Category: Photography

In the Days That Follow

walking the Portuguese Coastal Camino, May 2022

In the Days That Follow

Imagine the wrongs made right, the crooked made straight
the middle way the means to hold the center strong
the point to rise again to choose again
to act with love, to be kind.

Invoke the wisdom of ancients, angels, and ancestors
with wild words of song, and prayers whispered
over a cauldron wrought of shadowed griefs
fired by our righteous rage.

Mix equal parts beauty, truth, and justice into
an elixir made in paradox, luminescent in the dark
heaven sent on the more-than-human breath
earth bound on waves of sand and water.

Elemental formula with sacred geometry
to bravely mend and steadfastly restore
our broken hearts, a torn country,
the exhausted planet.

A work in progress, this poem coalesced the day following the US election. Like many around the world, I awoke to the news I’d hoped and prayed would be different. A brief scroll though social media and a friend’s post of an image – no words – of a tear falling down a woman’s cheek said it all.

Last night, I began reading The Dreaming Way: Courting the Wisdom of Dreams (2024), the latest book by Toko-pa Turner. An internationally recognized dreamworker and one with whom I have personally studied, Toko-pa writes, “As our dreams nudge us in step with the larger intent of nature, we grow to see how necessary we are to these troubled times.”

Describing the Dreaming Way as the practice of choosing to live in reciprocity with the inner and outer worlds, she encourages us to regularly shift our attention away from our modern, external life of reason and rationale to take seriously the imaginal world and dreaming. By doing so, we are contributing to the shifting power in the world and enacting a revolution from within.

My poem, sourced from and steeped in the richness of the imaginal world, is a homage to knowing, trusting, and valuing the necessity of walking in both worlds, my long-time way of being. Now, I recommit to paying more and regular attention to my inner life, a takeaway from my most recent long walk, and the boon of living in my eldering landscape. My life and our world depend on it.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

Holding Vigil Holding Each Other’s Hands

Capranica, Italy along la Via Francigena

My usual pattern is to post a poem with one of my photos on Fridays, maybe with some reflection – what evoked it being selected, or what it stirs in me. Mondays are for my own writing. Musings on my wabi sabi life. What I call “contemplative creative nonfiction.” Not sure that’s a legit genre beyond my imagination, but it is an apt description.

This morning (I’m writing on Sunday for a Monday drop), fresh with that extra “fall back” hour, this poem arrived in my inbox, the daily offering from the Daily Rattle. Written by American poet, playwright and essayist, Alison Luterman, it’s her in-the-moment response to the mounting tensions in the US. It resonates for me, for like it or not, what happens Tuesday, on their election day, reverberates around the world with vast implications. So, I’m shifting my pattern in response.

Thinking of my American friends and family members, I share Luterman’s heaviness and hold vigil with, as I wrote here on Friday, deep hope and much prayer. And as I wrote last Monday, knowing, too, the profound gift of care and safety that comes from holding each other’s hands and having each other’s backs.

May we not let go.

HOLDING VIGIL

My cousin asks if I can describe this moment,
the heaviness of it, like sitting outside
the operating room while someone you love
is in surgery and you’re on those awful plastic chair
eating flaming Doritos from the vending machine
which is the only thing that seems appealing to you, dinner-wise,
waiting for the moment when the doctor will come out
in her scrubs and face-mask, which she’ll pull down
to tell you whether your beloved will live or not. That’s how it feels
as the hours tick by, and everyone I care about
is texting me with the same cold lump of dread in their throat
asking if I’m okay, telling me how scared they are.
I suppose in that way this is a moment of unity,
the fact that we are all waiting in the same
hospital corridor, for the same patient, who is on life support,
and we’re asking each other, Will he wake up?
Will she be herself? And we’re taking turns holding vigil,
as families do, and bringing each other coffee
from the cafeteria, and some of us think she’s gonna make it
while others are already planning what they’ll wear to the funeral,
which is also what happens at times like these,
and I tell my cousin I don’t think I can describe this moment,
heavier than plutonium, but on the other hand,
in the grand scheme of things, I mean the whole sweep
of human history, a soap bubble, because empires
are always rising and falling, and whole civilizations
die, they do, they get wiped out, this happens
all the time, it’s just a shock when it happens to your civilization,
your country, when it’s someone from your family on the respirator,
and I don’t ask her how she’s sleeping, or what she thinks about
when she wakes at three in the morning,
cause she’s got two daughters, and that’s the thing,
it’s not just us older people, forget about us, we had our day
and we burned right through it, gasoline, fast food,
cheap clothing, but right now I’m talking about the babies,
and not just the human ones, but also the turtles and owls
and white tigers, the Redwoods, the ozone layer,
the icebergs for the love of God—every single
blessed being on the face of this earth
is holding its breath in this moment,
and if you’re asking, can I describe that, Cousin,
then I’ve gotta say no, no one could describe it
we all just have to live through it,
holding each other’s hands.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

