the art of doing meditative nature photography

Posts tagged ‘balance’

Ugh. If It’s One of Those Days, Just Try to Keep Your Best Side Showing!

Ugh. If it’s one of those days

Just try to keep your best side showing.

Oh, boy is it one of those days!

It’s official. I am blaming writer’s block, creativity block, and ability-to-write-worth-a-darn block on my allergies. Pollen has taken over my brain, and my thoughts are as congested as my nose.

And to think, spring is my “favorite season”. Hmm, I may re-think that and demote spring for its pollen-y rudeness.

It’s hard to chase rainbows when you’re sneezing. Yet that’s what I do every day! As a nature photographer and writer, doing daily nature photography is the air I breathe. My hiking adventures nourish me with the inspiration, purpose, and meaning I need to be happy. This past week, however, has been a bit of a foggy, sneezy blur.

So this week’s post based on the book is about keeping your best side showing. Although for me that’s a bit tough today, given that my nose looks a bit like Rudolph’s and my eyes look like they belong on a puffer fish.

No doubt today my best side is not quite as lovely as this little flower’s.

But that’s okay, for it’s our inner beauty that counts in life. It’s putting our best self forward that matters, regardless of the situation, be it red stuffy noses or a few embarrassingly missing petals. And though my brain is a bit befuddled with the wafting bud-dust of spring, I’m still giving my best effort, best side forward to the world.

My usual hike with my camera was cut short today, by chilly dropping temperatures and a mighty wind stirring up whole clouds of my pollen nemesis.

So it’s a bit of an “ugh” day for me.

I get the impression this little scrub jay knows what I mean. He looks befuddled, too.

But since I can’t breathe without a little joy from nature every day, I came home and made my own.

I am admittedly a little bit nuts about rainbows. Since I was a small child I have collected prisms of all shapes and sizes. I hang them in every south facing window and let them splash wiggling light splotches of joy all over my home. They look like flocks of crystal birds hanging delicately in the sun.

Today I was grateful for the miracle of just enough sunlight, peeking through the clouds of our approaching Colorado spring snowstorm, finding its way through my prisms’ glass bevels. My hike in nature may have been cut short, but I still chased my dreams… and I literally caught a rainbow today.

I just made the best of a kind of lousy circumstance!

My allergies won’t last forever, and this spring storm will pass. Maybe it will even create a nice rainbow as it drifts on by! One way or the other I’ll put on my best Rudolph the puffer fish face and head out on the trails again, looking for rainbows and glorious signs of spring. My nose may dislike spring, but my eyes know it to be a magnificent season of rebirth and beauty.

It’s a dazzling season to chase dreams in, full of the inspiration of buds, blooms, and bears bravely emerging from their winter slumber to live a new adventure.

So I’ll be brave, too, and keep hiking despite the pollen, and I’ll be sure to remember what I learned from the lovely red-and-yellow gaillardia flower- just keep your best side showing.

Category:

Posts based on the book, Uncategorized

Tagged with:

Lean In and Listen to Life’s Sweet Whispers

What is life telling you?

Are you even listening?

Have you ever noticed how often we find ourselves scrambling madly about, “looking” for answers to life’s biggest questions. We’re shouting at the wind, often loudly, all 7 billion of us. A confused and befuddled lot we are, creating a cacophonous roar of humanity, all screaming, “What am I supposed to do?!”

I hike in nature nearly every day. I see animals making decisions, encountering obstacles, dealing with predators, building nests and seeking out the nourishment they need to face another day. And while the occasional noisy uproar takes place, for the most part they‘re not a screaming bunch. If anything, they’re a pleasant, musical bunch, happily going about their business with tweets and chirps. They’re not generally freaking out or creating any sort of inharmonious hullabaloo.

How do they do it?

Why are these wild animals, out in the dangerous “wild” so generally at peace? What do these cute little critters know that we don’t?

They listen to the whispers of life. They’re quiet enough to hear them. These seemingly meek and simple creatures exist in a very natural state, uncluttered by the demands, the noise, the chaos of our modern human lives. They know when to shut up, be still, and tune in.

They do far more listening than chattering.

Even the much-maligned squirrel, the notorious “spaz” of the forest, actually spends a great deal of time just being still. Just, well, being. They spend hours lounging lazily on comfy bark-covered branches. And when they need information to help them make a decision, they don’t run around chirping and squeaking and chattering madly. They stop, hang from a tree, and just listen.

