Last week was a celebration of color, drawing on photos from my archives, and running through red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet before culminating in several rainbow colored photos. John suggested that white would have been another appropriate culmination. Since we haven't seen as much white as usual this time on year, here are some photos of white things for you.
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A week of celebrating colors, and today we've come to violet. It's a little tricky to know where indigo shades over into violet, especially when I'm working with two screens and one shows the flower above as violet and the other screen shows it as deep blue. What does yours show as? This one, on the other hand, is definitely a violet.
"Hildegard of Bingen was a twelfth-century mystic, composer, and author of theology that knitted together nature and spirit, cosmos and soul. She described the Holy Spirit as the Greening Power of God. Just as plants are greened, so we are as well. As we grow up, our spark of life continually shows forth. If we ignore this spark, this greening power, we become thirsty and shriveled. And if we respond to the spark, we flower. Our task is to flower, to come into full blossom before our time comes to an end." Lauren Artress, Walking a Sacred Path, p 15
In this week of celebrating colors, we've come to green. When I read the above paragraph yesterday, I knew it would be on today's blog, along with these images of green-ness. May you know God's Greening Power today. Today we're celebrating orange, but I had to post this photo of my first snowdrop of the year, opening on this warm January day (54 degrees today). So here are some oranges, to brighten up a dreary winter day, even if it is a warm one. October seems to be the month for orange -- and one last one that begins to shade into yellow.
I've been listening to a podcast of one of Krista Tippett's On Being broadcasts, an interview with Arthur Zajonc. He's a professor of physics at Amherst College, a long time meditator/contemplative, and was diagnosed with Parkinson's a year ago. He had some interesting observations on how the latter two interact, but the pieces I wanted to pick up here are some of his observations on light and color.
He quotes Goethe, who in addition to being a poet and a standard name in German literature classes, was also a scientist who explained his interest in studying the nature of light through accurately observing color with this poetic line: Colors are the deeds of light; its deeds and sufferings: this considered we may expect from them some explanation respecting light itself. Zajonc adds that we learn about light and darkness -- that "through studying the action of light in darkness, and darkness in light, we come to sense the "deeds and suffering" that are color". I'm quoting from a page or two I found on the web, from his book Cacthing the Light: the entwined history of light and mind, which looks like an interesting one to explore further. He also talks about light and shadow -- that light is only visible when it falls on an object. We don't see light as such, just the effect when it lights up the objects around us. Seems like there could be some interesting connections to be thinking about as I take photos of light and shadow and color. Today's photos are some of the ways light and shadow were interacting around the house this afternoon. Those gray November skies have arrived, but there is still plenty of color around. A brief interval of sunshine mid-morning illuminated the goldmound spirea (seen here more or less at chipmunk eye level) and the burning bush in the front yard. And these leaves from the burning bush show where it gets its name, even after the clouds have covered up the sunshine. On a lighter note, you probably know someone with male-pattern baldness. Here's a recently discovered phenomenon -- maple tree-pattern baldness. (with a tip of the hat to Judy, who made the initial diagnosis.)
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My approach to contemplative photography --
"Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." Mary Oliver in "Sometimes" Archives
August 2020
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