Clouds

enroute to Gambassi Terme
enroute to Acquapendente

CLOUDS
All afternoon, Sir,
your ambassadors have been turning
into lakes and rivers.
At first they were just clouds, like any other.
Then they broke open. This is, I suppose,
just one of the common miracles,
a transformation, not a vision,
not an answer, not a proof, but I put it
there, close against my heart, where the need is, and it serves

the purpose. I go on, soaked through, my hair
slicked back;
like corn, or wheat, shining and useful.

Mary Oliver, in Why I Wake Early, 2004

Oh, the clouds.

Walking most of the eighteen days in Italy on la Via Francigena – up and down Tuscan hills, across the wide expanses of freshly tilled farmland, in forests dappled with light or dark and sodden with rain – those heavenly ambassadors companioned us, occasionally letting loose their heavy load. A common miracle turned potentially disastrous, depending on the day, the colour of the weather alert (yellow, orange or red) and location in the country, or continent. (In Morocco last week, rain turned years’ dry lakes and rivers into muddy flows.) We were always safe, with our technical guides, Ambra and then Laura, always checking on their various weather and trail apps.

One day, I accepted the invitation to make the memories that come from braving the elements, and walked with three of my companions the distance to Bolsena- every step in the persistent rain and wind. Twenty-six kilometers from early morning to late afternoon through acres of dying sunflowers, village streets, forest paths, up into the medieval town and then down its treacherously steep and slippery cobblestone to the lakeside town’s more contemporary hotels. Clouds so thick the spectacular views obscured until the next day.

Soaked but warm. No waterproofing enough to withstand the deluge.
Shining and smiling. Proud of our accomplishment.
Memories made.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

memories made in medieval Bolsena, Italy (me in red)
photo credit: Laura Harris

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth
remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

– Mary Oliver –

This poem arrived shortly after I had posted Monday’s blog, Love Letters to Life. Its imagery brings to life what I could only hope to have conveyed. That by walking alone along the same river routes for weeks, I began to know and feel my relationship with earth, with life, and its relationship with me. That as I re-remembered this, so, too, was I being remembered, taken in, and held by earth.

A few minutes ago, I wished my friend “buona notte” as we concluded our monthly Zoom call. Held within our mutual love and respect for each other, our conversations always bring gifts – an insight, deeper clarity, more to ponder. Knowing that in a week’s time I’ll be in Italy, feeling its imminent “realness” and growing excitement and curiosity, with her invitation I was able to speak my intention for walking, alone-together with women, currently strangers, but soon to be walking mates.

May we feel remembered by the earth.
May we “sleep as never before,” rising each morning rested, refreshed, and ready for the day’s stage.
May our thoughts “float as light as moths among the branches of perfect trees,” and not weigh heavy as stones in our packs.
May we feel the presence, support, and joy of being with each other, inviting each other and ourselves into “something better.”

This will be my last Friday photo and poem feature until my return in mid-October. I expect to post “love letters” on Facebook if you’d like to follow along. Until then, much love and kindest regards, dear friends.


Love Letters to Life

“We were lovers who … decided to make the world a better place by slowing down long enough to pay for its improvement—by paying attention, the reverent, even holy attention of love.”