Human critters don’t spend enough time listening. The squirrel only chatters when it has to. When it’s figuring something out (including what the heck that clicking sound is coming from my camera), it is quiet. It tunes in. It listens and absorbs information instead of shouting at the wind that it doesn’t know what to do. I think we humans need to learn a little critter wisdom!

Today I got fabulous practice in the art of listening and lending an ear.

Ironically, in the middle of writing this, I spent two hours conversing with a dear friend in the throes of a mammoth life upheaval. Oh, boy, out came my human instinct to talk! But instead I listened. I stared at the draft of this post as we talked and made sure I really listened. And then she listened. I listened because she needed someone to hear her news, and she listened because there was information I had that she needed. In the stillness of the space we created, information could get through and understanding could be born. In that space we could hear answers, whispered softly across the ocean from one friend to the other. That’s how good communication works.

The answers are there for us, just as the animals know. Sometimes all we need is to quiet our minds and discover that the answers, really, are within us. We know what to do, if we just listen to ourselves, and listen for the cues the world offers to us. Stop shouting “What’s the answer?!” long enough to hear the reply.

Animals know that whatever information they seek is probably right in front of them. We humans may think we have the smartest brains, but wisdom lives in all kinds of beings. Pride won’t get in the way of me seeing that I could learn something from a stellar’s jay. Arrogance won’t blind me to the sage-like ways of the raven who stands confidently on the cliff’s edge, waiting, listening.  Humility moves in and tells me I’m the student of life, here.

I’ll gladly walk in the paws of the wise squirrel who hangs in the stillness, the attentive bunny who cocks her little head to hear more clearly, and in the feet of the astute chickadee who holds on tight and listens to life’s sweet whispers.

Category:

Posts from the trails, Uncategorized

Tagged with:

Every Bud Enjoys the Anticipation of What it Could Become

Ah, flower buds.

Sweetly wrapped up bundles of loveliness.

As they sit waiting for the day their petals unfurl to reveal the glory within, do you think they enjoy the anticipation of what they are about to become?

Okay, I don’t really know what flower buds think. But when I follow a plant photographically from sprouting to budding to full bloom, the moment that seems to hang in the air with breathless anticipation is the bud on the verge of bloom.

It’s intoxicating. I know that feeling. I love that feeling.

Because anticipation is one of the sweetest sensations in life.

And it’s at least half the fun.  For those of us on the creative path in life, when we have dreams we’re chasing, the anticipation is what keeps us going. It’s the months of swooning daydreams you have leading up to glorious events, adventures, and joys in life. It’s what we feel when we have something to look forward to. And what is life if there’s nothing to look forward to?

It is the anticipation of the future that propels us forward, like a wind at our backs, or a rope pulling us in. We lean towards it. We feel that future just beyond our finger tips’ reach and…. keep reaching.

So when I’m lying in the dirt, macro lens at the ready, clicking away at the soft, new, baby-fine petals-to-be, I drift off into that goose-bumpy emotion. A bud has shared with me the gift of enjoying its anticipation.

(Click on any of my photographs to see an enlarged image)

Are we so unlike the flower? Just ponder, how many such blooming transitions do we have in our own lives? We have our own seasons of growth and rest, bursting forth and settling down. We experience cycles upon cycles of transformation.

Stirring within me in those moments, beyond empathizing with the transition of the bud, beyond soaking up the yummy feeling of anticipation, I also feel inspired. If this fragile, kind-of-helpless little plant can find the power, the gracefulness and the know-how to burst through cool spring soil to become this magnificent expression of beauty… then what am I capable of?

What are you capable of? More than you realize? More than you ever dreamed? Be the bud today. Enter a new transition. Dare to ask yourself, am I a magnificent expression of beauty in this world? Be with that question for a while. If the flower can do it, I’ll bet you can, too.

So maybe today begins a transition. Why not? Set some new sight, new expectation, new goal or dream to blossom in to. Commit to it with the strength of the sprout that emerges from the land. Go make it beautiful as the bud does. And enjoy the anticipation of what you are about to become.

Then smile today. After all, you just had inspiration from a flower bud… how fun is that?

We’re all here for you, in the field of wildflowers! Does anyone have a dream they’re willing to share? What are your buds going to become?

