The Language of Color

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In my experience, more people seem to be moved more by color photographs than black and white. That’s understandable—color is more visually stimulating and it’s how we see the world. Our brains are wired for it.

In our photography classes at RIT we sometimes heard some adage: “If you can’t make it good, make it big. And if you can’t make it big, make it in color.” At times, this appears to be operating when the intent is to sell photographic prints. Generally speaking, whatever the medium, the more vibrant the color or bigger the image, the greater its emotional impact. Color commands our attention.

As a professional visual communicator I tried to chose colors that would enhance the message or contribute to the sensibility of the environment, atmosphere or action. One of the items in my film & video production toolkit was a chart of the psychological properties of various colors. It helped me choose the color of backgrounds, costumes, paint, objects and environments when shooting, and again in editing because the objectives are to capture and hold the viewer’s attention and generate an affective (emotional) response. Whatever we’re creating, even if words on a page or putting together a gift for someone, color both speaks and creates an affect. Here, I’ve expanded the chart.

RED is masculine, stimulating and lively. It can signal passion, courage and strength. Depending upon the context it can also be aggressive and defiant. It was was my “go-to” color for creating excitement.

BLUE is intellectual, the color of the mind. It evokes trust, serenity, reflection and calm. Strong blues stimulate clear thought and soft blues are conducive to consideration and reflection. It’s why I chose the calm blue of a lake for the masthead of this blog. On the negative side—all colors have higher and lower vibrations and effects—it can convey coolness or aloofness.

YELLOW is emotional, the color of optimism, friendliness and creativity. Bright yellow is open, encouraging and inviting. On the dark side, bordering on brown, it can promote feelings of fear, depression and anxiety. When a product, message or scene needed to convey a sense of confidence, that the advertiser could be trusted, I tried to incorporate yellow.

GREEN is the color of balance and harmony. It conveys the sensibilities of peace, awareness and freshness—like an expanse of verdant grass. We have a natural affinity to green because it signals life, the presence of water and the potential for food. The lower vibration of green can be stagnation and sameness.

VIOLET is spiritual on the lighter side, the color of awareness, vision and truth, even luxury. On the dark side it can be cloying and annoying, the vibrance being so strong it boarders on decadence or suppression.

ORANGE reminds us of food, fruit in particular, so it contributes to feelings of comfort, abundance and security. On the bright side it photographs well in ads that contain food. Think of seafood commercials. Along with red and yellow it’s one of the “fun” colors used to enhance motivation. The dark tones of orange can convey the opposite—deprivation.

BROWN is serious, referencing both the earth and waste. On the light side, its contribution to a message or product is stability and warmth. On the dark side, it can convey a heaviness, even depression. It doesn’t photograph well in ads containing food.

BLACK is a mix of equal amounts of red, green and blue pigment. It’s also the absence of light. Its sensibility can be dark, sophistication, efficiency and security. Positively it communicates clarity. Negatively it expresses oppression, coldness and heaviness.

WHITE conveys a sensibility of purity, simplicity, efficiency and sterility. Just as black absorbs all wavelengths, white reflects them all. White light contains all the wavelengths. On the negative side it can convey strain, unfriendliness and coldness.

Color Harmony and Discordance

Along with the psychological characteristics of color, I often shared with students the creative uses of  color “harmony” and “discordance.” Color harmony is when one hue—such as reds, greens, or yellows—predominate. Because it’s rare in nature, it commands attention, creates impact and contributes to the experience of simplicity. Doing so, color harmony conveys beauty and emotion.

Conversely, images that contain a variety of different colors side-by-side—as when yellows and blues are juxtaposed—contribute to the experience of complexity. Their strength is in conveying information. It depends on what you want to say or express; different communication objectives call for different strategies.

Color and Culture

Color choices have a profound effect on our lives. Children are taught to match their clothing colors. Professionals in many fields select colors that “pick up” and enhance particular features, for instance in the food, fashion and furnishing industries. Harmony is generally more peaceful and comfortable than discordance, which can be brash.

One of the common complaints of people shopping for a home, condo or apartment is the color of the walls and floors. Scenes and entire movies are tinted to enhance the sensibility of the story—blues for crime, purple for suspense, yellow for history, red for passion and so on depending on what the director wants the audience to feel.

We even describe our moods and physical conditions that way—“I’m feeling blue today” or “That burger left me feelin’ green.” Linda, my wife said, “It it wasn’t for color, I wouldn’t be a gardener.”

The color white promotes healing spirit, white light is a natural pain reliever, increasing and maintaining energy levels and relieving depression and inertia. White dispels negativity from the body’s energy field.

Lynne Branard, Novelist. Author, The Art of Arranging Flowers

Proact / React

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In ordinary everyday living, as entropy increases there comes a point when a decision needs to be made regarding a system’s status—keep it going, shore it up or abandon it. Building or establishing a system—an object, relationship, business or social enterprise—is creative and exciting. The investment of time, energy and money flows easily in the beginning because the new is desirable—at least in our culture. At that point the purpose and function are clear and the object or system is highly valued, making it easy to see and implement programs of maintenance that will insure continuity.

