Expanding Presence

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“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.” - Alan Watts

We must learn to expand our awareness of the present moment if we wish to live an enriching, soul-nourishing life. In the same way we expand our lungs when we take a full, healthy, deep breath in, we can expand our awareness of the present moment. A slow, deep inhale refreshes our senses, helping us to be more conscious of our internal state of being. So, we expand the present moment in a similar way, by breathing it in deeply, by tuning into its subtle frequencies. We can attune ourselves to the moment by focusing attention on our physical surroundings through color, light, textures or through our very own breathing. Find a way that works best for you, for we each experience and attune to presence in our own unique ways, there is no prescribed path to worship or follow. As we find our way to grow conscious of our experience with the present moment, our perceptions of the past and the future will naturally grow distant, their looming power will fade. The present moment will expand from feeling like a dimly lit alleyway being crushed in by the weight of the past and future and into a luscious meadow of vivid greens and crisp wind as a warm light washes our soul clean. Our preconceived perceptions of the past and future will not intimidatingly peer over our shoulders into our little moment of presence as they once did, for in the meadow of presence nothing but the here and now can be felt. Here, all is limitless, all is infinite, all is love.

Frisco by Little Dragon

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Read the full lyrics of ‘Frisco’ by Little Dragon on GENIUS

[Verse 2]
I always try to set every course
(Every course, every course)
The fastest route without losing control
If I fall in and relax, will I float?
Let longings release so I see the whole deep blue sky

An honest experience of a spiritual human: caught between the ego’s desire to control and our soul’s nature to surrender. Culture screams to seek, heart whispers rest.

A Walk Through Sunnyside & Woodside, Queens

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While I undoubtedly believe each image should be strong enough to stand on its own, I love the way image pairings can highlight aspects of one another such as form, scale, texture and shadows. While each independent, the two images simultaneously work as one, bringing out potentialities in one another that were otherwise latent energies. The diptych pairing is especially interesting to me above all as it seems to so naturally speak to the nature of relationships: to be unified as one and yet still remain two independent entities. In a divine diptych, one image does not overpower the other, it is a delicate balance that is ever in a beautiful, lively dance of flux. The two images are sharply distinct from one another and yet somehow birth a third form together, a form of unity. The two individuals have no hierarchy nor seek to make the other conform to one’s own characteristics. They enhance and support one another when together, while standing on their own when separated.

May You Follow the Song of Your Soul

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The Soul reminds us she is not confined to a physical place as the heart or the brain is.
She is like the wind, ever more free than the gentle breeze and also more violent than
hurricane winds when she has been muffled by Ego's great illusion of fear.
She rattles the cage of your self confinement until you begin to reluctantly seep out through the
cracks of your secure life, becoming exposed to the terrifyingly sublime state of the unknown.
I feel her force move from her invisible world and into my body, and out through my body.
She pushes me to the edge of the known world, inviting me to jump into the embrace of mystery,
and yet all I can see is an empty abyss, because I am looking at her through the veil of fear.
The Soul works not only from within, for she now calls from without, from the furthest, somehow familiar, edges of the world.
I feel her call from beyond, below, above, within, from hidden voices dancing through the air.
She seduces the heart, and draws out the ancient knowing hidden deep within each of us.
And so we step into the mystery all of the fair fades away, to one day meet on the other side.

Finding the Timeless Center of Your Being

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“There is a place in the soul that neither time, nor space, nor no created thing can touch.” - Meister Eckhart

The late John O’Donohue (Irish poet, theologian, philosopher and author) referenced the above quote during an interview with Krisa Tippett in 2008 for The On Being Project. The quote was by German philosopher and theologian Meister Eckhart back in the fourteenth century. Despite over the five centuries that have since passed, this quote remains just as relevant and soul stirring, as if serving as a linguistic remnant that proves the existence of that deep and timeless center that exists within each one of us, though often going unknown within the heart of the ordinary man.

O’Donohue expanded on Meister Eckhart’s timeless sentiment, giving the quote an enlightening atmosphere of simplicity that speaks as a soul-nourishing stream of peace:

“There is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there is still a sureness in you, where there is a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you, and I think the intention of prayer, spirituality and love is now and again to visit that inner sanctuary.” - John O’Donohue

Through his words, O’Donohue gently calls us back home into that timeless center of our being that exists free from all of the pain, worries and fears that have slowly obscured the lens in which we see and understand not only ourselves but the world around us as well. There is no roadmap to find that center of our soul, but the intentions we set for ourselves will undoubtedly guide us towards the secret path of the heart.

———————

Listen to John O’Donohue’s entire interview with Krisa Tippett published in The On Being Project in 2008, titled “The Inner Landscape of Beauty” (https://onbeing.org/programs/john-odonohue-the-inner-landscape-of-beauty/)

The Shape of the Moon

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The Shape of The Moon (Self-Portrait, NYC, 2022)

She is vulnerable yet indestructible, resilient and soft, visible but hidden, shrouded in a luminous mystery of her own soul’s design. The moon lives alone in darkness yet loneliness nor fear overtake her. She journeyed through hidden worlds to find the all knowing light of love, and in the end she discovered that what she sought was in herself. The moon does not seek, but reveals, does not attach, but flows in the tides of her own gravity. So I took up the path to search for her light, only to feel her warm presence glowing from my soul.