Brian McLaren, The Galápagos Islands 

My understanding of “paying attention” as a form of gratitude and reciprocity for the abundance we receive from the natural world first came to my awareness when I read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass. A couple of years ago, I wrote here about its impact on me. Now, reading last week’s daily meditations from Father Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation, with the theme “Befriending Nature,” and listening to podcasts wherein the notion of “anima mundi” had been mentioned, I re-remembered a gift of walking alone, or with another but silently: the slowing down to notice… to really take in… to pay with my attention.

Since July, I have walked over 400 km solo, accompanied by the soft tapping of my poles on dirt and pavement paths; voices heard through my earbuds narrating novels and poetry, or in podcast conversations; urban infrastructure; people and their dogs and babies. During every outing, along routes that have become like familiar friends, I’d stop several times to simply breathe deeper and take in my surroundings: the unusual birdsong; the season’s changing colours; temperatures warmed or cooled by a sudden breeze; the river’s surface. During every outing, always an image or several made with my phone to reflect some essence of that day’s beauty. And after every walk, I’d record the steps, kilometers, and time walked and post it together with my photos and a brief description of my experience. The longer I did this, the more I realized that what I was really doing was composing love letters to life. By showing up on those paths every other day for weeks and noticing and recording, I was saying:

I am here to be with you, to walk in, and among, and on you.
I am here to notice you, to be in relation with you, to be moved, and changed by you.
I am here to say thank you for always, unfailingly, uplifting me – turning my fatigue into curiosity, my sour mood into a smile or a tear.

When I walked the Portuguese Coastal Camino, most of that distance solo and unplugged, I composed a chant from words I’d read by Thich Nhat Hahn and Rumi, to help maintain my rhythm and bring some ease and pleasure to the long distances:

With every step I kiss the Earth.
With every step I make a prayer.
The Soul comes for its own joy.
Dance on, dance on, dance on.

This time, while I’d only remembered the first line, whisper-singing it in a new iteration as I walked, I was mindful of making prayers for friends unwell and suffering. This summer, and in a few weeks’ time in a country I deeply love, walking a section of the Via Francigena, I slow down long enough to pay my attention…my reverent, holy attention of love.

Much love, kindest regards, and many thanks for your support and encouragement during my preparation.


So Much Happiness

so much happiness…in a boat by the Amalfi Coast

SO MUCH HAPPINESS

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
A wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to
pick up,
Something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs
or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
And disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
And now live over a quarry of noise and dust
Cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
It too could wake up filled with possibilities
Of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
And love even the floor which needs to be swept,
The soiled linens and scratched records….

Since there is no place large enough
To contain so much happiness,
You shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
Into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
For the moon, but continues to hold it, and to share it,
And in that way, be known.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye ~

I’ve been absent from this space for a few weeks. I’ve been preoccupied with walking in preparation for another long walk in Italy. This time, a section of the Via Francigena, one of the oldest of Europe’s many pilgrimages. In three weeks, I’ll be bound for Rome where, the Fairweather and Travel gods willing, I’ll land, secure my train ticket at the airport, and continue to one of Tuscany’s famous hill towns, San Miniato. There, I’ll stay in a bright, spacious apartment with a view onto vineyards and hills, to rest, recalibrate and meet my walking mates four days later.

This summer, I’ve walked close to four hundred kilometers in our river valley, rain or mostly shine, and mostly alone. When I’m not listening to podcasts or audio books, I’m aware of my shifting moods. Those uninvited guests – the sadness or irritation, self-doubt, and even anger – most often at the beginning of a walk when fatigue and loneliness weigh, when I’ve yet to find my stride, or my place within the nature that is surrounding me. When I stop to notice the beauty holding me, to breathe, to give myself a few words of encouragement for persevering, then happiness and gratitude arrive.

While this wasn’t the year for peaches here – cold froze the Okanagan orchards – we did have a bumper crop of raspberries with many eaten fresh and many more frozen for winter muffins, galettes, and smoothies. And that errant red currant seed dropped by a bird a couple of years ago bore just enough berries to make my first ever two small jars of glistening garnet-coloured jelly. So much happiness in a spoon, spread on sourdough seedy rye toast.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

How is Your Haal (Heart)?