Well into a structure or system’s lifespan however, as less attention is paid to it—attention is also dissipated due to entropy—breakdowns occur. Automobiles rust, relationships falter, businesses loose clients, houses deteriorate, cities experience social crises and economic decline. The image of men replacing a roof on this old  building evokes a question about a personal and social orientation. Is it best to anticipate breakdowns and take preventative action to prevent them? Or is “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke” a viable alternative?” Dysfunction forces a choice—repair or replace the broken part, ignore the situation, hand it over to someone else or allow entropy to have its way completely.

We witness the consequences of such choices personally and culturally. For instance when it comes to architecture and the use of space there’s the obvious contrast between the British people and Europeans who weigh in heavily on the side of maintenance and preservation and Americans who are inclined more toward disposal for the sake of the new. Perhaps older nations place a higher value on sustainability, and that results in an ongoing examination and consideration of the social and environmental consequences of potential breakdowns. Not that one approach is better or worse, it’s just fascinating to observe how different cultures respond to entropy. Around the globe we can see it in a city’s architecture and use of space. Our impression of cities we haven’t visited may be stereotypical, the result of seeing them in movies and on television, but the choices are evident if we care to look.

An even more dramatic and telling contrast relating to the valuation and assessment of architecture and the use of space—to proact or react—is the mindset between the modern world, which perceives objects as separate and dead, and ancient indigenous people who view everything as alive and interconnected. In the United States we tend to walk away from buildings and houses that have outlived their usefulness. We even leave the expense of demolition to the next person or entity that wants to use the land for something else. And so unwanted structures become blights—sitting, deteriorating and decreasing the value of the properties around them. Juxtapose this mentality with that of the Ancient Maya who buried everything. From the poorest homestead to the tallest temple-pyramids, when a structure outlived its usefulness a holy man or king performed a termination ritual to remove the spirit of the place, and then they buried it under dirt and stone so it could revert back to jungle. They invested nearly as much time and energy burying a temple as they did building it. Hundreds of cities and villages were buried and the practice persisted for close to fifteen-hundred years. It’s why there are so many “lost cities” of the Maya. Whatever their motivation, I stand in awe of the respect that it shows—for nature and future generations.

Valuations and assessments prompted by breakdowns are in evidence in most of our neighborhoods. Some folks do little or no maintenance, others only do what’s necessary. Still others engage in preventative maintenance, but they appear to be in the minority. Understandably, it takes time, money and energy to maintain and plug holes—literally.

My pattern has been and continues to favor more of a reactive posture. I generally wait for a sign that some object or system is exhibiting entropy. The attitude of why fix it if it ain’t broke allows me to continuously focus on the things that are uppermost in my mind moment to moment. Linda reports that the downside to the proactive approach is that thinking ahead to possible breakdowns contributes to worry. Yet we often benefit, sometimes grandly so, from her preventative measures. It seems that women tend to favor the proactive approach, but I wonder if that’s not just another stereotype—or might it be due to the nurturing mother role.

I do know that my reactive set point shifts toward proaction as the system under consideration increases in complexity and scale. I’m okay with forgetting to change the furnace filter or ignoring the “low tire pressure” warning in my car, at least for a while. If the consequences are small, I can tolerate some risk. What I can’t abide are the consequences of not maintaining my teeth and other physical systems. And when it comes to complex physical and social structures, systems and issues over which I have little control—like cybercrime, climate change, gun violence, poverty, etc.—I am eager to become proactive. Minimally, I vote.

Real freedom is creative, proactive, and will take me into new territories. I am not free if my freedom is predicated on reacting to my past.

Kenny Loggins

ABOUT THIS IMAGE

I was driving back to the office from a meeting when I saw these workmen on the roof. What struck me was their strong silhouette against the sky. I happened to have my digital camera kit with me and because the rooftop was quite a distance I put on a telephoto lens. I made several exposures, all on a tripod to minimize camera shake. I liked the above shot because the postures of the men indicated the energy they put into their work.

In preparing this image for presentation I graded the otherwise blank and bright sky, and lightened the moulding to bring out the detail. In doing so I enlarged the image on the screen and found a little surprise in the distance—a bird standing on a church steeple, and what looks like a finger pointing to the sky.

Workers On Rooftop

Layering

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Life’s determination to expand from a center or core

Layering is how many things grow organically—from the inside out. Metaphorically, when we want to understand an object, system or process we “peel away” the layers so we can see what’s inside or what’s happening. It’s the basis for analysis, taking things apart to look “under the surface” in order to discover the “underlying truth” of whatever is being examined. Due to the onion’s obvious layering, it has become a metaphor in a variety of fields.

In “social penetration theory” interpersonal relationships develop from a relatively shallow, non-intimate level to deeper, more intimate ones. Psychologists Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor advanced the “onion theory” to illustrate how personality is like a multi-layered onion where the public self is the outer layer and the private Self resides at the core of the person. They observe that as time passes and intimacy grows with the disclosure of more personal information and shared experiences, the layers of one’s personality begin to unfold and reveal the core.