(Published in Helix, Issue 06, 2022, Istanbul. View excerpts from this publication below and view the full virtual issue here)

Excerpts from Helix, Issue 06 (Left image is available for purchase as a print here)

Sometimes a Closed Door is Not a Closed Door

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Sometimes a closed door is not a closed door, but a request of patience. Is the dream you seek worth the wait? True, you cannot sit around expecting the dream to come to you. But oftentimes, attentive non-action proves more fruitful than action. And perhaps during the moments of patience life requests of you is when you truly begin to live, for the inner workings of ones emotions and the subtleties of deeper understandings reveal themselves only when the heart is quiet. The desire to tear the door down or pick the lock is of the ego and can only end in suffering, while the patience to wait for the door to open at the proper time is the way of the heart. So until then, you sit, watching the light dancing under the door, reminding you that the most divine revelations are worth lifetimes of patience.

 

From the series Traces of Being (Prints available for purchase here)

She Dreamed of Eight Moons

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Eight moons encircled us in the night sky above

As I stood in the heart of a familiar forest.

Every pearl slowly revealed herself after the last,

Clear yet veiled by a familiar mystic design.

The radiance of a boiling star passed as she spoke,

“true wisdom lies beneath the illusion of distinctions”.

We awoke in the luminous shade of Crescent street,

I could not find the moon for she became me.

From my newest series She Dreamed of Eight Moons (Purchase prints here)

A Crow Landed Onto a Nest...

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Print available for purchase here

A crow landed onto a knot of loosely hanging wires,

his head cunningly in search of the mother.

Seeing no one, he darts into the tiny makeshift nest

tucked between an apartment window and rusted security bars.

The innocent white egg stands out against the thief’s black coat

as he flies through the twilight, noticeably conscious of his guilt.

The mother returns, still as a just-shattered heirloom

before collecting her pieces to race out in the direction of the crow.

Inner Silence Amidst Outer Chaos

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~ THIS POST MARKS THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY FOR BEGINNING THIS ONLINE JOURNAL ON JUNE 7, 2021 ~

Up until very recently, I have been accustomed to life in small towns: Nature greets you at your back door, silence is a reliable friend, and the only chaos to be found is the neighbor’s dog escaping their fence. Nature was always the main event, whether it was a hike through the woods, going out on the boat or hitting the beach. Mims is the small town of Florida I will always call home, and I love knowing that few people have ever even heard of it.

From the series Transitional Chaos (2022)

In a small town, it is second nature to discover inner stillness as there is not much to do on the external level. This lack of external stimuli inherent of rural environments holds a mystical capacity for unlocking the inner stillness within oneself. Having grown up with this kind of innate solitude as my baseline of being, it has naturally become a cornerstone to my sense of personal identity.

Now, having been in New York City for almost a year now, I have undergone innumerable internal crises related to my relationship with internal silence. I have lost and found that familiar inner stillness countless times in the city, however, when I have found it, those moments are far between and extremely brief. Where once the inner stillness was my center of gravity, it has now become a fleeting acquaintance. Living in the largest city in America has made me realize that I took the familiar ease of inner silence for granted. I assumed that my inner peace could pack up and travel with me anywhere I go. While this sentiment is in fact true, it holds a caveat: the louder the environment gets, the more conscious awareness I must give to the inner stillness in order for it to stay. If I want to keep inner peace as my baseline of being in this city, I will have to give more attention to it. Without attentive awareness, inner stillness becomes wilted like an unwatered plant.

From the series Transitional Chaos (2022)

My natural reaction has been to blame the city as the reason for my feeling more stressed, ungrounded and less centered. While the city environment has unquestionably played a vital role in this internal struggle, it is not the city at fault. Ultimately, it is my own actions and lack of conscious awareness that has brought me to where I am today. If anything, I must thank the city for exposing my faults and weaknesses. To get back to my center of internal peace, I must devote more effort and care to mindful engagement with the present moment. I will take the city as a test, a test to expand and deepen my mindfulness, because I know that if I can find my inner peace here, I will surely be able to nurture it anywhere.

From the series Transitional Chaos (2022)

Abstractions: Rural vs. Cities

From the series Traces of Being

From the series Traces of Being

Photographing in a city is naturally different from photographing in a rural setting (both images above were taken in NYC). While I apply my same way of looking and abstracting through composition and proximity, the images prove very different results. In city based images, there is a strong presence of stark contrast, harsh light and seeping textures, where in rural areas I find softness and a gradual ebb and flow of tonal gradations. I tend to prefer the less stark images, the more gentle and subtle aesthetic, but the more I continue photographing in NYC the more I feel my sensibilities expanding. I do not wish to swap one for the other or create a hierarchy between the two aesthetics, it is more of an experimentation. Like the yin and yang, their differences do not disturb the other but rather enhance each others’ qualities. Understanding this helps me to see my own life as an experimentation, to expand and evolve in ways I haven’t done before, in ways an old version of myself may not have liked or even thought of.

And yet...the light calls

5th Avenue / 59th Street Station Exit, NYC

Rushed. Tired. Anxious. Exhausted.
And yet…the light calls
And when it sees me, I am still.
The light cuts through my emotions and speaks directly to my heart, reminding me once more
of my true nature as she whispers:
presence, presence, presence.