BirchLane.net

December 2006 (promise to self: finish updating this before next year!)

last updated at 10:36 and still writing/editing

Sunday 31

Alterations. What I remember most is a scream. The death of my Dad. Crying.

"Alfred was known as the epitome of a gentleman who loved his realtor job and being a mentor for the new comers. He shared a yearning for dance and tennis and will be sorely missed by those friends. However, Alfred's biggest joy in life came from loving his family and grandchildren."

I feel today sadness. Last year on the 31st it snowed and The Lower Mill Pond was frozen. Remembering.

One day after your Dad's death you start to think that you can't possibly cry again--ever; your eyes red and tired, dry, painful, filled with memory; you believe this to be true but you doubt this, today's truth, which is filled with scenes from a life story, like a movie which keeps forever dissolving until there is but fire, then cold and then blackness: and then a get-well card from your daughter (mailed the day before his death) arrives and although you do not read it upon its opening you promise to do so--later; but a photograph falls from the envelope to the kitchen table--a photograph from four short weeks ago; your son, daughter, you, Kiley and your Dad  sitting and smiling at a table in the restaurant, The Big Red Tomato (his favorite) in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and as it falls and swirls to the kitchen table you see yourself and your dad and your son and your daughter and Kiley in the photographing, swirling every so slowly, slowly swirling to the kitchen table and the tears they fall, too, your cheeks wet, flush; there is the sound of sobbing and running water, sobbing and running water, the coi pond you think, wind chimes, voices, you wonder now where is your Dad.

I will return to this today over and over. These words I write at 1:30 in the morning. Hours from now Danielle, Mike and Daryl are coming over for breakfast: pancakes and waffles, scrambled eggs, sausage, home-made home fries, orange juice, coffee. I wish I had flowers. Remembering.

My sister Michelle spoke of The Perfect Child. I think in my father's heart, in his soul and spirit, Michelle, Darlene, Dennis and I are all The Perfect Child as you, too, his family and friends are The Perfect People. Darlene spoke of The Lucky Ones. Yes, we four are lucky to blessed with a father filled with such unconditional love, a man who never spoke an ill word of anyone, his heart always filled with love for his neighbor. And Dennis spoke of our Dad as The Greatest and certainly he was for who could say what I want to say to you now, who could say this of their Dad, how many children could say that when they made a new friend, when I made a new friend, I always said to this friend, I can't wait for you to meet my Dad, you are going to love him, and invariably, she or he did love him, and my Dad them and he would then always inquire about them, their day, their joys, sorrows, dreams. Thank You for joining my brother and sisters, thank you for joining us today.

Remembering. Crying.

Insert memory here. A photograph.

It is raining today. And I have yet to venture outside. Darkness and mist descend the mountain. Ducks quacked through the night. Laughing from the black surface of The Lower Mill Pond. I was kept up for hours and hours. Lessons are life. Symbols. I can't speak. Water. Water. I am thirsty. Cold outside. Hello. Goodbye. Thank You. Follow me. This is the way. No one taught me this. Tell me what you see. We will go to the opera. I miss Prague sometimes. How are you today? I will make a wish. Thank you for the lesson. On Monday I wrote a poem. I have come a long way. Volcanic. Like ash in it's history. In the cemetery the singer stood and she stared. It was almost paradise. It is so peaceful here. Nature greets our eyes. Innocence. The sound of breathing or rustling leaves. It is a wonder. That it is. All connected. With this lesson I will teach you. This is not a mystery. The cathedral was a triumph over space. It is safe here. This is the city where we gather to be educated. I wish I could remember everything that was said. Do you want any water? It is now late. In sleep dreams. I knew she had something important to show me.

Remembering. In January a friend wrote to me:

It's clear that God has given you a gift. He doesn't give such gifts to people without a purpose. Only, He's not too good at telling us what that purpose may be, or help us with clear-cut directions on how to get to the point where we understand what we're to do with it. I remember the last series of images from your days just prior to moving in to your current studio building. With the beauty of fall colors all around you your images were, instead, focused closely on individual leaves or flowers, dried up and dead. They still clung to their stalks, as if by habit, as if they didn't realize their purpose in life had been fulfilled and time had moved on past them. You tend not to write much about yourself and your feelings in your journal, but since those days I've felt you're still expressing a lot by the types of images you are choosing to share with us.

Are there favorite photographs from the past twelve months? There's this portrait which I took a few years ago but re-edited this year.

Meeting Perri, Live Journal friend and editor of Famous People Famous Places, was certainly a highlight of the year:

Remembering.

Mt Tom; I photographed it nearly every day this past year.

The Lower Mill Pond; every day I found myself at some point during the day photographing the pond (a weeks or so ago; early morning):

Late this afternoon:

Me; I continued with my daily self-portrait project.

