Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention
Be astonished
Tell about it.
Dear reader,
These famous words by Mary Oliver, part of her poem “Sometimes”, are so clear and simple I think they could easily be overlooked. Obviously, they have not been since they are quoted all over the place, but they could be pushed aside, as too simple maybe. However, in them lies, I believe, a path towards a more meaningful life.
Notice that I didn’t say a “happier” life. Of course, we all want a happy life. Happiness includes many different aspects of life, but, depending on your definition of what it means to be happy, I think the word “meaningful” is a better word to use and a better goal to have. “Meaningful” includes more of life. It includes happy moments, grand moments, small moments, hard moments, sad moments, tragic moments, beautiful moments, ordinary moments, and so on. It includes the moments that we are often trying to avoid, shut out, or ignore, the “not happy” moments.
And when we do that shutting out, it is likely that we are missing out. We are missing out on the small glimpses of beauty that show up in those times we would rather not experience. Paying attention includes everything - the obvious beauty and the less obvious beauty of this world. It includes the challenges, the blessings, and the ordinary, and finding the beauty in all of them.
While visiting the Grand Canyon last week, I was able to admire the obvious and “grand” of our planet. And it is certainly a place where you experience never ending astonishment.
This place has been photographed thousands of times, and initially I had little interest in taking any photographs. It never looks exactly the same, depending on the light, but I find that most images don’t quite show the grandness and vastness of it all. And that’s wherein the obvious astonishment lies.
The challenge is to find the glimpses of beauty within the vastness. The challenge is to find a slightly different perspective. The challenge as a photographer is to see something that others don’t. The challenge is not to capture what the camera sees but what your mind sees.
So, I tried. I tried to pay attention to small details, I attempted to catch the sight of the one shadow, the one rock, the one speck of light. The results were mixed, but I wanted to share the ones that made me gasp a bit.
I also had quite a bit of fun experimenting with binoculars and photographing what one can see when looking through them. They ended up being my favorites. It was quite challenging to get any images at all, and my boys became slightly annoyed with the fact that I was hogging the binoculars all the time. But then, when I showed them some of the results, they loved them and became inspired to try the technique themselves.
I love the imperfection, the blur, and the shape. They also show that there are miracles to be seen in the tiniest of details even with limited and blurry vision.
To me they look like a collection of different moons.
The last bit of light before the sun went down.
Thank you for reading today’s letter. You support means everything. Feel free to share this post.
I hope I could inspire you to pay attention.
Manuela
Manuela--these are really beautiful. It is wonderful to see an iconic place with different eyes. Especially love the ones through the binocs. Cant quite imagine how that works.
I have a book of bird photographs by Carol E Richards called Dreams of Birds that also uses binoculars to isolate certain things.
great to get this note every week. Uplifting. Leslie
Wow! I am having a visceral reaction to your words and photographs. You move me once again. Thank you for capturing, sharing and bringing me to see and appreciate the small within the grand.