I’m begging for stillness.
For calm at the centre of the storm.
When the dawn comes, let it bury me;
let it swallow me whole.
~ Michelle Tudor, from Excerpt
Photo: Ed Freeman with “Underwater” (via Precious Things)
Saturday Morning
September 24, 2016 by 19 Comments
It’s been a long day
September 21, 2016 by 17 Comments
Beyond ambition,
beyond attainment,
is home.
Contentment,
without content;
peace,
uncaused.
—A.H. Almaas, Ripening of the Soul
Notes:
- Poem: Thank you Beth @ Alive on all Channels. Art: Mennyfox55
- Related Posts: “It’s Been a Long Day“
With one breath, I am part of it
September 10, 2016 by 30 Comments
“My leg muscle badly broken, they thought I might lose it. They had to leave the fracture open for 10 days to avoid that process. That is the reason I started the cold water treatment. At first, I didn’t like it. The cold was agony, but slowly I got used to the feeling. There is no place for fear, no place for panic, no place for mistakes. Under the ice, you need total control of the place, the time, and to trust yourself completely. When you can do all that, you can find a different world, a world so peaceful, so beautiful, endless and desolate. With one breath, I am part of it.”
Finnish freediver Johanna Nordblad holds the world record for a 50-meter dive under ice. She discovered her love for the sport through cold-water treatment while recovering from a downhill biking accident that almost took her leg. British director and photographer Ian Derry captures her taking a plunge under the Arctic ice.
Saturday Morning
September 10, 2016 by 23 Comments
And the heart, unscrolled,
is comforted by such small things:
a cup of green tea rescues us, grows deep and large, a lake.”
—Jane Hirschfield, from “Recalling a Sung Dynasty Landscape” in Of Gravity and Angels
Notes: Poem – thank you Beth at Alive on All Channels. Photo: Green tea with mint by Kookoo sabzi.
Lightly child, lightly.
September 8, 2016 by 10 Comments
You are
a minute
of quiet
in a loud
shouting
world.
– Gabriel Gadfly, For This
Notes:
- Poem Source: Thank you Sawsan at Last Tambourine.
- Photograph: Photo – “Breath” via Deviant Art by Paul Apal’kin Photography (Ukraine)
- Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
- Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”
No bodies. No blood. No war.
September 5, 2016 by 21 Comments
There are certain pictures I can never take. We turn on the TV and are smothered with cruelty and suffering and I don’t need to add to it. So I just photograph peaceful things. A vase of flowers, a beautiful girl. Sometimes, through a peaceful face, I can bring something important into the world.
~ Edouard Boubat, (1923–1999), a French photo journalist and art photography said in an interview in Paris in 1991
Edouard Boubat, one of France’s most celebrated postwar photographers who was best known for his poetic images of children… Mr. Boubat traveled widely during a career that lasted almost 50 years, but unlike many photographers of his generation he showed no interest in political events. His rule, ”no bodies, no blood, no war,” even earned him the nickname of peace correspondent…Rather, what attracted him was the beauty of life, wherever he found it. He liked photographing women, animals, trees and nature as well as children, and his use of light gave his work a special quality. Invariably the emotion evoked by his images is tenderness, as in one of his most popular photographs, ”La Petite Fille aux Feuilles Mortes.” ‘There is something instinctive about the moment you choose to ‘take’ a photograph,” he once explained. ”It’s not the result of thought or reflection. The strength of the composition is always born of the instant of the decision. It reminds me of archery. There is the tension of the bow and the free flight of the arrow.”¹
Boubat is known to capture people in their own private worlds, whether that was lovers embracing, or children daydreaming. He shows the empty moments of life and exalt the happiness in those moments.
Boubat is often described as a ‘humanist’ photographer because of his ability to capture the beauty and dignity of his subjects. This is one of his most famous pictures, “Remi Listening to the Sea”, a portrait of a little boy holding a sea shell up to his ear and, with eyes closed, quietly listening to the sound of the ‘sea’.²
Notes:
- Photograph taken by Edouard Boubat in 1995 titled “Remi Listening to the Sea” (via flyeschool.com)
- Quote: Thank you Beth @ Alive on all Channels
- ¹NY Times: Boubat, Photography with Poetic Eye for Children, 75
- ²Source: Veronika Wesenberg
Saturday
August 6, 2016 by 8 Comments
Saturday Morning
July 30, 2016 by 24 Comments
We have forgotten the virtue of sitting, watching observing. Nothing much happens. This is the way of nature. We breathe together, simply this. For long periods of time, the meadow is still. We watch. We wait. We wonder. Our eyes find a resting place. And then, the slightest of breezes moves the grass. It can be heard as a whisper of prayer.
— Terry Tempest Williams, Finding Beauty in a Broken World
Notes: Quote: Thank you Beth @ Alive on all channels. Photo: Clemens Fantur
