It was the perfect day for working in the garden today -- soil the right moisture for easy weeding, warm but not too hot, and no mosquitoes. So I've been working hard, which leaves me with little energy for blogging. But there are still photos -- I've been fascinated by the patterns of unfurling ferns, and of ferns in light and shadow. So here are several on that theme, mostly taken earlier this week.
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I've been listening to a podcast of one of Krista Tippett's On Being broadcasts, an interview with Arthur Zajonc. He's a professor of physics at Amherst College, a long time meditator/contemplative, and was diagnosed with Parkinson's a year ago. He had some interesting observations on how the latter two interact, but the pieces I wanted to pick up here are some of his observations on light and color.
He quotes Goethe, who in addition to being a poet and a standard name in German literature classes, was also a scientist who explained his interest in studying the nature of light through accurately observing color with this poetic line: Colors are the deeds of light; its deeds and sufferings: this considered we may expect from them some explanation respecting light itself. Zajonc adds that we learn about light and darkness -- that "through studying the action of light in darkness, and darkness in light, we come to sense the "deeds and suffering" that are color". I'm quoting from a page or two I found on the web, from his book Cacthing the Light: the entwined history of light and mind, which looks like an interesting one to explore further. He also talks about light and shadow -- that light is only visible when it falls on an object. We don't see light as such, just the effect when it lights up the objects around us. Seems like there could be some interesting connections to be thinking about as I take photos of light and shadow and color. Today's photos are some of the ways light and shadow were interacting around the house this afternoon. I'm thinking about shadows today. Since there wasn't much sun showing through the clouds, there weren't many shadows. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there was one large shadow, cast by the thick layer of clouds overhead, so that everything was more or less an even gray. At the risk of repeating myself, it is much harder to find photographic sparks of light on an overcast day. I was musing on this at supper, and on the shadow I saw in the center of the flame I carried into the Advent spiral Saturday. John questioned whether it was actually a shadow. "The light isn't being blocked, it's just thinner at the base of the flame." We peered at the flames of the Advent candles burning for our centerpiece. There's the blue at the edge of the base, and then a part with not much light. Squinching up one eye, and looking through the thin area, I could see the edge of the cranberry red candle behind it. Indeed. There is a thin place there (but not the sort of thin place the Celtic Christians wrote of, those places where heaven seems closer than normal to earth). Then I discovered that when I looked at a second flame through the first flame, I saw some intriguing effects. I could see the second flame through the first even beyond the thin part. Here are three candles in a row, with the back two flames much smaller than the first. Still, you can see something of what I saw. Here we are looking at the back two candle flames through the first flame. And when I moved so that all three were in a line, I could see the second through the first and the third through the first two. Light a few candles and see what you see. _Before we get too far past Sunday's lectionary reading from Luke, I want to return to the angel's message to Mary in verse 1:35, and spend a little more time with another kind of shadow.
The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. A few days ago my musings on this passage took me to the bright cloud on the Mount of Transfiguration, which overshadowed the disciples. Today I'm thinking about the golden statues of cherubim in the temple "overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings" and to all those psalms that have references to being sheltered in the shadow of God's wings, like 36:7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings, or 63:5 7: My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy. The English word "overshadow" can feel heavy, like an overcast Indiana day, or a submissive Mary being overpowered by the dominant "Most High." Shadow feels like negative space. But what if shadow is a place of refuge, a place where we can sing for joy? A place -- a thin place, perhaps -- that gives birth to holy new life. _The picture above is Henry Ossawa Tanner's 1898 painting of the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel's appearance to Mary. I find my gaze repeatedly returning to that angel of light, and to Mary's face and hands.
This morning I was working with the story of Gabriel's visit to Mary in Luke 1: 26 - 38, in preparation for some gatherings later this week, and my attention was caught by the word "overshadow" in verse 35. The power of the Most High will overshadow you... Overshadow: To cast a shadow over, to darken or obscure. The same word shows up in the various gospel accounts of the transfiguration, the glory that comes over Jesus on the mountain, as he talks with Moses and Elijah. A cloud -- or in Matthew's version, a bright cloud -- comes and overshadows the three disciples who are watching. This "bright cloud" is a reference to the Shekinah, the cloud that filled the temple when it was first built, which is experienced as both thick darkness and as the radiant glory of God, a sign of the in-dwelling of God in that place. So what kind of shadow does a bright cloud cast? What light shines when we reflect that radiant glory? Here's a mix of cloud and light and shadow and reflections, an image received at the end of October, near the Goshen dam. Yesterday one shimmer of light came with the play of light and shadow on this harvested field. First my eye was caught by the lines of the stubble and the flow of the land, and I recorded this scene just before going in to visit with a friend.
When I came out an hour or two later, the sky had changed and the play of light and shadow was more active, sweeping across the field so that the land itself seemed to shimmer. Today's bright sunshine made for a world of interesting shadows, whether outside on the snow, or inside with houseplants and metal sculptures. I'm pondering light and shadow in other ways these days. Darkness and shadow tend to carry negative connotations for us, and they can be scary, and threatening. But they can also be gift, as in Brian Wren's song, Joyful is the Dark, which poetically provides us with numerous images of times of darkness that were "the cradle of the dawning."