“In many Muslim cultures, when you want to ask them how they’re doing, you ask: in Arabic, Kayf haal-ik? or, in Persian, Haal-e shomaa chetoreh? How is your haal?

What is this haal that you inquire about? It is the transient state of one’s heart. In reality, we ask, ‘How is your heart doing at this very moment, at this breath?’ When I ask, ‘How are you?’ that is really what I want to know.

I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. Tell me. Tell me your heart is joyous, tell me your heart is aching, tell me your heart is sad, tell me your heart craves a human touch. Examine your own heart, explore your soul, and then tell me something about your heart and your soul.

Tell me you remember you are still a human being, not just a human doing. Tell me you’re more than just a machine, checking off items from your to-do list. Have that conversation, that glance, that touch. Be a healing conversation, one filled with grace and presence.

Put your hand on my arm, look me in the eye, and connect with me for one second. Tell me something about your heart and awaken my heart. Help me remember that I, too, am a full and complete human being, a human being who also craves a human touch.”

— Omid Safi, from The Disease of Being Busy

heartful distractions on my writing desk

My friend Sally, who I met last year walking the Via di Francesco, shared this post from our mutual friend, Omid Safi. I first “met” Omid when he was one of a cadre of regular bloggers/columnists posting in an early iteration of On Being. It was in the aftermath of 9-11 when tensions, animosities, and cultural misunderstandings were high, particularly in the US. What always touched me was how Omid, who is a professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University, always wrote with an open-hearted clarity, generously giving space for multiple perspectives and opinions, all the while sharing his culture by way of story. In my experience of Omid, his writing and online presence are an embodiment of his love and reverence for his teacher, Rumi, founder of the Sufi order of whirling dervishes.

On a day when I read that over 40,000 lives have been lost to the conflict in Gaza, with thousands more unaccounted for, Omid’s message of heartful connection and healing conversation lands deep within my heart and soul.

Ours has been a virtual friendship. One day I hope to meet Omid in person, perhaps on one of his Illuminated Tours to Turkey or Morocco. One day I hope to put my hand on his arm, look him in the eye, tell him something about the state of my heart, and listen to him tell me about his. And together remember we are each and all human beings, craving human touch, connection, and peace.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

Beauty Comes From Loss

Some say you’re lucky
If nothing shatters it.

But then you wouldn’t
Understand poems or songs.
You’d never know
Beauty comes from loss.

It’s deep inside every person:
A tear tinier
Than a pearl or thorn.

It’s one of the places
Where the beloved is born.

~ Gregory Orr, Concerning The Book That Is the Body Of The Beloved

One from my “saved poem” file from a poet who writes from knowing deep loss and nearly unbearable grief.

A poem that touches on the essence of my writing and my wabi sabi life. That beauty is found in life’s imperfections and comes from its losses. That with time, in a life sometimes broken, but mostly well-lived and much loved, such beauty becomes polished, like the grain of sand that becomes the pearl, rubbed inside the oyster’s shell. It’s like that for all of us – deep inside every person – if we choose to look at life this way

For the past many years my earrings of choice have been silver-grey freshwater pearls, embellished with tiny sterling silver beads, a signature design from Canadian jeweler, Effie Baker. They’re an interesting juxtaposition to the simple diamond studs that I always wear, my birthstone, and a Christmas gift many years ago from my husband. Last summer, after a long wait and good fortune, I gifted myself with a pair of baroque pearl earrings hung from antique Chinese silver and enamel made by another Canadian designer Soma Mo, first seen during covid and for many months sold out. In recent months, I’ve taken to wearing hers every day.

There’s something about pearls that speak to me of the feminine…originating from the watery realm of feelings and intuition…their voluptuous shape and subtle luster…how they become warm with wearing. These pearls remind me of the love in which these two women artists create…a love then gifted to me when I was attracted and responded by allowing myself to purchase them.

The beauty found in, and from loss, that when rubbed up against, as in life, becomes transformed. The beloved born in that.

