Introductory texts, and more.
