I finally did it - My first blog post! It seemed appropriate to post a photo to this blog, “Reflections Back to Me”, that is literally a visual reflection - In the photo and the self-reflection evoked as I photographed this shot on the Upper Klamath Lake in Oregon.
My dear goddess-woman, oracle-friend, Ann Swanberg, penned the phrase, “Prepare to be Gifted”. Today, her words allowed me to peek around another corner. I was flooded by the knowledge that once you’ve prepared to be gifted, your great challenge is to then accept the gift.
It’s said that raking and sweeping are two of the most present things you can do. I raked in the garden yesterday. It’s a primal, healing thing for me - something that I’m called to do. The sound of the rake, the smell of the earth and simply being outside with no purpose other than to rake the fall leaves, grounds me.
There is an explosive intensity in the air that is tempered by the quiet changing of the seasons.
Often, yesterday’s photos rise up to pull something out of you. The photos that I took of Yue Minjun’s sculptures last year at English Bay in Vancouver, BC, came alive today.
“Magic
Sandra’s seen a leprechaun,
Eddie touched a troll,
Laurie danced with witches once,
Charlie found some goblins gold.
Donald heard a mermaid sing,
Susy spied an elf,
But all the magic I have known
I’ve had to make myself.”
-Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends
I sing - I photograph. These are some of my layers. Fundamental parts of my essence. Gifts to me. They don’t define me, but are who I am.
There were times when I veered away from some of the deepest parts of myself and thought that they had disappeared. I’ve come to the place where I know that the gifts of your creativity can weave in and out of focus for a time in your life, but ignoring or failing to tend to them, creates a chasm; a void in the core of who you are. You know when you sing that note or look through that lens, or explore whatever gifts you’ve been given, that you’ve returned home to yourself. There’s no thought to it, just that deep internal knowing and sense of being in your own shoes.
“When Imagination walks, she writes letters to the earth. When she runs, her feet trace postcards to the sun. And when she dances, when she dances, she sends love letters to the stars.”
- J. Ruth Gendler, The Book of Qualities
The question came, “Am I ready to share who I am with the world”. The whisper back…..”You are already there”.
“When was the last time you danced?”
-Question Put To The Sick By A Native American Medicine Man
We don’t sing. We don’t dance; two of the most primal things we can engage in as expressions of our bodies and hearts. We’re an odd culture, vacant of the rituals, ceremony and customs that bind us to others and to ourselves.
Today, I’ll find a moment to turn on the music and reacquaint myself with my body ~ perhaps find my voice.