In the field of organizational development, “peeling the onion” refers to searching for  the underlying causes of breakdowns within a company’s many departments or branches. It’s a learning process that seeks more data by penetrating the layers of interaction and engagement, interpretation and meaning. Even feelings. It asks “Why?” and “What else is going on?” in order to discover the authentic needs, wants and interests of employees and clients. Perhaps most important for administrators and managers, the peeling back of personality layers can help identify or examine their life’s purpose and seek increased alignment with the corporate or company mission. The periodic process of defining and updating a company’s mission and vision statements is, in fact, a matter of peeling the onion in order to reconstruct it as a renewed and vitalized whole system.

Peeling the onion in government asks if and how the current layers of bureaucracy relate to the values and ideals of the founders. Likewise it calls religious organizations to examine whether or not policies and practices reflect the teaching and example of the founder. Individually, it amounts to an examination of conscience. Am I spending my time on the layers of my life that matter most? Are they an outgrowth of my reason for being here? And as a person, am I growing from that core—my soul?

My Maya guide in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala (who had a doctorate in Anthropology from Harvard University) told me that “everything and everyone in the village is seen to be at a different layer of development. You’re considered an asset to the community if you speak well in your layer. And you’re not expected to talk like or behave like someone in a higher layer. Child development, building construction, farming, the life of the family and the attainment of wisdom all happen in layers.” For the Maya, the model for horizontal layering is a tree. According to Anthropologists Jennifer Mathews and James Garber, “Vertical layering is a fundamental part of Maya ideology that arranges everything from the heavens to simple features.”

The modern perception of layers and the processes of layering—learning and growing—derives from the ancient Maya conception of the Earth as a flat expanse of land, resting on the back of a gigantic turtle who floats on an enormous tropical pond full of waterlilies. In the middle stands a great tree, the Axis Mundi, symbolized by the giant ceibas that rise above the canopy in the jungles of Central America. This cosmic tree, seen by the ancients as the Milky Way, connected the three worlds—upper, middle and underworld, with its starry buttresses rooted in the south.

With their penchant for modeling the cosmos in every aspect of daily life, Maya kings associated the layering of trees with everything that grows, particularly human beings. “Great Tree” was one of a ruler’s titles, signifying his role as world grower and sustainer. In the inscriptions and on works of art, the World Tree was referred to as “First Tree Precious.” We refer to it as “the tree of life.”

Trees and onions, animals and people grow from the inside out, small-to-big. Whether we’re talking about food, money, businesses, artworks, architecture, communities or nations, the process is one of accretion—adding not just a duplicate layer, but an expanded expression of the previous reality. Entrepreneurs, artists, politicians, venture capitalists and scientists all know that big things come from little beginnings—seeds that are nurtured. Giant leaps may occur occasionally, but it’s usually the small steps that lead to it. The haste to accomplish has to be tempered with the realization that an onion grows one layer at a time. It’s the same with ideas and initiatives. Every successful invention and innovation we can name began with a seed in consciousness.

What’s so special about this pattern of growth? Why has layer building upon layer become one of the most common patterns in organic growth and development? The science is complex, but more generally and for the purpose of contemplation, it has to do with life’s determination to expand from a center or core. The lesson for me is to begin every new endeavor by creating a seed thought and then nurturing it.

From the movie “Shrek”—

Shrek: For your information, there’s a lot more to ogres than people think.

Donkey: Example?

Shrek: Uh—ogres are like onions!

[He holds up an onion, which Donkey sniffs]

Donkey: They stink?

Shrek: Yes—No!

Donkey: Oh, they make you cry?

Shrek: No!

Donkey: Oh, you leave ‘em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sproutin’ little white hairs.

Shrek: [peels an onion] NO! Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. You get it? We both have layers.

Donkey: Oh, you both have LAYERS. Oh. You know, not everybody likes onions. CAKE! Everybody loves cake! Cakes have layers!

Shrek: I don’t care what everyone likes! Ogres are not like cakes.

Donkey: You know what ELSE everybody likes? Parfaits! Have you ever met a person, you say, “Let’s get some parfait,” they say, “Hell no, I don’t like no parfait.” Parfaits are delicious!

Shrek: NO! You dense, irritating, miniature beast of burden! Ogres are like onions! End of story! Bye-bye! See ya later.

Donkey: Parfait’s gotta be the most delicious thing on the whole damn planet!

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My other sites—

Love And Light greetings.com: A twice-weekly blog featuring wisdom quotes and perspectives in science and spirituality intended to inspire and empower

David L. Smith Photography Portfolio.com: Black and white and color photography

Ancient Maya Cultural Traits.com: Weekly blog featuring the traits that made this civilization unique 

A Father’s Day Card

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My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived, and let me watch him do it.

Clarence Budington Kelland, American writer

Here’s a selection of images, reflections on automobile surfaces, for dads. 

