Today I pause to peruse a book I bought for a friend Minor White, Manifestations of the Spirit. In the book, Paul Martineau writes an essay that brings together the photographs and life of Minor White. I am sitting with plate 131, Schoodie Point, Maine when I feel the house move, or so it seems, when in actuality, it is probably a crow, jay, or squirrel scampering across the roof, and the sensitivity of the house takes notice.
I think though what if it had been an earthquake, and perhaps my last moment, or a dropping of the walls of the house, a bowing of all that is here to the earth, but it isn’t, and I continue turning pages until I come to plate 147, Essence of Boat. It looks like a fish. Why have I never connected the shape of a boat with the shape of a fish?
Of course. Naturally, and I think of how lately I recognize that I have viewed the world through my own lens, perspective, slant. I'm trying now to change that, to bring forth what I've missed, to beckon and open new doors, new ways of seeing and receiving. I invite, and, in that, I notice when I need to close, digest, and rest.
I set intention to be as sensitive to my needs as my roof is to the crossing patter of paws and feet.
I sit with these words of Minor White, “Be still with yourself. Let the subject generate its own composition. When the photograph is a mirror of the man, and the man is a mirror of the world, then Spirit might take over.”
Ah, awe, yes!
I invite thoughts to ride and mirror as Spirit unites in us all.