*It’s time to understand music. It is after all, worship…say the crickets.
I have an opinion. Here me in.
I will cause you to think differently.
That was the point.
It is.
What darkness beholds us? What is it about ghost notes that causes our recognition to impart.
Is it really in the off beat that we need to continue editing?
What exactly did I learn to play with? What did I actually learn to play with?
I’ll try to describe it to you.
I have 32 different triggers in front of me. Each is pressure sensitive and can be played simultaneously. 4/8 limbs playing all at the same time. I don’t think when I play anymore, I just play.
“I do my best to create my own metronome with my kick, or whatever instrument I choose. Left brain, Right brain, doesn’t matter. As long as it sounds good to me. I play multiple different variations and speeds of the beat, always returning to the centre of the pattern. All this while creating unique approaches and elevations so that I’m creating a song in real time.”
I never really hear the song in totality unless I record it. (I recorded this one just now.))
Recording and playing back the song has been a game changer in my life.
I wrote it down.
Ive always been good with pattern recognition, but it’s only this yr that I’ve learned to recognize it. To truly utilize the subtle understanding of the finer things. The colors. The songs.
The problem however has been that I never truly understood the act of listening to myself. I would just observe, and move one. Danger close.
That’s probably why I always chose hobbies that have an unlimited learning curve. Once you reach the understanding part, expression becomes the growth. Tool in the hands. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Psalm 23:4
I will never be good enough at it. It’s the impossible quest to conquer the understanding from the day before.
This a developing thought.
The wind changed, and the open book of my life is all over the place.
it’s time to talk about order, and structure. Patterns don’t present themselves until both have established the relationship.
The why.
*Family, the ultimate super position. The wolves went observing.
This is ongoing. My love for you.
My God is good in all things.
How can I be that to Him?
I can be honourable.
I can be trustworthy.
I can be.
By being good to his creation, just as he was.
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The winter.
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Good things come to those who wait.
This post will definitely have a photograph, it might even have a guest contributor. But not yet. This is a different version on us.
Stay warm with the family you know.
Icy hearts ward warm thoughts.
It’s Jan 1st. Let’s talk about devotion. Let’s talk about freedom.
I ment to spell evolution, but my autocorrect keeps giving me odd words while it attempts to figure out what I’m trying to actually spell. I’m searching for validation form the computer.
From.
Firm.
Understanding.
That’s in my mind because I said so. From.
That’s what the textbook says. The Bible.
I learned it, and was nurtured by it. The text book, the nurture, and the nature.
However, imperfect thought dominates love, it doesn’t let it speak all the time.
It becomes fear.
That’s imperfection. Separation from.
I repeated the pattern. I had to learn from it.
I needed to test myself. Early.
It was my example. I had to learn from the beginning.
I was learned by it.
The evolution and devotion started when I had finished thinking about it.
That’s when language is improved. It’s when it’s truly understood.
Love or Fear?
Action follows recognition.
To be or not to be.
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Love is Love
Love is the thought of it.
Love is patience.
Love is creation.
Love is action.
Love is kind.
Love is service.
Love is witness.
Love is recognition.
Love is evolution.
Love is discovery
Love is Joy
Love is devotion.
Love is prompting.
Love is pain.
Love is renewal.
Love is Revival.
Love is a question mark.
It can’t help itself, it’s like a when I was a child,
I needed the thought before I found the breath to cry it out. I wanted to know how to silence my own voice. I needed help for the sudden unknown. My parents hadn’t taught me how to use my voice yet. The language, that is.
I needed them to be the standard for proper communication.
Created to be tested.
I’m being tested, by the ruler. That’s why I’m happy its new yrs and not a repeat of old ones.
I learned those lessons already.
Let’s start with what is.
Love is forgiveness.
On repeat.
That’s service.
You can’t repeat something unless you know the patten and the language by which to improve on it.
Love is life itself. If love has a name, I need to be it. I’m still alive. That means I’m still in the process of understanding it. I trust it though.
That’s called a super position. It’s the ultimate singularity.
But I fall short of perfection.
Like gravity.
It’s the burden in my hand and the garden by which to walk with it.
Fearful of being seen.
But
Love is truth.
It gravitates to it.