Category:

Posts from the trails, Uncategorized

Tagged with:

Calmly Soaring on the Hunt for What We Want in Life

Inspiration doesn’t come by flapping madly about.

Meaning and purpose in our lives are revealed not by pressure, not by effort, not by a bossy, inner voice proclaiming shoulds and nagging us about what we ought to do.

It is only by soaring above the cacophonous voices of the world (and our own past) that we enter the calm air of tranquility where our own, authentic inner voice becomes clear. And our own vision becomes clear. See not from the ground, where the clutter of life interferes with our line of sight, but from above, where the panorama of the Big Picture can put it all in perspective.

Go on a hunt for meaning. Be the hawk. Find some stillness. Find some silence. Go ahead, it’s okay. Ride the wind till you catch an updraft that suspends you and holds you gently while you listen with keen ears and see with new eyes.  Stay aloft until you find what you seek. It’s there, from this view, standing out from the scenery below.

(Click on any of my photographs to see an enlarged image)

Category:

Posts from the trails, Uncategorized

Tagged with:

Some days upside-down and barely hanging on by our toes, other days perched way up high and on top of the world

Life Is a balancing act… and nature understands

Some days upside-down and barley hanging on by our toes, other days perched way up high and on top of the world

Heck, not just some days! It’s true of ‘some years’, ‘some months’, ‘some projects’…

I was on top of the world at the beginning of last summer, reveling in sunny warm weather, daily hikes in nature with my camera, and progress on my book coming along beautifully. But by September I was barely hanging on by my toes. A crippling medical issue had brought my photography jaunts in nature to a grinding halt. I couldn’t bear the pain of sitting at the computer to write, either, and despair was wrapping its ugly arms around me in an unwelcomed grizzly hug.

This book began as a delightful exploration of finding our balance through time in nature. (See the post: Welcome to balance through the lens.) But in some grand karmic joke my life absolutely became a balancing act as I wrapped up the last few months of photography and editing. On one side of the cosmic balancing scales sat my happy desire to complete the project, my love of my daily photographic jaunts in nature, and a sweet anticipation of the satisfaction I would feel when it was finally done. Heaped on the other side of the scale like a pile of bricks was my old nemesis- an excruciating neuralgia (nerve pain) in my left cheek, left over from a not-so-fun adventure with shingles eight years prior.

It had been many years since the pain had flared up, but evidently the stress of- okay, I’ll admit it- somewhat obsessive photography, too little sleep, and my kids just starting middle and high school had pushed me over the edge. A month after the first twinge, I was also down with bronchitis, probably brought on by the constant worry of it all, my disappointment at (I thought) not being able to finish the book before year’s end, and the frustration of being denied my daily hike-n-shoot. My time in nature is the air I breathe. It gives me freshness, light, and joy.  It also gives me a few aches and pains. Let me explain…

(Click on any of my photographs to see an enlarged image)

 My husband is perpetually embarrassed when I’m doing nature photography. I once posted on Facebook that it was akin to engaging in contortionist yoga with a two pound camera in your hand! Well, that’s how you get fabulous pictures of bugs’ eyes and bunny faces. You bend over, twist around, lie in the dirt, wiggle through trees and bushes, and basically make and enthusiastic ass of yourself in public. My husband thinks I look like a dork. But people on the trails usually just smile and ask me what I’m taking a picture of. They think it’s cute and funny. He thinks it’s silly. But I don’t care. At times I can be a very shy person, but that just disappears when I’m chasing chickadees, gawking at fields of wildflowers, or whispering softly to deer, “It’s ok, I’m just here to take your picture! Want to pose for me?”  Well, the animals seem to think I’m pretty cool- they almost always hang around and pose for me. And the humans who think I’m a dork? Oh, well, I’m too happy to care, usually…

With the throbbing pain in my face spreading to my head, my neck, and my shoulder, and the bronchitis in my chest, I could no longer Gumby myself like a master Yogi to take pictures of tansy asters hiding under shady bushes. I couldn’t bend over to meet the bugs eye-to-eye. A good trot through the trees chasing scrub jays raised my blood pressure too much, and set the nerve to throbbing and my lungs whining. My days as some nature yoga diva were ground to a screeching halt. And wow was that depressing.