I finally fell to sleep this morning at 3; a restless night. Strange and vivid dreams. Woke up at 4:30. Hours later--made a great breakfast for the kids; not scrambled eggs, though; Buttermilk Apple Cinnamon Pancakes and Waffles; Maple Sausage; Lime Coconut Noodle Frittata; Home-made Home Fries seasoned with Diced Red Onion and Diced Jalapeno Peppers.

Dinner was a mediocre baked chicken breast marinated in Maple Syrup and Soy Sauce. I over-mircrowaved the leftover Japanese Noodles and threw them away into the garbage.

(Write about: Ana Maria, Weddings, Suzanne, Danielle and Daryl, Nadine)

Daryl asked me to photograph him today. I did. After breakfast.

 

So similar to last Sunday's church sermon; the minister said "we must become like little children."

When the Self is known,
All illusions vanish.
The veil falls,
And you see clearly.
Your sorrows are dispelled.
For the Self is free
And lives forever.
Everything else is imagination,
Nothing more!
Because he understands this,
The master acts like a child.

~Ashtavakra Gita 18:6-7

Though we seem to be sleeping
there is an inner wakefulness
that directs the dream,
and that will eventually startle us back

to the truth of who we are.

~Rumi

Today I am grateful for:

My children Betsy asking for over for New Year's Day Breakfast My gifts A phone call from Danielle (and Liane) downtown Northampton

For old time's sake: Cook of the Week.

Saturday 30

A Tease of Snow.

"Don’t try to force anything. Let life be a deep let-go. God opens millions of flowers everyday without forcing their buds.” ~Osho

Today I am grateful for:

My neighbor Joel who recounted the story of Joseph to me today as we walked down the hall on the first floor here in Eastworks. Today's Prayer: "Great Spirit, Great Spirit, my Grandfather, all over the Earth the faces of living things are all alike. With tenderness have these come up out of the ground. Look upon these faces of children without number and with children in their arms that they may face the winds and walk the good road to the day of quiet." ~Black Elk (1863-1950)

Friday 29

My Favorite Color. It was a question on the job application: What is your favorite color?

Those who know truly are free from pride and deceit. They are gentle, forgiving, upright, and pure, devoted to their spiritual teacher, filled with inner strength, and self-controlled. Detached from sense objects and self-will, they have learned the painful lesson of separate birth and suffering, old age, disease, and death. -Bhagavad Gita 13:7-8

Found on Live Journal:

* Remember that your presence is a present to the world. * Remember that you are a unique and unrepeatable creation. * Remember that your life can be what you want it to be. * Remember to take the days just one at a time. * Remember to count your blessings, not your troubles. * Remember that you'll make it through whatever comes along. * Remember that most of the answers you need are within you. * Remember those dreams waiting to be realized. * Remember that decisions are too important to leave to chance. * Remember to always reach for the best that is within you. * Remember that nothing wastes more energy than worry * Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. * Remember that the longer you carry a grudge, the heavier it gets. * Remember not to take things too seriously. * Remember to laugh. * Remember that a little love goes a long way. * Remember that a lot goes forever. * Remember that happiness is more often found in giving than getting. * Remember that life's treasures are in the simple things and the joy of sharing love with others.

Today I am grateful for:

My neighbor and friend David A job interview

Thursday 28

The First Date. He said the job interview would be like a first date. And then I thought

Today I am grateful for:

Walking with Danielle Danielle's friend Mike

Wednesday 27

Miracles.

 

Today I am grateful for:

My Live Journal friends New friends

Tuesday 26

Honesty.

Today I am grateful for:

Honesty

Monday 25

Christmas. On the way

 

As the intense fire of the furnace
refines gold to brilliancy, so does
The burning suffering of austerity
purify the soul to resplendence.

-Tirukkural 27:267

How We Say Christmas What would you say if you had to explain Christmas to someone who knew nothing about it? You might begin with the shepherds in the fields by night or Santa at the North Pole or even the druidic appeal of a winter festival that comes just when the sun seems most meager. Redemption and rejoicing, feasting and singing, humility and awe — these would all be parts of your answer, as would the perennial cast of characters who people this turning time of year. The personal explanations would come easiest: the rituals of Christmas Eve, the smell of fresh balsam, the stillness of a world cloaked in snow. You would probably have something to say about the importance of family and the force of a holiday whose strongest emotions center upon children, and upon our memories of being children. And yet to really explain Christmas you would also have to try to answer the question that seems more pressing every year: how do those emotions and memories connect to the frenzied commercial machinery of the weeks that lead up to Christmas? What does all that retailing and wrapping paper have to do with peace on earth? There is no glossing over the problem — not to a puzzled stranger and not to ourselves. What matters is not just the disjunction between the majesty of those old hymns and the immodesty of this shopping season. It is that all those presents did not really catch the feeling we were looking for, did not say what we hoped to say. A stranger might well wonder, don’t you always hope for peace on earth? Does good will really have a season? And if you genuinely love one another — truly hold one another in your hearts — wouldn’t simply saying it be far more eloquent than any other gift that you could give? These questions point to something most of us already know, that for all the push and pull of the Christmas rush, for all the sputtering of the commercial volcano that erupts at the end of every year, this is truly a holiday of modest spirit, a day of humble aspirations. What we want is to love and know we are loved and to imagine a world that lives up to the purity of that feeling. The New York Times, Editorial, December 25, 2006

Today I am grateful for:

Christmas at my sister Darlene's house Christmas with my children The gift of love

Sunday 24

What I Learned in Church Today. The minister shared with us a personal story about love.