1948 Buick Roadmaster hood

1948 Buick Roadmaster

'73 Corvette Stingray

1973 Corvette Stingray

1934 Ford Coupe

1949 Oldsmobile

'73 Corvette

1973 Corvette

'42 Willis

1942 Willis

1949 Oldsmobile fender

1949 Oldsmobile

1948 Chevrolet hood

1948 Chevrolet

'48 Buick

1948 Buick

1934 Ford Coupe

1934 Ford

2003 Ford Thunderbird

2003 Ford Thunderbird

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My other sites—

Love And Light greetings.com: A twice-weekly blog featuring wisdom quotes and perspectives in science and spirituality intended to inspire and empower

David L. Smith Photography Portfolio.com: Black and white and color photography

Ancient Maya Cultural Traits.com: Weekly blog featuring the traits that made this civilization unique 

Seeing And Interpreting

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The wider our view, the more we can encompass

In a previous blog I noted that it’s the brain that sees, not the eyes which send data via electrical impulses to the brain where they are interpreted to make seeing instantaneously possible.

The image above, taken with a zoom lens, reveals something about perception—beyond merely seeing. In an instant, the eye/brain/nervous system have us looking closely, as on a word, and then shifting our sight to a wide view—for instance to a computer screen, wall or something else. It’s so natural, that we sighted people take it for granted.

More broadly and perhaps less appreciated, is the phenomenon of shifting our focus by zooming in and out to gather data on relationships, society, politics, religion and science—all the domains of our experience—in order to construct meaning and direct our lives to what’s important to us. What we see and how we interpret the data collected is determined by three key factors: position, lens and filters.

Position

Position is where we stand—physically and mentally—in relation to the object, person or event being observed. When my car door gets badly dinged, I care. When a stranger’s car gets dinged I care less. I may not even notice. From the standpoint of a watchdog journalist, the world is filled with corruption and abuses. Another journalist—CBS’s Steve Hartman comes to mind—looks for and finds a world filled with love, compassion, accomplishment and consideration for others. The position we take relative to our everyday perceptions depends on where we are and “where we’re coming from.” It may be dynamic and changeable, but it’s our point of view.

We take positions on everything physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Because politics is polarizing, it provided a good illustration. There’s the perception that the world is composed of black vs white, good vs evil, haves vs have-nots and us vs them. This perspective is past oriented, favoring measures that protect, defeat or punish in order to maintain or manage the separation. In this worldview, subscribers see themselves as independent individuals, authors of their own destiny; government should interfere as little as possible.

On the other hand, there’s the perception that the world is better managed through cooperation and collaboration, rather than competition. Because it looks to future and asks how it can be improved, it favors initiatives that improve, empower, expand and unite. As interdependent members of a greater whole system, the perception is that we’re “all in it together” and “we can do so much more together than we could ever do apart.” The role of government, aside from security, is to discover and facilitate whatever contributes to the general well being of the whole system. Both perspectives have  costs and benefits. It’s why the American system has checks and balances. And why, over time, the pendulum swings both ways.

Lenses

The purpose of a lens is to gather light and organize it into a comprehensive, well-focused image. A zoom lens gives a photographer the ability to quickly—or slowly—change from a wide to a closeup view, to see more or less of what’s in front of the camera without changing position.

In the realm of perception, lenses amount to personal preferences relating to what we want to see. Extending the metaphor, some of us prefer zoom lenses because it allows us to get both a wide and closeup view while maintaining a fixed position. Others prefer “prime,” fixed focal length lenses, which require a shift in position but render better definition or “resolving power”—a clearer picture. And of course, there are those who, like professional photographers, shift back and forth depending upon the circumstances.

We come into the world fully zoomed in. Everything is close. As our eyes adapt, we see mother, then father. In time the view widens out to include other people and the environment. As we age, our perception widens to include more of the world physically, and then psychologically and socially, politically and spiritually. Our point of view—and along with it awareness—expands, as does the widening of our perspectives relative to relationships, play, work, interests, values and beliefs. And as we approach adulthood, one of the clear perceptions is that other people and institutions have different preferences, they’re seeing the world through different lenses.

Socially, this difference can be illustrated by television. The viewer’s preference is to see it as a source of information and entertainment. They want fewer commercials and more programming. On the other hand, television executives see it through the lens of business. Their preference is to have more commercials and less programming.

The lenses we inherit from past experience color our present and future experience. But we can and often do, change lenses. A photographer decides to change lenses for a variety of technical and aesthetic reasons. Our reason for changing lenses has more to do with exposure to new ideas, perspectives or experiences. We read a book, watch a movie or television program, attend a class, overhead a conversation or observe some life-altering event. The more we indulge in these, and the greater their influence, the more our point of view will expand. And that affects a shift in position. And then something happens, resulting in another shift. In human development language, it the process of consciousness rising. We’re always learning more.

Filters

Filters modify, shape or color light as it comes into a camera—or mind.  Through one filter a rocking-chair approach to retirement can be viewed as a waste of time. Viewed through the filter of Buddhism, a mindful approach to sitting still can lead to enlightenment. A Christian filter might urge us to get out of the chair and help those less fortunate. A business CFO sees everything through cost analysis, spreadsheet and marketshare filters. Their customers are looking at the price, application and safety of the product.

From where I sit, considering the limited focal length of my lens and filters, I have reached the conclusion that every position, lens and filter is valid, perfectly suited to the perceiver given the times and their circumstances— with the exception of those who are intent upon or benefitting from violence.