My sanity comes from my time in nature. It truly is meditation through the lens. It is balancing, restorative, relaxing and exhilarating all at once. Odd that writing a book about that threw me out of balance! But I think I needed to be reminded, viscerally, of what kinds of challenges we all really do face. Modern life is stressful, no doubt about it. And I’ve had my share of stress. Our family has had its share. I think that’s what drew me out on to the trails in the first place. Seeking my own balance as water seeks its own level. That’s why I wrote the book- and why I write this blog and post on Facebook- to bring others with me on the hiking path to the glorious land of equilibrium and sanity. This is a crazy world. And we need some un-crazy.

So I guess that in order to really mean what I was publishing, to really share some deep and profound truth, I had to really live the balancing act. So in the process of writing this book I got the full ride on the cosmic balancing scales. But if I’ve learned anything from my time in nature it is resilience. I write about it several times in the book. Something tries to cut you down to size? Brush it off and grow back even stronger than you were. Trip and fall right on your face? Hey, it happens to the best of us. Smile and keep going like nothing ever happened.

So along this book journey I made a conscious choice- to look to each new tomorrow with hope, joy, and love. What else could I do? I’d learned from the best, from those who don’t over-think it as we silly humans do, to just flow like the water, not underestimate myself, and keep my best side showing. I chose not to let anything fence me in and I never stopped reaching. I chose to believe the future could be as bright as I made it. In short, I took the advice that I’d perceived in nature and written in to the book. Life is truly a balancing act, and I’m glad nature understands.

I’m healthy and back on the trails, now, even in the cold of winter. Just the other day I spent time with the most raucous flock of American robins.  A feast of juniper berries had them flapping about by balanced rock in Garden of the Gods. They were so happy, in spite of the 22 degrees on the car thermometer, and sharing their morning with them, focusing through the lens on their joy, I was happy, too.

So I’m done hanging on by my toes- for today, anyway. And like my little robin friends, here, I’m perched way up high and on top of the world.

Category:

Posts based on the book

Tagged with:

Welcome to balance through the lens!

So what’s this blog all about and how did it come to be?

Life is a Balancing Act

This blog is about meditative nature photography™, a practice I started when doing photography for my book, Life is a Balancing Act and Nature Understands: A Photographic Journey of Inspiration!

Here’s how it all began…

In the main hallway of our home is a collage of nature photographs I’ve taken over the years. They make me happy and remind me of the places I’ve been and the beautiful, humorous, and inspiring things I’ve seen. The photos touch me, center me, bring me back to places I was smiling.  

But one special day they had a different effect. As I walked mindlessly down the hall, I found myself glancing at the wall as I usually do, fleetingly noticing the images there.

But I slowly stopped, my eyes fixated on a photograph of a Golden-mantled Ground squirrel that I’d taken at Bryce Canyon.

(Click on any of my photographs to see an enlarged image)

I tilted my head and stared. It was as though he was looking right at me, and into my mind popped the words “Ahhh! You can’t see me! I’m blending in!” I giggled to myself at the thought of this creature wanting desperately to stay hidden in his shadows, and glanced around at the other pictures.

Opposite him on the wall was a bold yellow sunflower flashing its showy petals. “Hmm,” I thought. That flower certainly doesn’t seem to want to hide. It’s busy standing out boldly from the background!” I shifted my weight a bit as I scanned the other pictures.

Suddenly “stories” were popping out at me from the photos of my adventures. Another ground squirrel looked at me with a confused smirk.

A tiny blue-grey gnatcatcher in mid-air was telling itself “Keep reaching, keep reaching!” I noticed a picture of Blodgett Peak in fall and thought “That’s a blurry landscape of possibilities”. Flowers of various shapes and hues were splashed about the wall, some with their “heads” or “faces” drooping, while others cheerily turned their “faces” to the sun.

And then I saw a flower with awkward buds hanging around it. “Wow,” I actually said aloud, “some of those hanging around you sure look a little weird!” 

In that moment I realized that there was a book in those photos. My little flower, chipmunk and bird friends were seemingly reaching out to us humans through my lens. Through witnessing and capturing their experiences with the camera, I had given myself a gift: the gift of feeling understood. The gift of empathy. The gift of being reminded that in my best moments and my worst, I’m not alone in what I feel. Nature understands!

