The Key To Understanding
There are many matters that I cannot and do not need to understand, such as Love, and God, and why I became fascinated with an intersection in downtown Fargo, North Dakota.
I was in Fargo last week to lead an Open Space session and a Genius Workshop for Jodee Bock and the wonderful people that she always gathers for her annual Bigger Small Talk Summit.
Making Weighty Matters Light And Light Matters Weighty
As it is with making photographs, so it is with the pictures we make of our lives…
That pictures should be balanced is another general compositional rule. Subject elements are weighted and assigned different degrees of importance depending on their size and their tone or color. (Patricia Caulfield in Capturing The Landscape With Your Camera)
I assigned weight to elements of the three pictures in this post by using color selectively. My choices about where to assign weight were deliberate, but in our lives we often assign weight to objects or events out of habit or predisposition, or because assigning weight in one way or another serves a purpose of which we are unaware. Thus we make weighty matters light and light matters weighty, and sometimes we know it and sometimes we don’t.
My Place In The Grand Scheme Of Things
Two recent experiences showed me just how insignificant I am when measured on a scale more grand than my own immediate concerns (which can loom as monumental if I let them).
Grains Of Sand
The first experience was stimulated by an exhibit in the underground Johnson Geo Centre in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The exhibit consisted of four clear acrylic towers, standing in a line, each of them containing a quantity of sand, each grain of sand representing one year.
Words That Flame From “The Unstruck Bell”
Here are a few lines that I highlighted in Eknath Easwaren’s book, The Unstruck Bell, because they speak to me:
You are not upset because of your children or your partner; you are upset because you are upsettable.
Great figures on the spiritual path, such as Jesus the Christ, Moses, the Compassionate Buddha, or Mohammed, have all given us the same message: “Live only for yourself and you will never grow; live for the welfare of all around you and you will grow to your full stature.”
This is what stilling the mind means: laying to rest permanently every negative and selfish force in consciousness.
Peace of Mind
Peace of mind is what we get when we quit arguing with reality, engaging in drama, regretting the past, and fearing the future.
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