While perceptions differ widely and in opposition can result in personal and social tragedies, I suspect conflict is life’s way of refining the perception of self and others in order to bring individuals and nations into right relationship with each other and the planet. Eventually. In the image of the tree above, I notice that zooming-out produces more light and richer color. I think the same is true of the human mind. The wider our view—the more we can take in, encompass, accept, appreciate and love—the greater our illumination.

 

Power rests in the conjunction of what the individual perceives of his own internal being, what he perceives in the world about him, and how he relates these perceptions to establish his relations with other human beings.

Richard Adams, English novelist

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My other sites—

Love And Light greetings.com: A twice-weekly blog featuring wisdom quotes and perspectives in science and spirituality intended to inspire and empower

David L. Smith Photography Portfolio.com: Black and white and color photography

Ancient Maya Cultural Traits.com: Weekly blog featuring the traits that made this civilization unique 

A Bit of Perfection

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In the eyes of animals

In this image I see perfection, a creature perfectly adapted to and living in harmony with its environment. Full disclosure, I tend to view all animals that way. By that I mean they are fully what and who they are, true to their nature with no desire to be other than that.

Each species is unique, and individuals within the species have distinctive personalities. Anyone who has lived with a pet understands this. Some might argue about wild animals living in harmony with their environment because of the predator-prey relationship, but the food chain is precisely how life sustains and perpetuates more life. An animal out of harmony with its environment would be one that tends to destroy it or use it up. Ultimately it would destroy itself because, as the links in a chain—or ecosystem—are weakened or destroyed, the chain fails.

A friend sent me the link to a video that shows a jaguar in the mountains around Tucson, Arizona. Some publishers reported that it’s the “last jaguar in the United States,” but that’s not accurate. Alan Rabinowitz, the world’s leading authority on jaguars, provides a map in his book—An Indomitable Beast: The Remarkable Journey of the Jaguar—that shows their range from Argentina, through Mexico and into the American Southwest.

Most fascinating, is the existence of an “underground railway” (his term), a swath of land running the length of their range that allows modern day animals to feed and breed while skirting fences, cattle land and human habitation. Considering that jaguars are more active at night, it was indeed unusual to capture one on camera, much less in Arizona. If you’re interested in jaguars or animal conservation more generally, Rabinowitz’s informative and encouraging book is a must read.

Jaguars are at the top of the food chain. Considered a “keystone” species, they play an important role in stabilizing ecosystems and regulating the populations of the animals they hunt. Their bite is exceptional among big cats, able to pierce the shells of turtles and armadillos. Their unique killing method is to pierce through the skull.

After years of research, Rabinowitz found that jaguars shy away from humans, there being very few incidents of attacks. Even fewer reports are conclusive. DNA indicates that the forerunners of today’s jaguars crossed the Bering Strait land bridge connecting Asia to North America between 280,000 and 510,000 years ago, following the deer and other animals that covered the landscape in huge herds. According to current estimates, jaguars were here before our earliest ancestors appeared in Africa about 200,000 years ago.

Being the only cat that is as much at home in the water and in trees as on the ground, indigenous cultures regarded them as masters over all dimensions—gods of both the Underworld and the celestial realm. The Tucano Indians of the Amazon regarded the jaguar’s roar as thunder. To them he was the god of darkness. The Arawak Indians say everything has jaguar spirit, nothing exists without it. Early Central American Olmec imagery depicts an abundance of where-jaguars, beings that are part human and part jaguar. Maya kings, Aztec rulers and shaman, as shapeshifters, transformed themselves into jaguars to gain strength and free themselves of all cultural restrictions.

Why did so many cultures deify them? Alan Rabinowitz says the word for him that best explains it is “indomitable.” Jaguars are impossible to defeat. It’s why rulers and warriors throughout Mexico, Central and South America took the name “Jaguar.” By identifying themselves with the animal’s spirit power, they became powerful, like unto the gods. Native Americans did the same thing with the buffalo. The Chinese have their dragon, the Russians their bear and we our bald eagle. It’s not the animal per se that was regarded by the ancients as divine, it was the qualities of spirit they observed that was respected, glorified and emulated. Those qualities of spirit represent the perfection of attributes we would like to have.

What in our day are the qualities of spirit that we want to emulate? Who do we want to be like when we grow up? What are the traits we admire today, and where do we find them? In sports figures? Movie and television characters? The celebrities who play them? Living and not living saints, sinners, comic book hero and cartoon characters display specific powers of spirit. Their stories are all about that.

Personally, I think indigenous people, Native Americans in particular, were wise to recognize and adopt the qualities of animals, birds, reptiles and insects. They made great effort to observe their spirits so they could learn from them how to live in harmony with nature. Without the distractions of human personality, self-seeking, socialization and gamesmanship, the Great Spirit is more evident. Sometimes startlingly so. Just look into the eyes of a jaguar—or your dog or cat. What you’re seeing there is life perfectly in balance.

Harmony, when it appears, makes one feel as though one was getting a slight but thrilling intimation of, or even recognition of, a total perfection to which we all really belong.

Richard Guggenheimer, American artist, educator

 

An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.

Martin Buber, Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher

 

Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.