That small revelation felt so good. And I had to share that feeling. Besides, I had a quote taped to my computer monitor from Tama Kieves’ fantastic book This Time I Dance: Creating the Work You Love- “The path of inspiration defies navigation. We arrive by revelation.”  I wanted to run with this revelation.

I was later chatting with a particularly creative, insightful friend (amazing visual artist Alayna McKee). I couldn’t resist sharing my experience with her. When I confided the book idea she immediately “got it” and thought it was a wonderful idea. Thanks to her simple enthusiasm and encouragement that day, a year and six days later, Life is a Balancing Act and Nature Understands: A Photographic Journey of Inspiration was published.

As I wrapped up photography for the book, which admittedly became quite intense at times, I realized that I’d stumbled upon another revelation. While I’ve hiked in nature my whole life, I haven’t always done so with a camera. Spending a year in nature nearly every day, I noticed that my walks, hikes, and adventures took on a different quality when I had the camera with me. I was more focused; I slowed down. I saw more. I paid attention more. The camera, quite literally, focused me.  

Being the natural teacher that I am, I had to share this wonderful experience, this remarkable feeling of being understood and finding my focus with others. My life was now so much more balanced. How many others could I help find understanding and balance and focus in their own lives?  Thus a third revelation: I’d found my calling. So out of the making of the book, Balance Through the Lens™ The Art of Meditative Nature Photography™ was born.

follow the path that inspires you and leads you to glorious new things

I hope the book and this blog warm people’s hearts, make their days brighter, and helps them feel less alone and more understood. But more than that I’m hoping it gives them a new way to find their equilibrium- beyond reading the book- a way through doing nature photography to center themselves, focus, and find a restorative inner peace.

I’ll be writing expanded musings on all of the themes and page sets from the book and new inspirations from my adventures in the wild. Please share your own experiences! I’d love to hear from you!

But first,

There was another encounter with a friend, and a lizard, that inspired me to really pursue this blog…

A friend looked at a first draft copy of the book, and I was explaining to her how I got the photographs. She was flipping through the pages and came to the lizard…

“It sat still for you?  Wow. You must have been really calm!” 

I explained to her that when I’m doing nature photography, the world disappears for me. All I see is my subject. I become so calm, so focused, I feel suspended in time and everything else drops away, leaving me and my subject floating in a timeless dance of posing and viewing. I’ll often not notice twenty minutes going by, as I’m pulled in by the beauty of a flower’s petals, the intense focus of a busy, hungry bug, or the standoff-staring contests that squirrels like to engage in with me.  

“You’re in the zone!” my friend said. “Like an athlete. You’re in the zone- it’s like you’re meditating!” 

That’s exactly it. I wrote about that in the last pages of the book, how calming, restorative, exhilarating this is in a healthy, positive way. Like an athlete, sometimes my work in the field is physically demanding, exhausting even. But like an athlete, my adrenaline flows and there’s a euphoria I feel after a long, contorted, thigh-busting shoot that felt like a half-hour of squats! It’s rewarding. It’s worth it. It’s healing. It’s ecstasy.

In that moment I decided that this was something I could teach to others. A new way to become mindful, to be in the moment, to find a state of prayer or meditation, and to be in balance.

 So that’s how this blog came to be!

Read on to:

The Art of meditative nature photography™?

Category:

Welcome Posts! All about this blog and the book that led to it!

Tagged with:

Choosing a New Path in Life

Choosing a new path in life sometimes involves climbing mountains,
getting a little dirty, breaking a sweat, and
finding yourself lost in the magnificent forest of “new possibilities”
Follow your heart and walk on…

This blog represents a new path for me…

I walk it in the hopes that many others not only follow me, but find their own amazing, inspiring trails…

Life is a winding adventure, replete with myriads of twists and turns, hills and valleys, fabulous sights and stretches of drudgery. But it’s a grand journey. And the path we choose to follow reflects who we really are. I can be the shiest, quietest person in the room, or the biggest squirrely spaz you ever met. I have a tremendously intellectual serene side (I am a trained philosopher, after all), complemented with an insatiable curiosity and love of exploration. So it’s not surprising that the paths I wander reflect all of that.

In my outings in nature I experience hushed soft whispers from forests so quiet that all I hear is the wind in the trees. But I also feel my heart race at the sound of a raven calling as it soars overhead. I felt my heart pound the day I heard a mountain lion growl.