Today I am grateful for:

Lessons learned in church Tears Christmas Eve dinner at Betsy's with Danielle, Daryl and John

Saturday 23

Peace. Still a bit sick today but did manage to go down to The Lower Mill Pond at sunset and photograph the blaze of color. Otherwise, I have watched five movies so far today: The Constant Gardener, Fantastic Four, Lantana, Picture Perfect, The Perfect Man. I thought The Constant Gardener and Lantana were both very powerful. I also continued reading Diary of a Country Priest. (Bresson's movie adaptation)

and let it begin with me Posted on Sun, Dec. 17, 2006 Let `peace on earth, good will to men' begin with me By Paul Locatelli Around the world in this season of the year, people hope for peace. Yet peace on earth is truly elusive as we see families, communities and the world bedeviled by domestic violence, rape, crimes of hate, discrimination, genocide and armed conflict in places such as Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq. Given the terrible conflicts around our world, the realization of people's hope for peace, for justice, would be a welcome change. The sectarian violence in Iraq would end. We would be at peace with Iran. The killings within the Darfur region of Sudan would cease. Northern Ireland would be at peace. Jews and Arabs in the Middle East would co-exist harmoniously. Afghanistan would be made whole, and the people, especially the women, would live with dignity, respect and human rights. No country would be divided by race or culture or religion. One symbol of this hope for peace, for many centuries, has been Jerusalem, for that city was to be preserved as a place of peace as long as its people were faithful in their relationship with God -- a relationship that depended on reconciliation with each other. But if they strayed, strife and division would continue, and Judah would be destroyed. The ancient prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah envisioned people of all nationalities streaming to the holy mountain of Jerusalem and there finding a community at peace. Even today Jews, Christians and Muslims claim Jerusalem as the holiest of cities. Yet factions and hatreds pervade life there as they do throughout the Middle East, indeed throughout many other troubled places in the world. I believe that, to transform communities and the world, we should begin by looking into our hearts: We must discover our common humanity with all others walking the face of the earth and find the image of God in each person who has been created. Such discovery will inspire the desire to love and be loved, and it will build relationships of harmony among all peoples and nations, which is a measure of our harmony with God. Understanding in the human heart is the path to peace. The quest for peace is universal, whether the word for it be shalom, paz, kapayapaan, hetep, pace, mir, shanti, santiphap, amani, sidi -- the list could go on. In the movie ``Babel,'' a story about understanding the human heart, interconnected stories of four families in four countries, cultures, ethnicities, religions and economic classes reveal how people (generally) want to do good, want to believe in the goodness of others. But when bad things unexpectedly happen, misunderstandings generate fears of the unknown and result in surprising and remarkable behaviors. ``Babel'' questions right and wrong, winning and losing, good and evil, and the varieties of wealth and poverty in this world at this time in history. The movie helped me again perceive that the human heart desires peace even in the midst of troubling times. An orientation toward peace would transform the world: Love would prevail over hate, harmony over war, hope over despair and justice over self-interest. With an orientation toward peace, the visions of Jeremiah and Isaiah and the Word of God make sense. The stranger -- the person who comes from a different background or language -- will become a neighbor when we realize all are precious in the eyes of God. May we all use this holy season as a time to discover again the goodness deep down in human hearts, binding our lives and freedom to each other. May we choose to act locally to effect change by reaching out in love to those estranged from families and being generous to those not so well off as us. When peace is personal, it will more readily become a reality for families, communities, and our world. THE REV. PAUL LOCATELLI, S.J., is president of Santa Clara University. He wrote this article for the Mercury News. © 2006 MercuryNews.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.mercurynews.com http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/16260571.htm

Today I am grateful for:

My children Betsy who called and asked me over for Christmas Eve dinner

Friday 22

Sick. With The Flu. Re-edited sepia-toned image from last Christmas at Darlene's house.

Thursday 21

Once Upon a Time.