There's the holy, hidden God, in the thick darkness on Sinai, and in the mystic's "cloud of unknowing." There's the dark chaos over which the spirit breath of God hovered in the beginning. There's the darkness of the stable, and the coolness of the tomb "waiting for the wonder of the morning." And today I had an illuminating moment as I made my way through this rather dense sentence from the book Sophia: the Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton, by Christopher Pramuk: "And although it is true that his cosmic view of Christ frequently shimmers with cataphatic light and presence, we shall see that as Sophia it makes ample room for the apophatic paradox of darkness and hiddenness..." Cataphatic and apophatic are technical theological language, but the concepts aren't hard to grasp. The cataphatic path is one in which we experience God through the richness of the created world -- through our relationships, through nature, through scripture, through faith imagination, through music and poetry and song. The apophatic path is where we encounter God through experiences of absence and emptiness, silence and darkness. Words and images fail to hold or express all that God is. God is mystery While one strand may dominate for a given individual at a given time, these are two sides of the same reality, and both are intertwining strands in our lives. My photos of sparks of light are in the cataphatic strand; when i sit in silent prayer, I am in an apophatic mode. I'm eager to read more about Merton's experience with Christ as Sophia/Wisdom. I know his poetry and prayers are full of light and presence, as well as the hiddenness and the darkness that births new life. I'll continue to pay attention through this time of Advent, watching for the interplay of shadow and light, and for experiences of the cataphatic and apophatic ways for knowing God. John and I left supper simmering and took a quick walk this evening, enjoying evening sunshine after a cloudy day. I hoped to catch the evening sun on the fountains by the music center, but the college seems to have turned all the fountains off. We’re getting frosty nights; winter’s coming. I’d better go out and cover my rosebud again. But for now it is still autumn, and we found the sun highlighting some of autumn’s warm colors. And there was afternoon light dancing in the fountains a few days ago. Not as flamboyant as the leaves, but lovely in its own way. I spent four days on the road this week, traveling anywhere from four to eight hours each day. There were many moments of light, but I collected those images in my memory banks, rather than with the camera -- interactions of clouds and light, and of light and shadow on rolling hills and fall scenes, as well as many good conversations with my traveling companions.
One day we traveled during the “golden hour,” that hour loved by photographers when the sun’s rays are low across the landscape. Our golden hour lit the golden leaves still on many trees. Other days were cloudier, with the sun’s rays breaking through open patches in the clouds, rimming the edges with light, and sending shafts down to earth. When the cloud bank thickened, we were left with rolling Pennsylvania hills, covered with a gray-brown afghan of bare trees, interspersed with an occasional bright yellow or red tree, still proudly displaying its leaves. Yesterday it rained all morning as I traveled between Columbus and Fort Wayne. The clouds were soggy and leaking, but there was a golden undertone – russet fields of drying soybeans, tawny cornfields, thickets of trees with wet black trunks vivid against a backdrop of yellow leaves. After Fort Wayne, the cloud cover began breaking up, so there were dramatic cloud configurations mixed with sun highlighting fields and woods. It reminded me of travels in Big Sky country in Alberta, with majestic clouds rather than our more usual gray blanket. I tried to capture a bit of the drama at a stoplight, and by pulling off a time or two – this only hints at the beauty, because it proved quite challenging to find a good combination of dramatic clouds, shafts of sunshine hitting fall colors and a safe place to pull off the road. Perhaps it can remind you of your own dramatic memories of cloud and light. When I walked into my spiritual director’s study this afternoon, there were sparks of light dancing all over the room. My director was standing in a shaft of sunlight, holding a small bowl-shaped candleholder made up of many bits of glass soldered together. Each bit was at a slightly different angle and when she held it in the sun and moved, lights spangled the walls.
For most of the session, the bowl sat on a small table between us where it caught the light, spattering dabs of light around the room. Their wild dance was stilled to the nearly imperceptible rhythm of the sun’s crawl across the sky. Much of the time we were hardly aware of them, as we talked of illnesses and deaths, a prayer practice of looking for moments of light, and the interplay of darkness and light. Beside my director’s chair was a small table with a candle and some pictures. I looked at them without really seeing them until suddenly a small flame blossomed in a dark area of one of pictures, an Annunciation. The right half looks like an old Dutch painting, with Mary as a peasant woman standing by a table. The left is dark with a wild scribble of light for the angel. “My Neon Annunciation,” my director calls it. The flame – a reflection from the soldered glass candleholder – slowly bloomed at the edge of the table. A little later, it lit the angel. Light and darkness. I want to keep musing on the intersection of light and darkness in the days ahead. Looking for sparks of light is not an attempt to see life as all sunshine and roses. Life and death, darkness and light are more intertwined than that. My attention keeps getting caught by the interplay of light and shadow, joy and sorrow. Looking for sparks of light is a way to keep affirming that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness can not put it out. * I've learned that the picture is of a mixed media installation by Theodore Prescott. He sculpted Mary "as a Mennonite girl standing alone in a humble house, preparing to bake bread." The angel is a scribble of neon tubing. You can see a thumbprint at http://worship.calvin.edu/resources/resource-library/projected-images-in-worship-illustrate-or-illuminate/ |
My approach to contemplative photography --
"Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." Mary Oliver in "Sometimes" Archives
August 2020
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