Anatole France, French poet, journalist, and novelist

 

Panthers and jaguars are close cousins genetically. Panthers have spots. Jaguars have “florets” with spots in the middle. Both can be black overall, but each will have the distinctive marking, just darker. The male and female that I photographed at the Akron, Ohio Zoo (above) were young and medium-sized. I’ve seen pictures of jaguars that are nearly twice this size.

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My other sites—

Love And Light greetings.com: A twice-weekly blog featuring wisdom quotes and perspectives in science and spirituality intended to inspire and empower

David L. Smith Photography Portfolio.com: Black and white and color photography

Ancient Maya Cultural Traits.com: Weekly blog featuring the traits that made this civilization unique 

 

 

Infrastructure

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Luxuries that need to be maintained and improved upon

Roadway Underside

It didn’t take the drought in the West or lead in the water in Flint, Michigan for me to appreciate the abundance of clean water we have in Cincinnati, Ohio. Not always, but many times when I’m taking a shower, washing my hands or watching the sprinkler in the garden I think to myself what a blessing it is to be able to turn on a tap and have clean, affordable hot and cold running water.

Quite often I hear people express gratitude for water, consistent electricity, waste collection and recycling, roads, bridges and sewer systems—the physical and organizational systems that are necessary for a society to maintain health and functionality. We don’t talk about it much, but the appreciation is there—at least in my circle.

Our street was torn up on both sides last year so new gas lines could replace the old ones. While at times the noise, mud, dust and steel plates covering holes in sidewalks and driveways were annoying, we all knew the neighborhood would be better and safer for it. Our house is 90 years old, so we’ve had to replace and clean out sewer lines, repair leaking walls in the basement and reroute runoff from the roofs. It’s always a drudge when one of these systems fails, but the time, energy and money put into repairing them always pays off.

Having traveled in countries that have little or no infrastructure, my appreciation is not just that we have functioning systems in the United States, it goes especially to the people who built them in the first place and the countless workers who maintained them thereafter. Before the immense roadway pictured above was built, there was a two-lane street with parking meters on the right and a hillside of weeds on the left. Now, I not only marvel at the engineering design and intelligence that when into the creation of this immense structure, I wonder about the birthing process. What social-political entities initiated this project? Who decided what the roadway needed to be and where it should be placed? Who provided the steel and concrete—and at what cost? What parties came to the table to finance it? I am amazed at how undertakings this huge come to fruition.

 

Concrete Sewer Pipe

Research by the United Nations indicates that most people in the world do not have the luxuries of abundant and clean water, healthful waste-disposal systems, paved roadways and access to an energy grid. In thinking about what it takes to create these structures, I’m reminded of the Peace Corps and what it provides—know how, community development and engagement toward the “eradication of disease, feeding the hungry, and addressing other challenges through innovative, grassroots solutions.” Many of their efforts involve innovation, training, creating infrastructures with the material and human resources at hand—and often in challenging if not impossible political and environmental climates.

I cannot begin to grasp the complexities involved in helping communities in need, whether here or anywhere else. As an armchair appreciator of infrastructure, I just observe that the systems we enjoy—and sometimes complain about and question how to maintain—began with individuals who responded to a pressing need by bringing together people of means and influence to envision a solution and get it financed. The names of these individuals constitute a Who’s Who list of American entrepreneurs and industrialists, people who amassed great fortunes for themselves by investing in the materials and machines that largely resulted in our infrastructure.

Today, gratefully, the tide has turned. Individuals who have generated great wealth are joining Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates as signatories to The Giving Pledge, a commitment by the world’s wealthiest individuals and families to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy. I recommend a visit to their web site where you can click on their names and see the faces of the people who are quite literally, building a better world. Their generosity is a demonstration that consciousness at the top is shifting from “me” to “we.” And it gives us hope.

They are not alone. Investment firms and businesses worldwide have chosen to identify themselves as socially and environmentally responsible, engaging in practices that are focused on more than making a profit, activities intended to “make the world a better place.” Also encouraging are the initiatives of past presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. In his book, Giving: How Each of us Can Change The World, President Clinton profiled many of the innovative efforts being made by companies, organizations and individuals to solve problems and save lives “down the street and around the world.” The Clinton Global Initiative has the former president not only walking the talk, but bringing together global leaders “to create and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.”

Whenever I enjoy a hot shower, drink water from the tap, drive on well-paved roads, enjoy a constant source of power and take comfort in knowing that our waste is being handled properly and recycled, I want to appreciate that these are luxuries that need to be maintained and improved upon. While I am not playing much of a role in these activities, I am  nonetheless participating by being grateful, eagerly paying taxes and voting my conscience.

It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.

