Photography

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.

She Dreamed of Eight Moons (I and II), 2022, Limited Edition Lenticular
Photographs, Multiple Sizes Available, Shop HERE

 

Long Island City, Queens [Aug. 14, 2022]

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Yesterday I walked from Williamsburg, Brooklyn (grabbed pizza at the delicious L’industrie) to Astoria, Queens. It was later in the day, and it was magical to watch the light morph all around me, creating deep shadows and highlighting the vivid colors of building facades during golden hour. The entire concrete world was defenseless against the divine power of the ephemeral light, and there was something soul stirring about this: as if the universe was visually saying ‘no matter how built up your temporal egoic constructions become, they are powerless in comparison to the eternal nature of the soul’. Here are just a few images from the walk.

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.

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)