Reminder to self:

Newspaper Boy
Janitor
Lifeguard
House Painter
Gardener
Warehouse worker
Tobacco farm laborer
Antique Refinisher
Department Store Clerk
Art Gallery Assistant
Picture Framer
Insurance Salesperson
Writer
Photographer
Newspaper copywriter
Magazine Promotion Director
Magazine Marketing Director
Poet
Marketing Specialist
Marketing Director
Consultant
Pizza Delivery Man
Marketing Director
Printing Salesperson
Printing Account Executive
Vice President Sales and Marketing
Poet and Photographer

Today I am grateful for:

An e-mail from Kathy, a college friend!!!! Now in Calif. not Israel. A phone call from my daughter

Wednesday 20

Today I am grateful for:

A well-paying short-term writing job A Christmas greeting from Trudy in Thailand

Tuesday 19

Dinner. Tonight I made a great pasta dinner:

From The Economist:

There's a definite style to academic writing, at least in economics, that seems ponderous and awkward to journalists; at The Economist, where many of our economics writers have graduate degrees in the subject, we generally beat it out of the new staff with a cricket bat: 1) Never use one word where eight will do; even better if you can stick a few dependant clauses in there. Using simple, anglo-saxon words makes you look simple. 2) Keep your readers interested in your sentences by refusing to tell them what is happening until the last few words. Do not rest until you have hunted down and exterminated all traces of the quaint old "subject, verb, object" style. Anyone struggling with this should read mystery novels in the original German until this becomes second nature. 3) Where possible, start off paragraphs with a thoroughly unnecessary observation, such as "When people are hungry, they usually seek to eat." Reference at least two papers proving same. Later, it will be necessary to prove mathematically that this is so. 4) Always remember that in an economics model, everyone is part of a pulsating emergent network of interactions. Thus, it is ridiculous to speak of people doing anything; things happen as a result of unseen economic forces. Therefore, unless it is absolutely impossible, every sentence should be phrased in passive voice. 5) If you come to a place where you think a semi-colon belongs, stop! Semi-colons are far too informal for an academic paper. Use a comma instead. The comma's understated elegance is appropriate for all settings. If you are in danger of saying anything easily comprehensible, immediately switch to calculus. To summarize: A colleague who studied under a moderately famous economist passes on his explanation for the phenomenon, "Your peer reviewers will already be going to sleep. Don't give them any reason to wake up and look for something to criticise." ~The Economist

Today I am grateful for:

A phone call from my son (and his great grades) A phone call from my daughter Beer and conversation with my neighbor David Hanukkah candles from my neighbor Joel

Monday 18

Where.

Today I am grateful for:

A Christmas gift (Pyrates/Mutiny Isle) and card from an LJ friend, Tom A tentatively booked wedding thanks to my sister Darlene The New Yorker (Articles on Clinton, Disney, Jasper Johns)

Interesting place.

Sunday 17

Santa Sunday.

Today I am grateful for:

Photographing Santa and children Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes

Saturday 16

Drive To No Where.

Today I am grateful for:

Raindrops on roses Whiskers on kittens Bright copper kettles Warm woolen mittens Brown paper packages tied up with strings

Friday 15

Walking With Danielle and Daisy. Joy. Joy. Joy. That's what I feel when I am with my daughter.

 

Today I am grateful for:

Going for a walk with my daughter and Daisy This note from a customer: "Bruce, I received the beautiful wedding photos today. Thank-you." Music CDs from internet friends A phone call from my son Friends like Rob and Jeff

Thursday 14

This morning, after I photographed The Lower Mill Pond, which was bathed in fog, I stopped in to see a friend who suffered an anxiety attack this past Saturday. Anxiety. What is anxiety? We talked about anxiety. It is a massive constriction in the chest. It is fear. It is death waiting at the edge of the bed. You lay in bed waiting. Praying.

Today I am grateful for books I found on the swap table in the laundry room:

Diary of a Country Priest Early Cinema--Space Frame Narrative Film Theory and Criticism Issues in Feminist Film Criticism Home Is Where The Heart Is (studies in melodrama & woman's film) Images of Asia--Japanese Cinema Nabokov--Lectures on Russian Literature Dostoevsky--Notes from the Underground and The Gambler

Wednesday 13

Gray. Again. This morning. And then rain and drizzle throughout the day. Unseasonably mild.

I like this site of very small objects.

Today I am grateful for:

Nina loves her photographs (one is below)

Tuesday 12

Practice. Tonight, after I finished reading "Never Offer Your Comb To A Bald Man", which I found to be wonderfully inspiring, entertaining, amusing; each page filled with priceless gems illustrating the underlying principles of great servant leadership--vital information, personal stories and case-studies about how satisfaction and success in life comes not from what we do for ourselves, but what we do for others--that he who serves best profits most (I wasn't holding a pen or pencil; I would have been under-lining most of the book--but I did corner fold dozens of pages for future reference.),  I started to re-read "The Practice of the Wild."

