GRATIDUDE

How Important Can This Be

Are you glad you are alive? Why?

What does being alive mean?

Have you ever explored “LIFE”?

I have attempted to for most of my life. I like to began at the beginning so I can have the whole picture.

Beginning at the beginning means starting with the Grand Singularity (the Big Bang) and following it through the evolution of our universe, galaxy, solar system, earth, and then all the stages of evolution. It is totally beyond our imagination and, this is critical, beyond science to explain the most important parts. Despite incredibal discoveries the key questions remain unanswered.

Why did it happen. God is the usual answer but it is only a name unless we discover something that actually is the cause.

In my view it is a series of miracles that has given us the ability to experience or sentience to use the scientific term. What our brain does is beyond science.

Our ability to have “experiences” is more monumental that anything else I can think of. But without knowing a bit about it we can move through life not knowing what we have been given and so not being able to experience gratitude or, for that matter, not being able to experience even a portion of what life is.

I read the news regularly, observe how humanity (on the average) behaves and find myself demoralized. Doesn’t anyone understand anything? Well of course they do, but those that do not understand what it means to be alive don’t realize what they are missing. Power and money replace beauty and joy. And then I watch the consequences and am demoralized more than I thought was possible.

But rather than dwell on the tragedies humans cause I wish to talk about the flip side which are the things we need to be thankful for and hope that someone will listen and wake up.

But again I am going to turn the tables and head for the outcome, those things missing from so many lives and the disasters this causes for everyone and could lead to an ultimate catastrophe.

Look Carefully. Very Carefully.

By the side of the road.

I love water droplets on grass because all kinds of things can happen. Here each droplet acts as a mirror and reflects all the other drops just as a mirror would. However, no one sees it because it is hidden among all sorts of other flora by an innocous roadside. But this is my job; no it is my joy find these droplets and then bring photographs home. I often don’t know what I have until I magnafy the image.

This one took my breath away. Yes, you could create it in the studio but it is never like nature does it. So, what’s the point.

Over and over again, thousands of times I have felt gratitude to nature for letting me discover the hidden. No mountain walls or valleys, and certainly no other photographers in sight.

But gratitude itself creates–a different human being. Me.

Go to the galleries and see a small portion of what I found over 28 years of looking and seeing.

I am grateful beyond words. I have walked in so many places that now, decades later feel sacred to me and so my gratidude is that my looking has revealed the edge of heaven.

Truth.

Giving thought.

These two examples give more to me than almost anything else. And what is it that they give me? Something so simple it must be important, and it is.

Look with determination to see.

I often say that people, when they look, see what they want to see.

I know that people who have looked at my work on exhibit generally send two seconds with a picture and then walk on to one of my pictures that hits you over the head with a mallet. Those nature gave to me and I am more than grateful. And feel bits of satisfaction if I took home the gift.