Bravely

For me, there's still nothing like that silent vigil, followed by midnight song in the chapel while tower bells rang out bravely over the dark, snowed-on countryside.  However, celebratory sound and a quiet reach for wisdom still seem essential rituals for ending an old year and beginning a new one.  Here today, gone tomorrow -or maybe the opposite?  Gone today and here tomorrow could make sense, but perhaps it doesn't matter.  Either way, I know  it's okay to not know.  

Quanta

"Energy comes in discreet units called quanta."  Who knew?  Physicists, linguists and others smarter than I know this, but I discovered it through a dictionary check.   I'd been thinking that a 'quantum leap' had occurred in photography because I am faced with a real dilemma:  I still have many valuable 35 mm negatives I've never managed to process and print!  Searching out the means and methods is possible, but will involve costly expenditures of time and money.  And the several 35mm cameras and lenses I still have? In a digital age, they are definitely not state of the art tools!


But what about the quantum leap thing?  My brief dictionary research suggested I'd be using the term correctly if I described the jump from 35mm to digital as a quantum leap.  Maybe it is obvious, but I wanted to be sure.  The definition said that "quantum is a specified amount or portion" and,  giving an example of this noun, said "an example of quantum is 12 sheep."  Hmmmmm.  This was a curious and surprising example because 10-12 sheep were actually a quantum  in my past for at least one summer.


Nevertheless, my past keeps imploding on my present, usually and thankfully in a good way. For example, in recent weeks I was  recalling  some timeless snippets of wisdom learned as an undergraduate in the fine arts department at UCLA.  And I also learned that a young relative has applied to the Art Institute  in Minneapolis and is hopefully anticipating acceptance there.  I do know a lot about that hopeful anticipation.  And in that kind of moment, none of us know all that we will learn! Nor even the importance of making a daily effort (as Yo Yo Ma said of himself) to go toward what we do not understand.  


So what timeless pieces of wisdom have become precious to me?  Undoubtedly, my young relative will learn some of them on her journey, but here are a few of mine:  in performance art, the instructor (an artist then known for wildly creative and controversial work)  highlighted the importance of having a beginning, middle and end for the piece.  Otherwise the audience will be confused. In painting, one tactfully kind and able instructor encouraged me to take a risk when i was stalled and afraid of ruining a work.  Another color and shape did make it better!  And the arrogantly condescending painting instructor full of conceit in his new status? I surprised myself and him with my best, most creative work!  Art history? That mountain of research for my first paper nearly buried me, but I also followed the instructor's advice and went to experience in person the cultural phenomena of the Pasadena Rose Parade.  He had likened it to other cultural displays in Africa, Oceania and Native America, which placed it in a wider context than I would have.  Sculpture studio?  I liked working big and I liked working with wood.  Railroad ties were out of the question because of space issues, so I made a box with rope handles and a separate lid.  Tongue and grooved cedar fencing served me well, and the box was mostly doweled together.  Inside the box, the roughness of the boards made a nice contrast to their smooth  exterior.  And my box was certainly an attention getter, provoking curiosity, disbelief and questions because it was, after all, a coffin-box!  And it was fun explaining all the what's and why's of it.


But getting back to the photography quantum leap issue.  Coursework in photography was my main focus as an undergraduate.  Elective courses in the film department really blew me away, and learning about the intentional visual work with cameras and lighting, demonstrated in fascinating lectures, was just part of the pleasure; studying Hitchcock films and having them as homework was another plus!   But, even more than films, the many possibilities of fine art photography intrigued me.  Encouraged to shoot lots of photos, selecting the best, printing them full-frame or manipulating them in the darkroom, and being critiqued in class: it was all part of learning.  And then an instructor, quite renowned for his work, taught me about the many shades of gray in black and white photography.  A breakthrough came, the grade of photo papers I used expanded and voila! the negatives had entirely new possibilities!  And my eyes learned to see more and better.


So that quantum leap from 35mm to digital matters to me.  And because i know there are still possibilities for processing and printing my black and white (as well as color) negatives, even if the leap is sort of backwards, the quantum of solace (my dictionary research included some light on that James Bond title)  regarding my negatives will NOT be zero.  

Tradition

Paradoxically, traditions change over time, even when I try to keep them from doing so.  Moving through life I am always, even if unwittingly, moving on.  Nevertheless, customs I've cherished sometimes crystallize in my memory as flawless celebrations.  Why?  Possibly because this is how I keep my balance, and  because without tradition my life, any life, is as shaky as a fiddler on the roof. 


So what about this moving on process? And the memories? Sometimes done very deliberately, very knowingly, and without drama, moving on often holds trauma that just has to be dulled by real-time unawareness.  Insight comes in time, and perhaps real wisdom,  but the ability to look again with new and clearer focus is, indisputably, quite astonishing and deeply satisfying. 


What am i saying here?  Does it matter that the ham sandwiches on homemade buns and the sugar cookies my grandma served up after midnight Mass on Christmas are gone forever, except in my memory?  Or that monastic observance of Advent purposely delayed all the garlands and cards and creche set-ups until December 24th?  Or that we always decorated a real, not artificial, christmas tree?


I think it does matter because my history has shaped my today.  It is the same now, yet different because of that moving on process, and even because of the trees. 