"When you find your place where you are, practice occurs." ~Dōgen

The book called to me from its scared place on the book shelf: "Bruce. Bruce. Read me. Again. I am a good book to read after reading all about servant leadership." And the voice which spoke to me was correct. And on the opened futon, Nadine at my side, I read for a few hours. Snyder says:

"We are all capable of extraordinary transformations......Malcom Margolin, publisher of News From Native California, points out at the original people of California did not easily recount an "autobiography." The details of their individual lives, they said, were unexceptional: the only events that bore recounting were descriptions of a few of their outstanding dreams and their moments of encounter with the spirit world and it transformations. The telling of their life stories, then, was very brief. They told of dream, insight, and healing."

And:

"Practically speaking, a life that is vowed to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good humor, gratitude, unstinting work and play, and lots of walking brings us close to the actually existing world and its wholeness.......The wild requires that we learn the terrain, nod to all the plants and animals and birds, ford the streams and cross the ridges, and tell a good story when we get home."

And much later in the book:

"Get control of you own time; master the twenty-four hours. Do it well, without self-pity. It is as hard to get the children herded into the car pool and down the road to the bus as it is to chant sutras in the Buddha-hall on a cold morning. One move is not better than the other, each can be quite boring, and they both have the virtuous quality of repetition. Repetition and ritual and their good results come in many forms. Changing the filter, wiping noses, going to meetings, picking up around the house, washing dishes, checking the dipstick--don't let yourself think these are distracting you from your more serious pursuits. Such a round of chores is not a set of difficulties we hope to escape from so that we may do our 'practice' which will put us on a 'path'--it is out path."

Today I am grateful for:

A poem/letter from Ana Maria Words from an internet friend: "You give me your gift of photography, your gift of creativity,  your gift of your smile where love lives." Writing/finishing an e-mail newsletter for Blue Moon Grocery. A phone call from my daughter.

Thin Ice on The Lower Mill Pond this afternoon walking with Suzanne.

Monday 11

On Being Grateful. My friend Suzanne is a nurse and I believe I am learning some important lessons from her. For example, she recently suggested to me that I should view my life, even during difficult times, as a life of abundance as opposed to a life of poverty. In a speech, television talk show host Oprah Winfrey gave this advice:

"Keep a grateful journal. Every night, list five things that happened this day that you are grateful for. What it will begin to do is change your perspective of your day and your life. If you learn to live to focus on what you have, you will always see that the universe is abundant; you will have more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never have enough."

Sometimes I feel I have lost my sense of meaning. I have, I think, allowed myself to be driven off course by the forces of nature and my changing world. Tranquility. Unrest. Joy. Pain. Synchronicity. Discord. All these originate from my soul. My soul is both the nexus that connects me to my spiritual side and, I think, an internal guidance system designed to keep me on the road of my life's purpose.

I ask: What is my life's purpose? Recently, I wrote:

Often, I ask myself "what am I called to do" and "how can I make the world a better place." To paraphrase Rumi; I remind myself: you need to be permanently astonished--this is the real work of religion. Maybe of art. The second thing you need is love; draw upon love for energy. And the third thing is sacrifice--give the drop that is ourselves; we are given an ocean. To be astonished, to become more like a child, gifts are all around us, be nourished by being amazed--it is a great thing to be alive. Simone Weil said: "Absolute attention is prayer." Seeing. Astonishment. Prayer.

I ask: What have I given my absolute attention to that has served others? People write:

Browsing your (photography) is  like walking thru a museum and watching  a documentary on the history of photography.  You have managed to make art your life itself.  So many of your images triggers an emotional response that makes me FEEL. And dear Bruce in a world where I have learned to numb that down, that is powerful.  Thank you for making my life more beautiful with each of your photographs. Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful images and words. Your vision is a gift.

I think I need to make real time to practice calmness and reflection; meditation--prayer.

Meanwhile, some things I am grateful for:

My daughter and son; Danielle and Daryl My sisters and brother; Michelle, Darlene, and Dennis My extended family My friend David My friend Ana Maria My neighborhood friends My Live Journal and Internet friends My memories of my Mother My memories of my Father My ex-wife, Betsy My supportive landlord, Will My art which provides beauty and hope to people

Sunday 10.

Fate. Today my camera stopped communicating with my computer. ISB cord problem? Driver problem? For the time being; no uploads. Thus, maybe revisiting some older photos a few days ago was rather serendipitous. Suzanne asked me last Thursday if I believed in fate. I said no. I said I thought we can determine (to some extent) our future. I can photograph; I can't yet "see" the images.

