Marcoclicks - images, words

Remember

Standing at this wall, looking intently, seeing what is new to these eyes, this is a moment to pause. Pausing as we notice something familiar, we may notice something that has escaped us before, something small or large, important or not, but a new element of a seemingly old scene.

Does it matter? Not by itself, perhaps. But there may be a lesson here. Taking a chance to spend time with the familiar, the old, the "no surprises," and aiming to move beyond what sits comfortably in our frame - that's the possibility for blessing in this moment. Because it brings our awareness fully to where we are. And because, if we are careful, we will learn a new gentleness with our own experience as we gain the ability to see what is new in the familiar.

So we decide to continue looking at what we have seen in hopes of seeing what has been unseen. Look up, look down - try what you haven't tried yet, if you can find that. The texture or the color may be familiar, yet the composition, the mix of elements, that is probably new.

Keep looking - it can help keep you fully alive.

Blessings,

Marco

Slowly letting go

This is how it was that day - quiet, gentle, with a background of solidity, perhaps a bit weighty and, yes, unwieldy. My active focus on looking deep stayed with me even as I found doing that distracting.

Making images can be demanding work, even though it brings to me a seemingly endless stream of pleasure, contentment deeper than my words. It requires joy, discipline, candor, attention, a delicious and often challenging mix. After years of shooting alone, I am only now learning to bring myself to this with another. Sharing this blessed play with your eyes and heart - the images that are given to us or found by us, the ones that work and the ones that don't - is a form of communion and it is new, young, tender.

Of course our shyness creeps in, the slight tightening of shoulders, the intake of breath as we open ourselves to being seen. A moment of rigidity, will it pass? Ah, it is worth the range of feelings it engenders - it frees us from the illusion of isolation that sometimes masquerades as solitude. Being in the company of another who shares a passion - and a vision - is at the heart of relationship. Welcome.

Marco

Walking

Walking in the urban woods, Sunday afternoon, warm. The paths are filled with runners and dog walkers, cyclists and rural refugees. These woods are not pristine. While they live, they have been long ignored. And now there are people,  loud and quiet, noticing and not. It is a moment for walking and wonder, sports and solitude. And so we came, like all the rest.

We wandered along the paths of this ignored wood, populated with children, trees, empty Coke cans, wild flowers, and many stories. We found a slight waterfall, near a stone bridge, surrounded by weeds exotic and common, named and nameless. We claimed it for a moment of reverie and attention. After a while we sat in the quiet of the water's roar. Silence fell with the water, blurring the cars and the children's laughter, sounds pleasant and less so. It was a unique and private and near serene moment in this green place, so close to people and yet so secure in its disconnection from all that surrounded it.

We borrow these places, you know. We come, we see and are soothed. We leave them along with the stories of our passing. We are blessed to have been among these forms of life that can thrive, retain their quiet core in this bustling place. We are blessed, truly, and there is much to learn here.

Marco