A quiet morning revealed the difference between doing and simply being In the wee small hours of the morning, while the whole wide world is fast asleep… The rain has stopped. The streets are fresh and warm. The sky is clear. The day begins to form… The opening lyric to these favorite songs conveys the sensibility […]
How a television screen illustrates the mystery of pure potential The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me. Meister Eckhart Have you ever become so absorbed in a movie that you completely forgot the screen it was projected on? We laugh. We cry. We become frightened. We […]
What we are not, can reveal what we are in essence Every photograph I’ve ever made is a portrait of impermanence. After the shutter clicks, the subject changes. The light grows brighter or darker. A cloud moves. A flower fades. A child grows older. A face changes. Even mountains—given enough time—rise and disappear. Photography teaches […]
What the Butterfly Reveals About Humanity’s Painful Transformation My contemplations tend to focus on the present. They’re usually prompted by one of my photographs, the social climate, or patterns in current events—what people are talking about online or in person. For these I generally write with a “closeup” or “normal” lens. This topic requires something […]
“The Force” and “The Way” — Avatars, Movies, and the Future of Human Flourishing I hadn’t thought much about the word “avatar” until James Cameron’s movie came out. After enjoying it immensely, I realized that he’d used technology to analogously portray the spirit-to-matter process whereby Divine Spirit vibrationally “individuates” a life force or soul, which […]
A Practice of Compassion, Presence and Shared Humanity After placing an order at a fast food restaurant takeout menu, Linda pulled up to the window. I was in the passenger seat. She handed over the money and moments later, when the bag of food was delivered she noticed a sandwich was missing. She waved to […]
Qualities of Love and Consciousness Are Shaping Our Evolutionary Future My common practice for this blog is to select a photograph that will prompt a contemplation. In this instance, due to a period of focused readings in theology and philosophy relative to the future of humanity, there came a moment when I had the distinct […]
The Intersection of Nature and Technology Through the many decades that I’ve been photographing landscapes, utility poles of all kinds, sizes and wires have been a nuisance. Their placement often interfered with rural settings, and in cities the lines tended to be a mess. I don’t like being critical, but when I see these, the […]
Why the “Domination” Paradigm Fails and the “Communion” Paradigm Endures Through decades of studying the rise and fall of the ancient Maya civilization of Central America, one of my areas of interest has been the formation and decline of “kingship,” how power was gained and wielded and how it failed. Universally, and from a whole-systems […]
Are They “Individuals” or “Persons?” In the early 1960s I was photographing quite a lot in Cincinnati’s Findley Market downtown. This woman turned and saw that was pointing my camera at her, so she turned and posed. I took the shot, thanked her and we moved on. After writing my post, “The Typewriter and Authenticity,” […]
Contemplative Photography 