A friend writes:

ACAUSALITY, SPIRIT AND FREEDOM. The topic of coincidence, of the significant relationship of seemingly random events, is certainly a primary religious subject. For one thing it represents the Providential in our experience of life. It is also a subject which is pressed on our consideration by developments in our time. For example the discovery of the "indeterminate" movement of sub-atomic particles by modern physics, and in particular by Werner von Heisenberg, seems to put chance at the very basis of the material world. And in the field of psychology there is the theory of "synchronicity" announced by Dr. Carl G. Jung, with supporting work by the physicist Wolfgang Pauli. "Synchronicity", which Jung defines as a principle of "a-causal connection" of events, brings into the field of psychology and daily life that same mysterious vision of the world which quantum physics opens to us in the subatomic realm. However this whole subject of the relation of events in our life, apparently random yet mysteriously connected, has not , unless I am mistaken, been discussed very deeply by theological writers--either as to the significance of "Providence" or as to the understandings of modern physics and psychology. I do not know why this is, unless it be related to the hesitance of theologians to touch on questions of personal spiritual experience. The number of excellent books on prayer in our century is perhaps not more than a very few, I think of Anthony Bloom, C.S.Lewis "Letters to Malcom", of Romano Guardini's little book on prayer, perhaps you will think of others but they are in any case not many. And this whole area of coincidence and random event seems if possible more delicate and difficult for theologians to approach. I believe that this reticence in relation to personal experience is deeply unfortunate, and using the occasion of this conference on the significance of the human person, I would like to make a small venture into this field. Before however continuing the meditation of the question of the appearance of pattern in apparently unrelated events, that is to say the problem as it presents itself to us today, I should like to start with some background in the Patristic period. St Gregory of Nyssa's "Contra Fatum" (against determinism) is perhaps as good an example of the way the matter appeared to the Church Fathers as we will find. Gregory is writing specifically against the supposed determination of life by the stars, astrology. Astrology had an honored role in the ancient world, well even the three Magi who came to Bethlehem were practitioners of that science. The great philosopher Plotinus said that for everything in the world the stars represented the determined order of things, but that the spirit could escape to a place of unity with God beyond determination. This is one possible solution. But Gregory seeks another, first he recognizes that there is a Divine harmony and pattern in all things which is reflected in human nature. "The entire world is a kind of musical harmony whose artisan is God (and) in man's nature all the music of the universe is seen...as the whole is contained in the particular.." So far in fact Gregory is in agreement with the astrologers and old philosophers, but then he goes on that at the root of everything is freedom "so that the good might be present in our lives, not by involuntary determinism, but by our free choice." But if there is a universal pattern and harmony, in the world and in humanity, how can there be at the same time freedom? Gregory does not pursue this question (content to point out the contradictions of astrological ideas) but it seems to me that the contemporary question of synchronicity, of and random events, both in physics and in our experience, challenges us to continue his analysis a little further. I will do so, if I may, with a series of brief sections (perhaps something like the "century" form used by St Maximus and others but I will not offer a hundred, only fifteen in keeping with our time and my possibilities) However this form allows for a looser relation of thought which yet creates finally a pattern, rather as the apparently random events we are discussing form the mysterious pattern of our life. It is like the movement of a butterfly's flight maybe , but then the poet Yeat's said "wisdom is a butterfly and not a gloomy bird of prey." So let us begin our little butterfly flight... First: The coincidence of events in one aspect is "Providence", or in secular terms "good luck". But in another aspect coincidence is the projected fears of the nervous seeing threatening patterns where there are none. Both these perceptions are a personalization of the way we see the world, but the one is above our average experience of life as neutral events, and the other is below it. 2)If we open the Bible at random and find a verse absolutely appropriate to the need of the moment, or find suddenly in a book or newspaper something exactly relevant to the moment, this is an example of what Jung meant by "synchronicity". The whole system of the old Chinese classic "The I Ching" depends on this finding of meaning in random reading. 3) Fill a page with dots evenly distributed and then draw a pattern connecting them. perhaps a circle..or a star of David..was the pattern in the dots as implicit in them , or is it purely arbitrary to find this pattern? 4) John Cornwell, a journalist author, in an interesting book about apparent supernatural events within the churches today, "The Hiding Places of God", notes that at moments when we are beginning to move towards God, the appearance of significant coincidence seems to be more frequent. 5)Connections however can be made by an alertness of physical observation which appears as psychic intuition. For example of body posture or tone of voice etc which the mind processes subconsciously and comes to an apparent intuition about the person one is speaking to. Sherlock Holmes to Watson on first meeting: "I perceive you are just returned from Afghanistan." A priest hearing confession or a psychiatrist will ,when alert, be listening for all these nonverbal signs and perhaps for others beyond the ordinary sensory range. 6) A sunflower in the field, or blazing in a painting by Van Gogh, reminds of the sun. So does gold, and the radiance of silver suggests the secondary light of the moon. The Florentine priest Marsilio Ficino , in "The Book of Life", uses such correspondances as basis of a system of medication. In one aspect this (and homeopathy in general) is an operation of magic. But we come again to the question of whether a pattern drawn connecting the dots is or can become in some way more than an illusion. 7) The nervous imagination organizes events also of course in patterns more or less bizarre and yet meaningful, often fearfully so but sometimes hopefully so, to the viewer..a friend had a period of suddenly noticing the color green everywhere and the word green etc.. This was a fairly benign illusory effect (since in fact green is everywhere) and passed. 0n another hand begin to fear some disease and you may be surprised how often you hear it mentioned etc. 8) A photographer isolating and fixing a place and moment in the field of what we see, makes it somehow symbolic and deeply resonant. Now it is not illusion, but heightened reality which is offered to us. Perhaps the eye of simplicity, what St Ephrem of Syria calls "the luminous eye", can enable us to see the world in this way. The eye of the saint like the eye of the artist or poet. 9) The problem then is not to know so much as to know that we know. "Where shall I go from thy Spirit? If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea, even there" the presence and purpose of God. Just is the problem of continual prayer is not so much to pray, really we pray in all the thoughts and acts of all our days , but to know that we are praying and by the knowledge make it offered prayer and received peace. 10) So if the nervous imagination detects a foolish or malevolent organization of things, a truer vision-- a seeing of what we see and knowing of what we know--sees events as flowing from God like leaves of some tree whose roots are far above us... 11) I think this awareness, the true awareness of Divine pattern, is given in the Holy Spirit as a sort of gift (one not perhaps mentioned explicitly by Paul although I suppose it relates to the word of wisdom or knowledge ) like all gifts it is to be received and used (and therefore by so receiving and using also being protected from the dark side of vision of synchronicity-- fearfulness on the one hand or of making much of one self on another hand--as clinically paranoia and megalomania go together) received and used with lightness and the awareness that it is not inherent in oneself... 12) Surely all of us have experience both of that dark organization of things which falls below everyday reality and which is untrue, and of that true sense of pattern which is above and behind it. For the nervous, the way forward is not so much in a deadening of the psychic sense , but as for all of us (and the nervous is in degree all of us) in humility, lightness, inner freedom, that freedom which is the gift only of Pentecost. 13) Thanks to God who makes all things to be Signs of His Glory...and in moments and in a flash allows us to read the language, or at least to conceive the alphabet ,of Grace and to see the words beneath the stones in the river and to perceive the diagram of the Glory. 14) The Holy Spirit is the "a-causal connecting principle" a-causal because the Spirit is free and so the connections are there not in necessity but only in freedom...which is to say that are and are not there...are there only to freedom...and yet again the pattern merges into the ground..."form is emptiness and emptiness is form" as an ancient writing says...but for emptiness may we not now read "Glory"? 15) In John 17, that deepest of all human writings as it seems to me (regarded that is as a document), "Glory" is used to signify the "Holy Spirit". The Spirit is then both Connectivity and Ground..and the joy of seeing the connectivity is really in seeing the Ground of all in the Glory. So here at the end we come to the same point as Gregory did answering the problematics of his time, but perhaps in meeting the questions of our own time we are led to formulate a little further that mystery of the human person and of freedom and of the Spirit. I can not say that we have achieved that in these brief words, but perhaps at least we have pointed the way towards that further opening of the mystery of the person.. And in so doing, again, indicated the ground of all in Spirit and Glory.