What a poem and pearl earrings can evoke.
Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

Consider the Life of Trees

Consider the life of trees.
Aside from the axe, what trees acquire from man is inconsiderable.
From their mute forms there flows a poise, in silence;
a lovely sound and motion in response to wind.
What peace comes to those aware of the voice and bearing of
trees!
Trees do not scream for attention.
A tree, a rock, has no pretense, only a real growth out of itself
in close communion with the universal spirit.
A tree remains in deep serenity.
It establishes in the earth not only its root system but also
those roots of its beauty and its unknown consciousness.
Sometimes one may sense a glisten of that consciousness, and with
such perspective, feel that man is not necessarily the highest form of life.

Cedric Wright in Earth Prayers From Around the World, 1991

I returned home last night from four days on Vancouver Island, visiting dear friends whose home and hospitality make for a soul-restoring haven. They graciously show me their favourite sights, trusting I’ll delight in what they’ve discovered since relocating there a few years ago. This year, the weather was more in keeping with a Pacific Northwest autumn: cool, overcast, misty with showers, giving us plenty of conversation time in the warm glow of their indoor and outdoor fireplaces. Tuesday, we drove to Cathedral Grove, a popular tourist site along the Tofino highway, graced by a stand of giant, ancient Douglas Firs. It was my first time encountering these enormous stately sentinels. I was rendered awestruck and silent in their presence, taken to the place I have named “before, beneath and beyond words.” One hundred photos later, my friend’s one of me standing in that awe in front of the grove’s largest tree, one estimated to be over 800 years old, and taller than Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa, confirmed the perspective that neither man nor woman are the highest form of life.

perspective

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends. And a heart full of gratitude to my friends for the unforgettable experience.

These Days

Medicine Walking

THESE DAYS
Anyone who tells you not to be afraid
should have their head examined.
Cities are burning, hillsides are ablaze.
and the dumpster fire of our common life
is out of control. I wish I could tell you
when it was going to get better.
I wish I could promise that better
was anywhere down this road.
I miss dancing, bodies in something
between conversation and flight.
I miss singing, the way we trusted
the air that moved between us. I miss
the casual assumption that everything
would be alright in the morning.
These days I am trying to be buoyed
by the smallest things –
a ripe tomato, a smattering of rain.
These days I am trying to remember
that songs of lamentation
are still songs.

Lynn Ungar, These Days: Poetry of the Pandemic Age, 2020

There is so much about this poem – found searching my bookshelf for one to frame my day, this week, my life, LIFE – that is in perfect alignment, despite it being written four years ago with its context the pandemic.

Today, I did a Medicine Walk along my favourite river valley route. Despite training for my long walk in September, this walk was not about distance, elevation, or pace. In honor of the feast day of Saint James – Sant Iago, as in Santiago, as in the Camino – it would be a walking prayer for the health and well-being, for a miracle, for a friend… for several friends… each besieged by life-threatening illness. It became, too, a prayer for all beings displaced, distraught, and destroyed by the wildfires.

Despite an almost twenty-degree drop in temperature, with the morning overcast, thick with smoke from wildfires that last night ravaged one of Alberta’s beloved treasures, Jasper National Park, and its century old townsite, and heavy with rain that eventually, blessedly fell, I dressed for weather and set out. I chose as my audio companion the exquisitely composed “Camino” by the late Canadian violinist, Oliver Schroer. The first notes of the first track, “Field of Stars,” are a haunting homage to Santiago de Compostela (field of stars). The ambient tracks blended with birdsong on my path such that I felt surrounded and held by the morning’s poignant beauty. A perfect reflection of my interior landscape and the devastated one to the west.

Where a few weeks ago pink wild roses bloomed thick and heady with perfume, today’s bushes were laden with ripe purple saskatoon berries and blood-red wild raspberries. Golden yarrow and wild sage filled river banks. To my way of thinking, tasting those berries was my holy communion, the real “body of Christ.”

As steam rose from the placid river, a lone pelican glided above on its huge, outstretched wings. I lost sight of it, and then looking up, there he was again, effortless in his flight. I wondered about the significance of his appearance as I’d never seen one before on this stretch. Once home, I consulted Ted Andrews’ classic Animal Speak to learn they represent renewed buoyancy, unselfishness, and the need to not be weighed down by emotion. Wise medicine for these days.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.