For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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autumn
In memoriam…
In the visible world of nature, a great truth is concealed in plain sight. Diminishment and beauty, darkness and light, death and life are not opposites: they are held together in the paradox of the “hidden wholeness.”
In a paradox, opposites do not negate each; they cohabit and co-create in mysterious unity at the heart of reality. Deeper still, they need each other for health, just as our well-being depends on breathing in and out.
When I try to fabricate a life that defies autumn’s diminishments, I end up in a state that’s less than human. When I give myself over to organic reality — to the endless interplay of darkness and light, falling and rising — the life I am given is as real and colorful, fruitful and whole as this graced and graceful world and the seasonal cycles that make it so.
Though I still grieve as beauty goes to ground, autumn reminds me to celebrate the primal power that is forever making all things new in me, in us, and in the natural world.
From Autumn: A Season of Paradox by Parker Palmer
In loving memory of Donald Gordon (1930 – 2016)
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October is a symphony…
October is a symphony of permanence and change.
Bonaro Overstreet
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Leaves are falling…
Autumn
Leaves are falling, falling as if from afar,
as if, far off in the heavens, gardens were wilting.
And as they fall, their gestures say “it’s over.”
In the night the heavy earth is falling
from out of all the stars into loneliness.
We are all falling. This hand here is falling.
Just look: it is in all of us.
Yet there is one who holds this falling
with infinite tenderness in her hands.
Rainer Maria Rilke
from On Being
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The place of quiet…
Serenity is found not only in a quiet place but in the place of quiet within.
Diane Varner
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It matters that you care…
Hokusai Says
…He says it doesn’t matter if you draw,
or write books. It doesn’t matter
if you saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn’t matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your veranda
or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden.
It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.
Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
is life living through you.
He says don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.
Love, feel, let life take you by the hand.
Let life live through you.
Roger Keyes
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Wise in the ways…
Autumn asks that we prepare for the future —that we be wise in the ways of garnering and keeping. But it also asks that we learn to let go—to acknowledge the beauty of sparseness.
Bonaro W. Overstreet
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Rich spiced residues…
Fall Song
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,
the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back
from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere
except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle
of unobservable mysteries – roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This
I try to remember when time’s measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn
flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay – how everything lives, shifting
from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.
Mary Oliver
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I’ll be away from my blog for about a week. I look forward to catching up with you when I return. In the meantime, I hope you relish whatever particular delights this time of year offers in your part of the world!
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The pyrotechnics of a new autumn…
Everything was resplendent with the pyrotechnics of a new autumn.
Thomas Ligotti
Bokeh leaf
ICM abstract
Gold leaf
ICM energy
Looking up
Still reflections
Dreamlike walk in the woods
How many ways are there to capture autumn? Double exposures, ICM, reflections, macros, film, polaroids…I don’t know but as many as there are photographers, I guess.
What I am sure about is that for me the joy is in trying to express my abiding love for this season through my images. And to interpret its many moods — its energy, its stillness, its melancholy, its whimsy. I’m crazy for all of it.
When I want to feast on the lovely and unique visions of others, I delight in the images of my sister photographers in the Focusing on Life Flickr pool.
I know I am in the company of kindred spirits when I soak up the beauty of their photographs and gasp at their oh-so-particular ways of seeing their world.
One of the FOL collective, Leigh Love, shares a glorious Ode to October in words and images that you won’t want to miss. While you’re there, why not enter their giveaway? It’s on until October 4.
If you’re an autumn enthusiast like me, do you have a favorite fall feeling or activity? Or do you just love it all?