In remembrance of my Dad.

Saturday 09

Light.

Light is the source of everything. It is what makes things visible to the eye. It is also what holds a rock together. My thinking has been deeply affected by the belief that all things are some form of radiant energy. Light is perhaps the most profound truth in the universe. Wynn Bullock

Ithaca, New York

I like Claire Ellen Oswalt's art.

Friday 08.

Looking at Pictures. I watched Frida with Suzanne tonight. Then I came home and looked at photographs from a few years ago (add words here)

Holyoke Mall

Migrant workers, tobacco field, Enfield, CT

Thursday 07

Being Comfortable. (add words here; what was this entry about anyhow)

Wednesday 06

Brookview Studios and Roald Dahl. Tonight I signed a (add words here)

Tuesday 05

A Loss For Words. Light snow early this morning. Yesterday it was sunny. The day before yesterday--the week before yesterday--it was gray. There was a sense of glee in my heart and soul this morning when I saw the snowflakes gently falling outside my window. I grabbed my camera and tripod and went down to The Lower Mill Pond. The swans were there, although on the far side of the pond, and the geese and pigeons were there, too. Later in the day my neighbor asked, "You have been photographing the pond every day?" Yes, I said. I keep coming back to it. Coming back to the pond is like praying--meditating. The details of morning are quite different than the details of late afternoon. On Sunday at Smith College I saw a painting by Milton Avery; he wrote:

"I do not use linear perspective, but achieve depth by color--the function of one color with another. I strip the design to essentials; the facts do not interest me as much as the essence of nature."

