a NEW season

“We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.”

― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

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It is funny how one thing will lead to another. How sometimes we are forced to change something, even though we fight it, resisting the process just as much as the change. These past few weeks I have spent hours among old photographs, as I moved ten years of photos to safe keeping when I had to buy a new computer. I deleted, moved precious ones to the cloud, made folders for simple books, spent more than a few hours looking for lost links, and questioned why. I did however, come out the other side with a clearer view of where I will go from here.

This has happened numerous times in my lifetime and not just with photography. I did it with motherhood, teaching, cooking, gardening, etc . . . I am beginning to think it is the way life is suppose to be. We dive head first into something that makes us curious, moves us in some way, and if we allow ourselves to not question the why, we just might come out the other side with a life-long passion.

But just like I put the garden to rest at some point each season, I see now that it was time to put that old backlog of photos aways too, as they were weighing me down.

Every year, when I take that first step out into the garden as spring arrives, I scan it. I make plans to try new things. I move old perennials, add compost and top soil, I order new seed varieties for the vegetable beds, and prune out old wood to make room for new growth.

Maybe this is the season to do the same with my photography.

thursday

I stand at the kitchen window and watch the rain, listening to it hit the window. The generous drops roll swiftly down the windowpane causing everything to blur. Both Percy and Grandpa are napping, along with the dog. It is that kind of day. I clean up the lunch dishes, turn on the water to make some chai tea and allow the quiet to encompass me as I remember the morning activities, wanting to ingrain thems within my memory. For I will want to revisit them later.

These are the days of my life, and November is the perfect month to take note of them.

the tug of my heart

Long cold nights mark November's return, grey rains fall, wind walks in the bronze oak leaves.

- Gladys Taber

I wake early most days to have a couple of hours or so to myself. Time to gather my thoughts, and write a few words. While my days are pretty much my own now, they are still full, and come nightfall I am tired, good for nothing more than a hour or so of TV.

I look back sometimes, revisiting the different ways I have filled my days over the years and find, for the most part, a logical flow to them. Needs and desires change, as do responsible and goals. It is the natural flow of things and I don’t question how I filled those days, like I use to.

Today I find myself letting go of old self-expectations and allowing myself to fill my days with those things that tug at my heart: light, curiosity, love and beauty. For today I have nothing to prove.

the hydrangea

And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money, I don't even want to come in out of the rain.

- Mary Oliver

The same hydrangea bush turns a plethora of colors throughout the season. I can’t decide which I like best and make an effort to photograph them all. This year many of the blooms dried up mid-season, however I found their blooms still amazing. I took to deep watering and the later blooms blessed me with rich, deep shades of color. Now the rain has taken over, soaking their blooms and the ground they grow in.

Baker

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing.

-Mary Oliver

He looks longly out the slider off our family room watching the deluge of rain fall from the sky. After a summer of being outside for most of the day, he is now stuck inside. Oh, we let him go out, but the smells are not the same and he runs amuck in the yard, pawing at the door after a few minutes wanting to be let back in. I dry him off and watch as he darts through the house running off energy only to soon curl up in his blanket on the couch to sleep. I fear come spring he might be a little chubby.

He looks at me as if this is my doing. I don’t tell him how much we need the rain after our long, hot, dry summer. I just get down to his level, give him some love, and take his photo.

openhearted

I watch as fall arrives in earnest, bringing with it the rain and the wind. I upgrade and downsize. Finding my myself overwhelmed at times, but also able to keep the intention in focus. I move slowly, paying attention, noticing, openhearted and assertive, knowing this is just where I need to be.

“I remember one morning...
getting up at dawn...
there was such a sense of possibility!
You know? That feeling?
And... and I remember thinking to myself:
'So this is the beginning of happiness...'
'This is where it starts!'
'And, of course, there'll always be more.'
Never occurred to me
it wasn't the beginning,
It was happiness.
It was the moment...”
― Virgínia Woolf

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rain

“And in this moment, like a swift intake of breath, the rain came.”

― Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms

And it is glorious . . .