My photo of the Deception Pass Madrones carries a symbolism for me.  It is not just the several  bright orange trunks visible even from my distant vantage point, it is the full frame shot.  The iron railing, the bare and fascinating rocky facade, the mix of glorious trees above the rocks and then the sky. Visually, when one sees it full screen, I think it's powerful and can speak to anyone. 


But this brings me back to trees, and their links to tradition, and to my life.  The universe, as I know it, is pretty amazing, and holds an endless number of things I am curious about.  Researching, superficially or in depth, can now easily begin on my MacBook.  But even if I once again went through the doors of UCLA's University Research Library (the one closest to the Art Department), I'm sure I'd now be accessing source information via a complex computerized system. Yet I would never find evidence that a tree can love.  A tree certainly has symbolic value, whether it is tall and vigorous or, like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, merely a tiny and frail thing.  I can love the tree, but it cannot love me back.


If the thread of my thought got lost in a muddle of words, I mean to come back to something quite logical,  something very  relevant and something which I have lots of evidence for. So here it is in syllogistic form:  Only humans can love.  Not every being is human.  So not all beings can love.   Someone else may dispute this, but it is my logic and I do subscribe to Aquinas' definition of love as a movement (wonderful!) of the will,  to will the good of the other for its own sake, not for what we can get.  


The essential beauty of tradition, and of this season is not so much that I say L' Chaim,  Merry Christmas  or Feliz Navidad,  but that I am a human person capable of love,  trying to speak it out loud and in silences. 


So finally, most importantly, I know this: way before I understood anything at all or was capable of love, I was loved.  By my parents, of course, and my brother and extended family, but first of all by God.  In John's Gospel, the Greek succinctly contrasts LOGOS/SARX (WORD/FLESH ).  The language is weighted with theological meaning for Christians, and brings up many serious questions.  But one very understandable question Christians began to ask centuries ago got answered by the writer Iranaeus.  Q: Why did the Christ wait so long to come?  A: So we could be ready.  Ahhhh, that requires no little effort!  And way more reflection on another day. 

Folding Flags

Today, folding flags in Iraq.  
Tomorrow? If we have a tomorrow, is it only a day away?
Whatever the answer, we must mark this day: the official end of a "dumb war."

Todo, Nada.

A straight, perpendicular path. That is the way John of the Cross says we can ascend the mountain.  Controversial route?  Not for the mountain he tells about.  Part of the secret of that ascent is to "be still and know."  

Wary of the  overload encountered every day,  I am cognizant of the craziness.  But experiencing an almost imperceptible  flame  burning through it all really amazes me.  In my particular life circumstance, this indescribable filtering of "stuff" astonishes me:  the thrilling  possibility of being fully alive is there, and so is the ever impending possibility of being very dead.  

Light vs. darkness!  Too foggy? I'll attempt to clarity.   

Focus: tv commercials  (like politicians) are usually so annoying  that they make me hit the "mute" button.  But sometimes they really hit a mark that is wonderfully creative (in my estimation).  There's that one with the guy looking to buy a truck. He says he hunts a lot. When asked what he hunts, he says "deer," and barely missing a beat as he turns to see the santa-looking salesman questioning him, he revises answer "...fish." Kudos to whoever wrote  and produced that!   

There are other  commercials and ads that make me laugh every time, or that have wild and wonderful and fun graphics, ones I thoroughly enjoy and wish I could take credit for!  How about those once innovative ipod images showing a black silhouetted dancer sharply contrasted with the white ipod earbud cords? Or Target's tv ads? Or those lush lashes commercials that Drew Barrymore does for L'Oreal? ( the look of their most recent tv ad which I saw a day or so ago is fabulous!  And though I won't be buying the product, I am actually eager to see that ad again! ) 

Focus on these somewhat trivial examples just underlines the fact that everyone's everyday life is filled with many little experiences that do matter.  They pay off by  further humanizing us, by just being delightfully creative and by affirming who we are.  We ARE, after all, the discovery channel, the history channel, the news of the world and the politics channel, no?

The glory of God is man/woman fully alive... and that straight, perpendicular path is a way worth finding.  It is, paradoxically, invigorating and energizing and a way to being still ---knowing todo, knowing nada. 

Guadalupe

Today marks a beginning, and possibly an ending of sorts.  The mind is a wonderful thing, and what I'll write here will be something of a mosaic, fresco or photograph of what I am thinking. For better or worse, what is created here poses a risk, but I was long ago encouraged to take risks in order to make the painting better. 


A longtime friend is dying in a hospice facility (of her choice) in St. Paul. We are very dissimilar personalities, but perhaps have learned from that very fact.  For 15+ years she has grappled with cancer, and the good fight she has fought is nearly over. She has kept the faith, and she is ready. And I am hoping that it will be today, on the feast of Nuestra Senora Santa Maria de la Guadalupe Reina de Mexico y Emperatriz de America. Tomorrow (Santa Lucia) or the next day (San Juan de la Cruz) would be just fine, but i lean towards today. And she is very ready, so no need to delay.  But not for us to decide, just to try always to be ready.


In the many years I have worked in hospice, both in Southern California and in Central Minnesota, I have always known this: the mind is a wonderful thing.  What else enables us to create anything? Well, I guess we have to include the heart. 


Designing the visuals of this blog has to be understood as a fluid thing, a work in progress.  It will look better in time, I promise.