The essence of nature. What is that essence? Do I see this essence? Do I photograph this essence? I want to push myself harder, further along this path of "the essence." And it it possible, even feasible, to "strip" the pond, for example, to "essentials." What are those essentials?

Back to Open Square to photograph Karen Dolmanisth's sacred loom/celestial sundial:

Writing about another art installation, Karen said:

"I depend on the constant making of art, and of making new and appropriate art forms; of expression to channel higher, deeper truths, realities, meanings, and mysteries; of existence to myself, my culture and time; and to transform and to safely integrate the existence of histories, and present embodied study and information of the horrors, the great sadness, the imbalances, and the traumas of human separation from the Creative Source that exists to such tragic proportions in our current paradigm."

Monday 04

Tease of Snow. Flurries this morning; last year--December 4, 2005: more than flurries:

Sunday 03

Thank You. Winogrand. Arts Easthampton.

Karen. She said as she left, after one hour of photographs, "Thank You for making me feel comfortable." When she arrived, an hour earlier, she said she was unattractive and hated having being photographed. She arrived with Greg, the editor of Local Buzz and a few other MassLive publications. I was photographing Karen for a new publication called "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."

We first worked in my studio and then an empty loft and stairwell.

Suzanne and her daughter, Cake (i.e. Casey) arrived @ 1:00. First I showed them Pamela Goldberg's watercolors here on the fourth floor in Eastworks. Pamela is a gifted watercolorist/painter and recently moved here from Groton, Massachusetts. Of her art, Pamela writes:

Painting or the process of making images is a journey toward wholeness, a practice for understanding and celebrating life. It is act of healing for myself and the viewer, whose engagement with the artwork continues the life and vitality of that artwork. Painting as healing is a strong motivation in my work. The awe inherent in nature and personal/archetypal images that surface through meditation, combined with the healing powers of color is my vehicle. It is my belief and my hope that by distilling the imagery and the healing powers of color through their own being, the viewers soul is sparked and nurtured with inspiration and the joyful recognition of the interconnectedness of all. Thus viewing art is not a passive act but a truly dynamic healing process. The original imagery came to me during meditation. The images evolved during the process of creating the painting. Spiritually being rooted in our interconnectedness with the earth, with the universe, and the idea of spirit evolving is expressed in my work. The elements of the cycles of life: gestation, birth, growth, death, and the changing seasons are significant in my paintings, as they are also symbolic of the spiritual growth and the importance in recognizing and embracing the truth that we can not have dominion over that which we are an integral part.

A list of what we saw:

Pamela Goldberg
Garry Winogrand (great images but horribly hung in a hallway)
Godless Communists (fascinating exhibition)
Janne Ugone
Jack Braudis
Michael MacTavish
Yohah Ralph
Andrew Sovjani
Susan Elena Esquivel
Jason Healy
Indigo Massage
Elizabeth Solomon
Briana Taylor

Saturday 02

Light. I think the season of Winter arrived this morning. It arrived with a bright sun in a beautiful blue sky. It arrived with singing (It always sounds like they are laughing to me.) geese on The Lower Mill Pond. It arrived with Nadine, my cat, sleeping near me. It arrived with a cooler temperature than day's past and it arrived suddenly.

After breakfast, I drove to West Brookfield to see Suzanne and her daughter. They took me to a country store which was located on an apple orchard. Inside the store, there were, of course, apples and apple pies, but what caught my attention (thanks to Suzanne) were the stuffed animals, which were not for sale; the glassware, pots and pans, old sheet music and old books and magazines (The books were a quarter and Suzanne bought an old pot-boiler.) There were posters, too:

Upon returning home, we ordered out for pizza and watched MirrorMask, which the three of us thoroughly enjoyed.

Friday 01

Gray. Today was the fifth, sixth, maybe seventh day in a row of a gray sky and unseasonably warm weather for New England; it was the first day of December; which was later in the day, well past the gray light of the day, punctuated by severe thunderstorms--strong winds, heavy rains and frequent lightening.

Most of the day, looking out my window, The Lower Mill Pond, the cemetery, the mountain range looked like one large gray painting; The Shades of Gray by Rothko; or Kline.

But enough about the weather, I want to write today about yesterday; about a walk in the woods with my friend Suzanne and our visit to The Montague Bookmill in, where else, of course, Montague, Massachusetts.

The Montague Bookmill is far enough away from Easthampton and Northampton to make for a pleasant afternoon drive, if not adventure; but not too far away to turn an afternoon drive into a journey to The Twilight Zone.

Anyone who has ever entered an old bookstore, there's is no forgetting the wonderful joy, the expectation, one feels upon entering this magical kingdom; an environment created, nurtured and sustained by the owner's own sensibility. This is a place where can wander for hours, sit on a couch, day dream, read, drink coffee; I can't wait to go back.

I continue to edit photos of Nina and Gabby. This one below, of Gabby, reminds me of a Netherlandish painting.