I’m not afraid of that anymore.
I’m not afraid of renewal, or speaking it, I’m afraid of doing it alone. That’s why God created you. That’s why He started with gravity before he taught me pain.
That’s why love feels like falling. Falling is separation from something. We pick things up to prove that we can carry them.
Sometimes burdens get placed where they don’t belong. That’s when we ask why.
The burden is getting heavy!
I cry out!
I want to fight it and I need to know if you are capable of that. I want to know if you will assist me in the action of resistance to it.
That’s when we start enjoying the fight for it.
It vs I vs us
I was created to carry things after all.
So were you. I recognize you.
That’s why I want help and but don’t need. I want to find joy.
It’s my devotion.
This is my story, after all.
It is my existence.
It’s my existentialism.
I can cry if I want to.
Love is : 1 Corinthians 13 : 4-7
(the actual definition, not my understanding.)
I don’t need to prove something that’s effortless. I want to show you the stone.
It makes the cross road.
I need and want to communicate that properly.
Love is clarification through subtraction.
Jesus just did the math. He’s the question mark.
I want you to tell Him what’s heaviest. The burden you pick up, or the one you thought you we’re given.
Love is clarity of purpose.
Love is independence.
You can’t have devotion without separation.
You can’t do division, without subtraction.
You can’t do addition without multiplication.
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Love is freely given. Just read the textbook.
It will tell you about a light burden. It will also tell you about who will help you carry yours. Helpmates help with burdens.
Once I believed that, and recognized the burden for what it was, I realized that it wasn’t mine to begin with.
Jesus took my burdens away.
He took the hammer and made it a feather.
I felt my iniquities wash away.
I felt truly loved and forgiven for the first time.
Accepted into His family, though separated from my own.
Jesus loves me. This I know.
That’s the nature and the nurture.
You are forgiven.
Because, I love you.
There, I said it.
Can we get on with it already?
*May I help you with the laundry Tita?
That photograph was taken at church in the park this summer.
Validating more requires movement, change in position requires recognition.
Yes vs No
Cross roads only exist because they were mountains once.
Tita understood the concept.
In this moment she surrendered her anointing to self. She adopted a new one.
She chose Jesus, and she didn’t care what you had to say about it.
Isaiah 61: 1-3. *A perspective on adulting teaching, and empathy* and Parenting.
What does anointed mean? What is the table and when do we let go of it?
My interpretation? Home based. Home cooked. The collective agreed upon. Learned. Enjoyed.
True freedom is found in surrender. It’s in letting go of the table because you know where your foot is going to land. It’s the foundation. It’s the agency.
It’s sovereignty and trust summed up in a life lived.
It’s a babies first steps, and it’s the gasp and astonishment followed by an event that’s happened billions of times. That’s the collective part.
The source of the example of the meaning of.
Happiness.
Joy is found in knowledge.
I can walk, on my own.
That’s why it’s shared. It’s the recognition of a shared independence. The dinner table isn’t just a dinner table any more, or a coffee table either. It’s where family is. It’s where you find the cupboard with celebrated victories. It’s the wall where the photograph is celebrated. Not the images, the image of. It’s why they call it home base. It may be a thing, may be a person. It’s a place none the less.
It may have been home. It may have been something that you trusted.
Trust is where it started.
You made the decision, and then you learn. You get to decide before the collective does. You get to define it for yourself.
That’s why they call it agency. It’s your declaration to the world, but you had to decide it yourself first.
The miracle happened in the abandonment.
The collective decided that language was good. So we learned that too. We also learned how to silence voices in the process.
It took me this long to see the languages of my life.
I’m referring to self identity and home as the same thing. Family is home. You were born from it, you were nurtured by it.
However, when we look at it differently,
Families are born from fear.
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Learning the hard way.
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The puck met the goal. We won, we lost.
But let’s focus on the bright side first. Let’s focus on the ice.
The anointed place, person, value, and means.
It’s the source of who you are. It’s recognition of the place where you did the learning. Where you learned importance. It’s where you felt safe to learn quietly in the dark, and in the light of shared celebration. It’s where you are your most vulnerable. Completely safe. Yourself.
Fear is created when that safety is violated. It’s not complete anymore. The bright side had a dark side. Even the sun can’t hide that violation.
