Statuary Around Town
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In Which My Camera Sees the Good
It was one of those days when it was hard to get home. I’d gone to the museum to see the Harry Callahan at 100 and then went out for tea in Georgetown with a friend. I stopped on my way home for some groceries. I got to the bus stop just as a bus was arriving, but with a big suburban SUV hogging the bus stop and the dark rainy night, the driver sailed past without stopping. He must have been really late and was taking advantage of a short break in traffic. I caught a taxi rather than wait in the cold rain for the next bus.
Traffic was completely still on K Street because of the police trying to clear out Occupy DC from McPherson Square and a number of streets were closed off to traffic, so the driver went to H Street, which was almost equally congested. Things started to move for a bit, but then there was then some issue with another big black SUV with suburban plates in Chinatown that had been pulled over by the police. This resulted in absolute tirade by the taxi driver as to why DC should not be allowed to be a state. I was having trouble explaining that Federal voting rights for citizens in the District had nothing to do with whether the cops could have pulled the car over better or faster so that it would less obstruct traffic. I gave up completely when he started in on how DC schools should be better than Maryland’s and Virginia’s because they had so much more tax revenue.
I remembered I had my camera in my pocket. I accepted the the meter was going to run unless I got out of the taxi in the rain (and then what was I going to do?) and enjoyed photographing the lights of the city at night. Sometimes, my camera really helps me accept whatever is and see the beauty in it.
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
What Do You See?
What do you see when you walk down the street or into a room? Do you see more or less depending on whether the surroundings are new to you or familiar? John Friend has said that when leading a class teachers need to be able simultaneously to see the whole room (and how everything and the students are in relationship to each other in the room), each student as a part of the whole and as a whole person, and the individual alignment of each student.
What it takes to do this is the ability to be completely soft, spacious, and open in our seeing (“open to grace”) and also well enough educated and experienced to appreciate and understand the details. I think that when we can see both the big picture and the details simultaneously, we have the greatest opportunity to experience the most of life, are more likely to be able to look for the good, and to make the most positive changes.
Signs Around Town (Excerpt)
It is the absence of a verifiably shared signifier that makes it so difficult, and perhaps unwise, to attempt to communicate mystical experience.
Shadows and Light
In discussion of erudition and spirituality, much use is made of the metaphor of light. Light takes us out of darkness, reveals the truth of illuminated wisdom, is the truth, is pure consciousness, etc.
When I noticed the shape in the sidewalk pavement culminated by a shadow, I found myself thinking that we cannot fully experience light without shadow. Not because we cannot understand something (e.g. good) without experiencing its opposite (evil), but because absolute light blinds us to the point of destroying the ability to see even the light. We need shade or dark sunglasses to see what is differentiated when the sun is at its most glaring.
Just as the stone in the photo would not be revealed as a heart but for the shadow crossing it, so too, we cannot know the deepness and authenticity of love or spiritual teachings and practices until we discover that we can stay true to them through challenge and adversity. The shadow does know, just as the light reveals.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