At times I’m nearly running down the trail, giggling as I follow a flock of feathered-something- or-others. At times I’m completely startled to round a corner and find a deer on the trail, or a chipmunk hurriedly crossing my path.

And then there are the moments when time stands still. Like the moment the fledgling nuthatch landed in front of me, only to become so tired it began to drift off to sleep. Inches from my lens, I breathed with it in the moment, click…click…click… mindlessly I just clicked away as I stared through the lens at this darling little creature snoozing before me. One click finally woke it up with a start. I smiled, and breathed slowly. So still, so completely, hopelessly, in this moment. This one sweet little moment when the nuthatch let me share in its nap.

(Click on any of my photographs to see an enlarged image)

That’s why I love nature photography. That’s why I’m out on the trails. To make friends with baby nuthatches, listen to whispering trees, and take photographs to remember those delicious moments in time, learn from them, and share them with you.

But it’s all new for me! I’ve never blogged before. This is a new fork in the trail. Publishing the book was a towering mountain to climb. I broke a sweat. I even panicked a few times. I dared to look down and thought “What on earth am I doing?” But then I looked back up. I looked ahead. And I saw the vast forest of “new possibilities”. It beckoned.

So I followed my heart and walked on…

You might be wondering, “So what did the camera add to this experience? Couldn’t you have just looked at the bird?”

The camera, as it almost always does, added dimensions. On the one hand it zoomed me in. I was nowhere but right there, right then. When you zoom in, several things happen all at once. On the one hand it blocks out. Try this. Put your hands up, cupped around your eyes, narrowing your field of vision to a “tunnel” in front of you. That’s blocking out the extraneous. That’s focusing you in on something more specific than your peripheral, easily-distracted normal viewing mode allows. You’re just hovering, you and your subject, in a moment of timelessness.

The camera also brings you in to something else’s perspective and scale.  Tightened in on just the nuthatch, I was seeing the world the way he does, from his vantage point, on his scale of things. That sensation takes you out of yourself and into another being’s shoes, or paws, or feet. Your everyday concerns drop away. You’re in the bird’s world right now. Your perspective has changed. Life looks very different when you’re standing in the feet of a tiny young nuthatch. His world is so different from yours. He’s not stuck in rush hour traffic or worried about next month’s bills.  So, breathing in to this timelss moment…at least for right now, neither are you.

It’s very mindful. Something holds your attention. The camera blocks everything else out. You focus on the here and now. Time seems to change. You seem to change. And your troubles melt away.

So go get out there. Breathe in to the experience. Listen. Look. Feel.

Find your forest of new possibilities. Find some dreams to dream about and some epic scenery to inspire you to new heights. Let go. Let time stand still. If you just look, you’ll see the forest of new possibilities, too. Because that’s what happens when you clear your mind, regain your balance, and open up again. A little time away from “regular life” breathes a new life into your journey.

And if you can’t get out there today, or this week?

I’m here for you… me & my camera. Ready to share what we find.

Category:

Uncategorized, Welcome Posts! All about this blog and the book that led to it!

Tagged with:

The Art of Doing Meditative Nature Photography

So what is meditative nature photography™?

It’s what I create books and blogs about, and what I want to inspire others to try!

It is a way to creatively use nature photography as a tool for relaxation, healing, meditation, and finding deeper meaning in life. A way to bring mindfulness and joy to our lives that I discovered while doing photography for my book Life is a Balancing Act and Nature Understands: A Photographic Journey of Inspiration.

My passion is to share this technique with others so they can discover how to get up close and intimate with nature’s beauty. I feel compelled to share this because it has been so transformative for me! I have gained so much from hanging out with leaves, lizards, and lenses, coyotes, cactus flowers and cameras! 

If I can help others to feel the same joy in their lives, experience the same improvements to their well-being, the same contentment, happiness, and sense of adventure that I’ve achieved… well, that would be amazing. And if I can help others find ‘balance through their lenses’, then my adventures in nature will take on a new meaning, a new significance… a new reason for being.

So I invite you to come enjoy this way to bring mindfulness and joy to our lives. 

What do you need to join in?

A camera, a patch of nature to wander around in, and a sense of awe, wonder, and adventure!

What does it cost? Nothing, of course! 

If you do take up meditative nature photography™?, just pay it forward! Teach someone else what you’ve learned. Share your joy and inspiration. That’s your donation to nature and to humanity!