We recognize completeness, we can’t help it. Because we want it. We also recognize shared brokenness, but that’s a whole other thought.
Recognizing your true identity and sovereignty is the first part. Home is where the heart is.
If we search long enough, and test the very nature of our sovereignty, eventually we will return to anything that resembles home.
Lamentations 3: 25-28
Sometimes home is silence.
When you understand the mimicry, you understand the maker.
When you understand the manner, you understand the man.
Mannerisms are mimicked. That’s called fashioned after.
…there I go again. Saying the same thing 4 different ways. My parents do that a lot.
This is why I should have thought further about the potential impact of my choices. It’s an optics thing. I should know. This is a constant dilemma.
Alas, Anya. I’m a natured and nurtured photographer. I must clarify. I must be still.
The problem lies in the fact that trying to maintain “optics” only speaks to the maker of the lens, not the maker of the light, or the one receiving it.
Sometimes it’s time to speak up so that the optics correct themselves and start looking at the right light. That’s the photographers job.
Being an eldest brother, I had to understand this early. The position holds the line between sibling and authority figure.
Sometimes consequences have actions.
Unfortunately I’ve had to be the example of that too.
Looking back at it, it requires a pretty strong foundation on God. To be a good older brother that is. To be a good example of a father, a brother, a protector, caretaker, ass wiper. After 7 of them, it was a lot.
I need and need to be a good example of empathy and consequence at the same time.
I had to learn to set boundaries lovingly. I didn’t have the authority to do anything else. That’s a tough lesson to learn. It’s hard to be a good example unless you’ve both witnessed and lived the example.
I’ve struggled with the concept of example. I’ve struggled to be a good example.
Why?
I fail a lot all the time, again, differently. That’s why…
God is God because He has to be. For me too.
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Nathan has to be Nathan too. Because God made him for Him.
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Nathan was made to mimic and evolve accordingly.
Evolution starts with pain. But then something happens.
Love breaths and sings, cry’s are cried, and the rebirth of self happens again.
We do it ourselves again and again, and we still can’t get the identity right.
That is, until you learn to love brokenness.
Like a Musician.
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Love songs
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Death metal.
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Worship Music.
Let’s be clear about something involving music.
Music evokes empathy and validation of that internal evolution in real, self directed time.
That’s why we like it. It’s purely up to us if we like it or not, and if it’s perfect or enjoyable to us, we can enjoy it on repeat.
It validates us.
Fortunately, Nathan came out an absolute mess. His timing was abysmal. Shuffle mode. Same with his parents. I’m grateful. Sometimes dying to one’s self is part of the process.
Mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery.
That’s the process. It’s the rebirth and awakening into a calling that you weren’t exactly ready for in the first place. You had to hear the example of the music to be played.
That’s why music and song is so often referred to as a church. It’s home no matter where you are. It’s where you discovered the drumbeat of the anointing because that’s where your kit is. It’s where you get educated before you walk out the door.
But that’s when the real discovery begins.
It’s when you return home and find it different than when you left it.
You go back to the temple to pray, and what you see there, doesn’t exactly reflect the thing you trusted while away.
Tables get turned. Sickness gets healing, and eyes opened.
The discovery of the anointment. That’s the meaning of the verse. It’s been read for thousands of years. It’s time to start taking it personally.
The discovery of the true identity. The certainty that drives action.
Certainty derives from knowledge and trust.
That is recognition. That’s the process.
Seeing is the observation of the process and the result. Observing the Father is observing the Son. The son can’t help but mimic the father.
That’s why it’s irritating. It’s the mirror. It’s the reflected image of what the result should be.
Asking the mirror or the lens to correct their optics is never a bad thing. Image quality is important.
Train up a child in the way that they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart from it. Stick with the program, trust the process.
Learning from the Father, is the actions of the Son. Learning from the Mother is the actions of the Daughter. The process of the teacher, well sometimes we teach ourselves, doesn’t matter what the orientation is.
The process isn’t the sex of it. The process isn’t the Identity. It’s the definition behind it. It’s in the shared definition of agency.
The process of you becoming an adult is not your parents kicking you out of the house, it’s the process of you kicking them out of yours.
Christianity mimics the process.
I love God for that so much, the patterns of process. The structure and the shape. The photographer and the lens.
I’ve been gifted with an anointing.
The problem however is that it’s taken me this long to finally use that Bible verse as both a reference point and a personal declaration.
Proverebs 20: 11-13
Even my fingers are tense as I type.
Then I breathe. I remember my education.
I’m anointed because my parents are anointed.
That’s the lesson.
Then I remember that in the furthest reaches of my memories, I can still hear the laughter and the sightless search for the truth.
It was the wisdom of my parents to give me the gift of sight through experience. It was a summer camp for assisting others with visual impairment.
It taught me empathy.
That’s the first anointing that I see in people.
It’s the brightest light.
I’m a photographer of that.
When the light dims, I check the settings, check the exposure, regain my focus, and compose myself.
Be still, Be silent, know thyself.
Know the creator and know the weapon.
Art after all, is only discarded after its invalidation.
If the light of the art has changed, it’s time to change to see it differently, it’s time to adjust the tool with the anointed hand.
True art needs no defence, it requires guardianship.
That’s why Mary and Jesus showed up with empathy. They had learned to trust.
……Joseph must’ve been scared shitless and had to learn empathy in the process.
He probably had a pitchfork and was ready to use it.
But that’s just another perspective on anointing.
Joseph certainly needed to understand defence before being entrusted with carpentry.
That’s why the tables being turned is significant.
If Jesus had entered the temple and found dinner, well…
2 Corinthians 3:18
You know what the crazy part is?
We haven’t even begun to understand each-other.
That’s why I keep thinking about you.
The structure and the shape.
I’ve been expressing myself a lot through my drums lately. These are just a few of my favorites. I learn by making mistakes. I will share something right now that might come as a surprise, I never really know whats going to be the end result of what I play. I just play. Every one of these is a solo, played once. Don’t ask how me to play any of them again. lol
These two were played consecitivly
I switched some sounds around for a snare-less approach. These were also played consecutively.
Day of days, why remember anything? What is truth? Why die for it?
This photograph was taken on my recent trip to Ucluelet. I had stepped out on to the rock to shoot a specific composition. It had taken a 20 min hike to get there. I didn’t understand the timing of the photo. I do now. While near the water and having just narrowly avoided a wave in panic, I struck up a conversation with a wonderful person named Stephanie.
Stephanie was bare foot.
Let that sink in for a moment. There was no sand nearby. Not remotely. Just the jagged rocks, slippery, yet she moved over them with the freedom of a confident local. Indeed, she is a nurse in town.
The conversation was so genuine. I could see that I had met someone with an understanding of pain learned. It’s a universal understanding. The rocks get it, the trees get it, the water changes, motivates it. I told Stephanie that the photograph would fit the thought.
Pain is truth. Often there are many layers to both. The photo above is called “layers of pain”
We learn from pain. We build on it and we grow through it.
Why remember it? Why remember what we lost and then learn?
Why remember someone who spoke, acted on and then died for truth?
Veterans understand this.
A funny thing happens when you speak your truth. When you fight for it, when you stand behind it.
You don’t have to stand in front of it anymore, blocking its path. If it’s indeed truth,
It moves forward.
Relentless.
Where it leaves you is standing in its wake, vulnerable to what the declaration now is. That truth can now lead and direct you properly because who you are has been settled. The internal argument has been lost and the love for something of truth pushes outward.
I’m trying to say something here.
What’s really happening when we speak for something inside of us ( a conviction ), is that we are actively recognizing the significance of that truth outside of the constructed importance observed by others.
This before you.
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“This means of refinement is worth more than your temporary comfort or feelings about it.”
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“Stepping on that nail hurt, and it will hurt if I step on it.”
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I wore boots. Stephanie didn’t need them for the life she was living. I did. We both understood pain.
This shift in the understanding of pain and living is constant, but it has a funny way of teaching us both when we embrace pain and when we avoid it. That’s the pride part.
Pride is not self love. Love is insight, pride and fear are selfishness.
Self love and identity shift the focus outward because that is what the very nature of love is. It’s made to be given. It only exists because something wants it for something else. Hate works the same way. So does manipulation even if it’s disguised as love.
Pain is the learning crucible for all of that.
Pain is only recognized when it’s experienced.
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Actions have consequences. This is not an isolated equation, trust me, I’m good at math.
What’s given to all is best for all, becomes enlightenment. What is the saving grace? What is this truth? What is the equation?
This is the part that the constitution got the idea from.
This is where the shift happens. We all lose the life that we never asked for. Every memory of that life remembered is lost to the one after it. To quote Fight Club, “On a long enough time-line, the survival rate of everything is zero” -even the memory of someone. At least a human one. This is why I love the story of Jesus. He transcended equality. He wrote the equation that solved the problem.
He introduced pain into the equation and then was sure to willfully and fully understand it Himself. He did this because He knew who he was.
Equality in ineptness; not stature or composition. Composition is in the eye of the thought, stature is the importance placed on someone deserving of that recognition.
When “This truth” is actually the truth that joy is found in selflessness and that recognition of one’s brokenness is the beginning of wisdom,
Then suddenly, friends, families, although often enemies, start behaving differently.
Stature will be judged by Character. Actual Righteousness will be looked to for the standard . It’s inevitable.
Jealousy, greed, envy, gossip, pride, and hate become acknowledged pitfalls to target for expulsion.
The concept of forgiveness and boundaries begins to be understood. People are.
Churches stop being a popularity contests, and educated, technology inspired, God fearing, seeking people, start being just that.
This truth is actually that you are more important than I am.
You are. You got me here.
You inspired the drumbeat, the love of the photo, the love of the Word, the love of life. The love of family.
Whatever part you played in that, happened by some will to see that we recognize the importance of the other while we move forward.
(Whatever part you played in my life played out for the will of something greater than me. )
I like run on sentences. It gives the opportunity to share a thought twice because I want you to get it.
This truth extends much further than a 45yr old drummer who’s finally found a voice.
It’s is a universal understanding that if the plane is crashing, you make sure that you’re going to be conscious with a mask first before the assistance part.
It’s not survival of the fittest. It’s simply acknowledging that sneeze.
This is why universal healthcare is important.
Honouring our veterans, and actually supporting them and the elderly.
Education and social health services must be brought to the attention and forefront of everything.
Families must be supported, especially those that have the courage to step up and be the family that no one believed in. Not more than, all the same. Families bring growth. Growth equals prosperity.
A personas personal growth, intellectual understanding, and continued enlightenment, will always point them to the ultimate source of that source itself. The Creator who is all, knows all and is the energy through all.
That’s why every person’s decision to do what they want with their body is absolutely their decision. We are the witness of the process of life. God made each for a reason. The first thing God gave us was direction to do something instead of do something. That means, regardless of the outcome, God wanted a decision. He wanted you to make up your own mind, to make our own deduction and decision. Both are important.
Yet, in the context of one’s search for God in the midst of sexuality…
We all. Love is universal. That isn’t a new idea either.
I know what He made me to do and to be. What did He make you?
God is not defined by sex you may say, it goes both all ways. You are correct. It.
It is Thy. Thy will be done for your life.
(What’s happening here is that we are recognizing the validity of another creation, as something else. Not ownership, the opposite.)
Freedom.
Not mine.
Sneeze = God Bless you.
That’s not sexual, moral, or educated. It’s simple affirmation of the blessing that’s beyond understanding.
Why say it then?
Because universally, outside of human resentment, religious construct and preconceived self righteousness….
We actually care about each other. That’s a good thing. We recognize expression of air and loss of it, quickly, suddenly. That’s a Christ thing. It’s a human thing. It’s both.
It’s the same thing as rushing to pull your cat out of the burning house.
It’s the rescue of touch to the infant to encourage the breath, not silence it.
Predators silence life. They recognize the power and worth of something because they recognize the void in themselves. They, hunger. Fear is the fuel for both the reminder of power and the life of the animal. The lion eats the zebra because it must. The zebra eats the grass and understands its relationship with the lion. Fear was introduced to the equation. predators are manipulators of this equation, they understand it. We are not animals, we are not humans, we are created. Created to love being and therefore doing. Living. Preying on another life is the key difference. Fear of pain got introduced and used.
Fear of pain and death, is not life, but it is truly the only way we will ever understand it. Even Christ asked for it to be taken away from him.
This is a truth that needs to be spoke again and again.
We’ve become so accustomed to functioning in selfishness, pride, and greed, that we’ve forgotten the principles and humanity that brought us here in the first place. Life exists to be lived. That’s why I enjoy a good steak but also understand why I should be my own version of ethical about that. The steak helped me understand the grass.
Our entire existence is for the purpose and recognition of something Holy and greater than us…an old understanding that is truth..
We don’t live to die. We find life in living more fully as we understand life. We protect that. To prosper in that acknowledgment of something of actual divinity. It’s what we were actually created to do. To worship by living and helping others to live.
How often must we kill, manipulate and destroy in the name of fear of life?
Have we remembered anything? Have we actually given reverence or has God been reduced to a punchline? To a political indicator?
In-case you need the question answered, ask those who you thought closest. Some people are a very bad judge of character. Testing that against your own, is never a bad thing.
Ask yourself this. How long have I known the truth about something but didn’t act on it by getting out of the way?
This Truth remains.
Thy will be. God decides the finished part.
I know.
The implementation, and the understanding.
The why.
Why freeze the frame? Why draw attention to the moment? Why go, why stop? What was there to be seen by?
What is the logic behind it?
I encountered that question on the way to take this photograph. Someone asked me before I took it.
I had no idea at the time. This was taken in Feb. It was taken at the start of a long road.
The photograph isn’t really anything significant until you understand the context.
Why do we do what we do? What motivates us?
What are we waiting for? What do we see?
What’s the photograph?
Why take it?
For in this instance, I am entirely motivated to be still. To be whole. To see the things that I can’t see when I’m too busy moving.
To understand. To know. To be present. Home.
I am.
Snow becomes snow when the temperature of the air, moisture in it, and the temperature of the ground, meet in unison. All parts have to work together or it doesn’t work at all.
One side of the field was ready, the other wasn’t. Not yet.
The rest of the day that followed was both a deeper understanding of sight, internally and externally. The dark and the light. The fallen and steadfast trees changed and made beautiful to witness. Then when I got home to a quiet and powerless home, I let God know about it. I let it go. I thought I did.
I started to understand serenity.
That’s immediately when I started to test it.
The search for serenity starts when we stop moving, remove the obstinacy, and start finding the right motivator. Life.
Serenity is found when we start asking our life giver and knowing then who we are. Serenity is honesty, integrity, and identity all wrapped up in one.
I’m not ashamed of my motivation. I don’t have to be ashamed of anything else either.
I’m a Christian, but the application of that faith has certainly been tested. God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, is not about control, it’s about the evolution of the creation. The awakening of it to its maker. To live. To grow. To become like.
Awake.
Woke.
That’s right, true Christianity is woke.
Don’t get me started on the mockery that Christ’s Charactor is experiencing in our society.
This year I have seen and I have been witness to so many people acting in that Character. It’s everywhere. It’s not isolated to a belief system.
I love to witness it.
Every religion and every personal quest to live and be a better version of ourselves is a testament to the God that’s found in all of this. It’s not the destination, it’s the refinement. It’s in the process that we are made whole. It’s in the seeking. The endless curiosity to understand someone and something greater than our collective carbon footprint.
Even the rocks are crying out.
We all work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.
Philippians 2: 12-18
My belief system is not yours.
I’ve been on the never ending quest to understand the why.
To understand unconditional love, truly, for the first time.
It’s the awakening to a new understanding of character and grace by something worthy of surrender to see and be witness to. Then to follow through in service to that power, that energy, greater than us. To be like. To model the Charactor of.
For me, that’s Jesus.
It’s to love.
This isn’t a new idea.
What do we want to become? Whole.
Who is Holy?
God.
Who is God? God is Love.
Who is not?
I am not.
Yet,
I can adapt to the character of.
I can become like.
Like water.
Who are we in the context of that?
I made a decision to be less frozen. To instead be receptive and light, not stubborn and ridged.
Understanding.
Discerned.
Still.
Learning.
Humbled.
Changed.
As humble as a tree, as still as the snow, and as adaptable as a stream. All willing to be changed. Silent and quiet in worship.
It’s been a long time since that day in February.
I’m more motivated now than I’ve ever been.
I’ve found most inspiration in the context of change. It’s the season.
This year, it’s been impossible to avoid that.
To photograph even when I don’t feel like it.
Truth be told though, I’ve produced more images this last yr than the last, yet I feel like I’m just getting started. I’m blessed.
Trust the process.
The process of truly finding one’s self, seeing clearly, recognizing, and then resonating with the reason for that shift to something new. That’s evolution. That’s creation, that’s restoration. That’s grace, that’s forgiveness and surrender regardless of ego.
To become whole again and again. That’s where true beauty is found, it’s in the renewal. To recognize the beauty and change in front of you and then acting on that recognition. Trees do this all the time.
To be present. To be truly still in confidence. Rocks are good at this. They’ve understood the crucible before. They’ve known the power of heat and the lack of it. Just like the snow.
This last week, this yr, the rain, the cold, the waves, the rocks, the trees, and the darkness, taught me that.
I can’t witness any of that without first recognizing where the light came from. What manipulated my temperature? What came first, the carbon, or the light that changed it?
Its all too majestic not to ask the question.
Every time that I took a towel to my camera, every wave that I narrowly escaped, every quest in the dark for my tripod, reminded me of that.
I was there for a reason, I was there for a purpose. I had changed.
Why?
I was there to be. To witness, and witness with.
Sounds like a good plan, sometimes our boots get wet the process. The last time that I sat on this beach alone, I was too drunk to finish watching the Canucks game in my cabin, much less be aware of of the constellations that would appear while I was passed out.
Funny thing is, I haven’t changed, I’m just returning to the identity that brought me to the shore in the first place.
-Nate.
PS. The camera is fine. It was made for this. I just needed to be reminded of who was in front of me and why I’m here.
Suddenly the sail boat seems less stable. Too easily manipulated. You have to look for it.
Back to the horizon.
-more on that later.
I spent the week in Tofino and Ucluelet. It’s a trip that I’ve made a few times before, but this time I went with true photographic intention.
I won’t lie, I put my camera and lenses in jeopardy this week.
Cliffs, rain, wind, soaked cameras, slippery rock, precarious positions. Not to mention shooting in the dark half the time.
Yep.
Worth it.
Here are a few from the trip.
I have so much more to speak to the trip, but can’t seem to find the words at the moment. Trust the process.
There are more images in the Tofino gallery. I will add and modify in the coming weeks. I have many images to get through. Have a great weekend everyone.
Site and store in development. * I’ll be honest with you though. I have never wanted to sell anything.
I just like giving it away too much.
Learning to stand still.
It’s been a remarkable trip thus far. I’m in Tofino until Friday. I’m thankful that my cameras appear to be dry now. More on that later. So many wonderful moments to speak of.
First I want to think about stillness, then quiet, then what it means to be out of the rain. I’ve been washed. So was my Nikon. Time to sleep.
Learning to see light clearly. Here’s a few from the last two days. Many more to post, and wonderful people to speak of.
Fine art Friday.
I’m busy getting ready to go create photographs.
I’ll be updating along the way.
living is in the sharing witness.
*Fine art Friday.
The colours of fall start small. The change in colour is the first part. It’s so beautiful. Every fall I look for two key things, the wind blowing leaves, and a single leaf that speaks that to that change. This one was it. I’m looking forward, but hopefully low enough to be conscious of the change happening at my feet.
I just realized that I never spoke to what I saw.
To me, the leaf looks a wind swept flame, depending on how you see it, the smoke is witness to the fire.
The unconscious passion for renewal. Change, considered on a long enough time line, both the leaf and the concrete were fuel for fire at one point.
Now they exist together again as a flame in my mind.
Plus, Honestly, I wouldn’t have seen it, if it wasn’t for a photograph that I now consider less valuable because it ment nothing to me. The first photograph was purely inquisitive, curious, interesting, but not inspiring.
This photograph reminded me that it’s often not the first attempt that was even ment to teach me a lesson, it’s often just to get the ball rolling.
Change can’t be change without change.
*One more thing...
Even if this post finds nothing but the void, then at least I said it. No algorithm, no advertisement, no leading you on.
Just me. I’ve said what I said. If I change my mind. Then I changed it.
Regardless, it’s going to be authentic. I can’t help it anymore. Tactful, yes, humble, sometimes not, sometimes learning, sometimes not authentically.
Learning how to speak my mind.
Sometimes I say the quiet part out loud.
I should clarify something.
Speaking one’s mind does not necessarily mean speaking one’s truth. We often confuse the two. I get it wrong all the time.
In fact, I might have it all wrong, and don’t have a clue.
Doesn’t matter.
I am who I am.
I have a purpose for something.
My free-will lets me trip along the way, but eventually I’m going to end up no further than the stones that found my feet in the first place.
That said, I wouldn’t be here and conscious of it, if it wasn’t to be given the opportunity to learn how to and then do something along the way.
The first thing that we all did was realize that we needed help quickly to do that. To survive, and then to understand the living part.
Someone responded, pay it forward.
That’s called recognizing when someone needs help other than me, then deciding what to do about it based on what I now see and understand. Sadly, sometimes based on how I feel positively or negatively about doing that too.
I’m weak and selfish sometimes. I’ll own it. If that’s scary, well, that’s a problem.
I want what I want. Not always what’s good for me.
I cant help it enough. Its my nature, my detriment, my practice, and my mantle. It is also my disdain.
My sin. My calling. My love, My imperfection.
Its my life’s juxtaposition.
Regardless of human propose and personal belief, I believe that we are created to have joy within our imperfection. I believe that we were created to be redeemed. Redemption brings joy. It cant help it. Abandoning the expressions of the past, and seeing the learning experiences for what they were.
I know what brings me joy, that’s focusing on the things that I’m passionate about. It’s in finding those speechless moments when the only thing that you can do is laugh at yourself, and then try again because you know you will do it better the next time.
I pour myself into the passions that I have. That’s a strange thing to say when I read it back to myself, but its actually very Bruce Lee. Become the kettle, become the cup, become the mouth. “Be like water”- Sometimes salt is involved.
Live accordingly. Be the drummer, Be the photographer, be the writer. Be the reader. Speak truth. Cook with it.
These passions inspire me. I’m starting to see the people around me who truly inspire that life and growth in me. I haven’t been good at identifying that before.
That’s growth and self respect.
I realized something about myself and finding life this weakness,
Creating art and learning to create it is a cyclical thing. Its the internal gaslighting that all artists go through in order to create the things that we create. To produce something from within ourselves.
Same thing applies to the life of something. Either you lift something up, or you put it down.
Art is never finished, it’s only abandoned. Yes, but that’s the wrong way to look at it.
The artist just moved on to the next. They couldn’t help it, the last one taught them the lesson that they needed to know. It is now expression. That’s called practice. Only later does it become. Art.
That’s when no one wants to touch it anymore, Not even the artist.
That’s usually why we stop and take a picture of the food before we turn it into life giving waste.
Life is practice. Life is expression. Life is art. Tripping over one’s self is the best part. It’s where the truth is.
Time to move on. brush off the dust. Laugh, time to be like water again.
I have joy, truly. I’m still. well, not all the time.
-Nathan.
I just realized why I don’t have a photograph for this thought.
I haven’t captured it yet. That doesn’t mean I don’t want it or didn’t want it either.
I’m in touch with my feelings, I express them all the time. I’ll know it when I see it.
The photograph I mean. I think. Trust the process.
I’m grateful for that.
*Learning in reverse.
I’m still learning. It feels that way all the time. Like walking backwards out of something.
I think that’s called learning the hard way.
=
Learning is both understanding the process but also the reason for it. Pain becomes accumulating insight for living further.
I realized the other day just how difficult it would be to play drums with steal drumsticks.
It’s in the flexibility and the feel that music is made. God decides the weight of the instruments, of the tool.
Timing is everything.
My drumming is evolving continually. I learn more everyday, that’s why is so captivating.
I don’t describe many things that way.
Steal Magnolias.
I have a wonderful small magnolia tree in my backyard. This spring it flowered so lovely and seemed to bloom for weeks.
It would give me new compositions with every angle and camera that I used to photograph it. Just lovely.