William J. Clinton, Former President of the United States

My other sites—

Love And Light greetings.com: A twice-weekly blog featuring wisdom quotes and perspectives in science and spirituality intended to inspire and empower

David L. Smith Photography Portfolio.com: Black and white and color photography

Ancient Maya Cultural Traits.com: Weekly blog featuring the traits that made this civilization unique 

Ingenuity

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The application of skill and imagination to create new things

I’ve long thought that typewriters were amazing. I used the above machine in my freshman year of college. The image called out to me, so I decided to try and understand why. Consulting the web, I discovered that in 1575 an Italian printmaker named Francesco Rampazetto built a machine to impress letters on paper. Centuries and many iterations later, the machines were huge and impractical. Then in 1868, Americans Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Gladden and Samuel W. Soule of Milwaukee invented the first commercially successful, small device that everyday people could use to type words on paper. A prototype was made by machinist Matthias Schwalbach and E. Remington and Sons (sewing machine fame) purchased the patent for $12,000. To promote and sell the machine, they called it a “typewriter.”

The number, variety and complexity of working parts in a typewriter still has me marveling at how a person could envision the whole system and then create the many metal parts such that they fit together perfectly to perform its function. “Ingenuity,” the quality of being clever, original and inventive is certainly the word for it.

In the movie The Martian starring Matt Damon, his character was a master of ingenuity, inventing solutions to seemingly impossible, life threatening circumstances. After a moment of  accepting his inevitable death he decides instead to survive—and he gets busy. And the television series MacGyver has gained popularity in part, I believe, because ingenuity overcomes seemingly impossible situations. Although these are fictitious stories, they demonstrate the very real capacity for human beings to envision and then act in order to build, improve, discover, prevent or recover. To innovate is to advance.

We all know, the motion picture and television industries have evolved the capacity to seamlessly put on the screen anything we can imagine. I think humanity itself is going down that road. The ability to create what we envision is so strong in us, we can well imagine that human beings placed on a lifeless planet, given enough time and opportunity, could turn it into a habitable place, perhaps even transform it into a living system. Like my dad often said, “The impossible just takes a little longer.”

Along with the application of ingenuity and innovation comes advances in understanding our fuller potentials, including who we are, why we’re here, what works and what doesn’t work and the part we’re playing in the unfolding story of the universe. We are not only human beings, we are also human doings.

Observing human activity over the past several decades, geneticists have found that even in the physical domain, “Human evolution has sped up in the past 40,000 years, becoming 100 times faster in the past 5000 years alone.” Buckminster Fuller, whom I was privileged to know, found that up until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century. By the end of World War II knowledge was doubling every 25 years. “Nanotechnology knowledge is doubling every two years and clinical knowledge every 18 months. On average human knowledge is doubling every 13 months.” In 2013 IBM postulated that the Internet will lead to the doubling of knowledge every 12 hours. And then there’s Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns, which says “There’s exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. As we discover more effective ways to do things, we also discover more effective ways to learn.” He says we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century—it will be more like 20,000 years of progress at today’s rate.

From the perspective of the individual person, the activities of satisfying day-to-day needs and wants challenges us to be clever, original and inventive. We envision and take action to secure a better life for ourselves and our families. And we’re always looking for a better way of doing things. Standing back and looking at all this activity from an evolutionary perspective, it appears that we are agents of the universe, exercising a variety of drives that are moving us through increasing complexity, awareness and experimentation to become more on its behalf, perhaps to realize more of its unlimited potential. Could it be that through us, and possibly other intelligent creatures, the universe is expressing all that it can be? Assuming so, I asked myself: Specifically, what are these drives, the urges within us, that are moving the human project forward?

Pondering this when my head hit the pillow, I kept getting up to make notes. Before long, annoyed but grateful, I had a list of action words, ways the universe is “using” us to become more aware, envision, build and grow.

Accelerate / Accentuate / Affiliate / Allocate / Appropriate / Articulate / Authenticate / Communicate / Compensate / Concentrate / Congregate / Contemplate / Create / Cultivate / Decorate / Demonstrate / Discriminate / Educate / Eliminate / Extrapolate / Fascinate / Fixate / Illuminate / Incorporate / Integrate / Interpolate / Investigate / Invigorate / Manipulate /  Migrate / Orchestrate / Participate / Penetrate / Perpetrate / Procreate / Propagate / Reciprocate / Recreate

It seems to me, this partial list of urges illustrate how so much of what we’re dreaming about and creating is the universe operating through us—including the conflicts and breakdowns that are showing what doesn’t work. These urges, better seen as “energies,” lead me to conclude that we’re not just here for ourselves, that we are the leading edge of Earth consciousness, manifesting the world by acting on our everyday needs, wants and aspirations—and finding ingenious ways of realizing them. From this perspective, the universe is as much a verb as it is a noun. A doing, a process of increasing complexity. Thus, the typewriter begets the computer, begets…

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist and poet

My other sites—

Love And Light greetings.com: A twice-weekly blog featuring wisdom quotes and perspectives in science and spirituality intended to inspire and empower

David L. Smith Photography Portfolio.com: Black and white and color photography

Ancient Maya Cultural Traits.com: Weekly blog featuring the traits that made this civilization unique 

On Contemplation

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I came across the following from Thomas Merton. I’ve never read a better description.

Contemplation is the highest expression of man’s intellectual and spiritual life. Is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is a spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceeds from an invisible, transcendent and infinitely abundant Source.

Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that Source. It knows the Source, obscurely, inexplicably, but with a certitude that goes both beyond reason and beyond simple faith. For contemplation is a kind of spiritual vision to which both reason and faith aspire, by their very nature, because without it they must always remain incomplete. Yet contemplation is not vision because it “sees without seeing” and knows “without knowing.”

It is a more profound depth of face, a knowledge too deep to be grasped in images, in the words or even in clear concepts. It can be suggested by words, by symbols, but in the very moment of trying to indicate what is knows the contemplative mind takes back what it has said, and denies what it has affirmed. For in contemplation we know by ‘unknowing.’ Or, better, we know beyond all knowing or “unknowing.

Thomas Merton, Trappist monk, theologian, mystic

Author, New Seeds of Contemplation

Shifting Perspectives

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Seeing the sacred and profane in the same object

Scanned from negative

One of my long-standing pet peeves has been littering. I even won a speech contest by ranting and raving about it in my high school years.

Linda and I were running errands recently and we saw several places strewn with litter. Two years ago when I contacted the person in charge of cleaning up litter in the city, he not only encouraged me to report areas of gross negligence, he followed through, even to the extent of notifying his counterparts in surrounding municipalities that were not in his jurisdiction. Gratefully, the areas I brought to his attention get cleaned up.

Around that same time I was picking up trash in the neighborhood on my too infrequent walks for exercise, when I picked up this beer can. Wearing my “waste management hat,” I saw it as garbage and the negative thoughts came pouring in. How many such cans are going into landfills or clogging up sewer drains? How much of the earth’s supply of aluminum is being used to deliver gazillions of one-use substances every month that take minutes to consume? And I wondered about people who litter. What are they thinking? Or are they not thinking at all about what they’re doing? Also, how does a person get to the point where they have so little or no regard for their neighborhood, community or planet, much less an aesthetic sensibility that would make them think twice about littering?

Some years back a young colleague observed a neighbor drop a bag of half-consumed fast food onto the yard of the apartment where they both lived. My friend knew this person well enough that he could ask about it. The man’s reply was “Why should I care? Nobody else cares. What has the world ever done for me?” (A direct quote). That was insightful. Not everyone in this country grows up like I did—in a loving family, particularly one in which consideration for others and respect for property was strictly enforced—and modeled. And not all educational systems in the United States teach young people about the impact we are having on the environment, and that something (recycling, not littering and cleanup initiatives) can be done about it. I was recently surprised when I spoke with a 50+ woman who hadn’t even heard the word “ecology.”

Waste is a global challenge. Travelers to Germany report that their land and cityscapes are largely litter-free. On the other hand, there are countries where littering and letting garbage collect is the only option. Clearly, how a society handles its waste is a complex issue, conditioned by historical, geographical, cultural, political and economic circumstances. As such, less developed countries deserve understanding in this regard rather than judgment on my part.

Closer to home and on a more scientific note, research by Keep America Beautiful has determined that people litter because they feel no sense of ownership, even though areas such as parks and beaches are public property. They believe that it’s the job of park maintenance or highway workers to pick up after them. Their other findings include:

  • People of all ages and social backgrounds have been observed littering, but individuals under 30 were more likely to litter than those who are older. In fact, age, and not gender, is a significant predictor of littering behavior.
  • 18% of all littered items end up in our streams and waterways as pollution.
  • 1. 9 billion tons of litter ends up in the ocean every year.
  • $11.5 billion is spent every year to clean up litter.
  • 50% of littered items are cigarette butts.

On the positive side, over the past decade, the Keep America Beautiful network has:

  • Mobilized 10’s of millions of volunteers and participants.
  • Picked up over half a BILLION pounds of litter and debris.
  • Recycled over 250M pounds of materials.
  • Cleaned over half a million miles of roads, trails, and along waterways.
  • Planted millions of trees, flowers, and bulbs.

When I arrived home from my walk and separated out a bottle and this can for recycling, the dew on its surface forced me to put on my photographer’s hat. Suddenly, the smashed can was an object of beauty. And the negative thoughts it evoked in me made it, well, evocative. I had been thinking about using this image for a blog contemplation, but I’d been putting it off because I couldn’t decide on a theme. Then, I saw a bumper-sticker that read, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

I laughed. But it was just the impetus I needed. My perspective shifted! One moment I’m seeing this  beer can as litter, evidence of someone’s not caring and not taking responsibility for their neighborhood or planet. Moments later, I see it as an an object appealing to my aesthetic. And then a bumper-sticker comes along and points to the can’s place in a broader context. The can didn’t change, but my way of seeing it did. Oh, and what  had to happen for that can and beer to even exist? A contemplation for another day.

So this contemplation reinforces for me, how even the smallest, seemingly innocuous and possibly annoying things in life have their place. How I see them determines my mental-emotional experience. It’s not that I gained a greater appreciation for litter. I didn’t. It still bothers me. But I’m more at peace with it now, seeing that everything, even litter on the streets, is evidence that all is well and the universe wants us to be happy.

Ultimately the best way of teaching, whether the subject is mathematics, history, or philosophy, is to make the students aware of the beauties involved. We need to teach our children unitive perception, the Zen experience of being able to see the temporal and the eternal simultaneously, the sacred and the profane in the same object.

Zen Teaching