Visit me here and take a read. Come join me on Facebook for daily giggles, smiles, and “Ahhhhhh” moments from the trails.

What I’ll be sharing are pictures and words… Not just a pretty quote to accompany a pretty picture, I’ll be “quoting nature”! I’ll be sharing the meaning I see in nature, unlocking and uncovering nature’s understanding, empathy, and wisdom in each photo.  And I encourage you to find your own meaning in the photos! And better yet, go take your own pictures and discover your own stories. Let nature whisper to you!

(Click on any of my photographs to see an enlarged image)

So come join in! Let’s crate a community of people who hear nature’s stories, are moved by nature’s wisdom, and are amused and touched by nature’s compassion for the struggles, triumphs, and complexities of our human lives! 

Together we’ll help each other find balance on our paths through life! 

For fans of the book:

I’m also going to do a series of blogs expanding on all of the page sets from the book.

Each set will have a longer look at the theme, and maybe some blooper pictures, too! Here’s a few ‘fan favorites.’

A  few thoughts on why this is so good for us.

I think we get in touch with something simpler, much more basic and uncluttered when we see a reflection of our own thoughts, emotions, and states of mind in nature. When we’re reading a book about “improving our lives” or talking about our problems, (which can certainly still be good things!), we’re doing something more complex; we’re doing analysis (I should know, I’m a philosopher by training- we analyze everything).  

Seeing ourselves through nature is much less cluttered, less analysis-oriented, and more of a word-less and implied understanding that we simply feel. We simply observe. We just see that the bird’s struggles are like ours- even without forming words about it. We just sense it all, on a somewhat subconscious level. We allow ourselves to just be with the feeling, the observation. We tune in to what nature has to say.  

It simply tells us, in unspoken terms, hey, you’re not alone, this is simply life stuff! 

We all deal with it, from the littlest inchworm to the biggest bear. Flowers experience the struggle to break through the cool spring soil. Chipmunks experience the triumph of hurdling a branch. Animals can be lonely, tired, or overwhelmed. Plants can get too crowded, or feel like their needs just aren’t met. We humans are not so different, not so special… if all the beings out there in nature could sit down and talk to us, they’d all say, “Boy do we understand!” 

It’s that understanding that will warm your heart, bring down your walls, catch you off guard, restore your humility, and let you just breathe in to life… good and bad, hard and easy, sad and triumphant. 

After all, it’s just “natural”…

As for me,

My days are profoundly different depending on whether or not I’ve been outside. Sometimes, especially if it’s early in the morning after dropping off the kids, I’ll think to myself as I arrive at my hiking spot, “Huh- I could still be sleeping right now! But instead I’m out here, in the cool morning air, birds flapping all about looking for breakfast.” I ponder how different their lives are from mine… the words drop away, and then, before I know it, I’ve lost myself once again in the gentle arms of a nature that really does understand.

Have fun on the trails, and see you here and on Facebook!

And make sure you read the previous entry!  “Welcome to balance through the lens”. It explains what this blog is all about and how it come to be!

 

About Photography…

I’m not the greatest photographer in the world. I don’t have particularly fancy equipment. I am admittedly less well-versed in f-stops, apertures and lens choices than I probably should be!

But there are books, classes, photography clubs and many other resources out there if you want to learn more about the technical aspects of nature photography.

What I’m sharing are my insights and experiences, through photography. It’s a tool, an artistic outlet of expression. My aim is not to take great photographs that will end up on the cover of a magazine. My intention is to have an experience that is enhanced by the act of doing photography. What I enjoy is the artistic, insightful telling of stories that nature shares with me. 

What I think is special about nature photography is that it really pulls us out of the built-up, demanding, modern world. It takes us out of the realm of culture, out of “words”, out of hectic, out of the everyday. I take pictures of lots of things (especially my kids and their activities!) but it’s the nature photography that quiets my soul, rejuvenates my spirit, and fills me back up when I’m drained and stressed out. It restores me.

When I’m in the eyes of a chickadee, there is no room in my awareness for bills to pay, errands to run, work stress or family hecticness. It’s just me. And the chickadee. Right here. Right now. Breathing, feeling, soaking in just this one moment… one moment at a time.

Try it. 🙂

Category:

Welcome Posts! All about this blog and the book that led to it!

Tagged with: