Dhyāna Series: Photo 7

I am a TA for first time this semester, and I am beyond grateful every time I walk into the classroom or sit down to grade ninety-one assignments. I love hearing their hopes and dreams, their likes and dislikes, and lending a hand to address their concerns if I am able. (I do also on occasion feel like having oxygen handy wouldn't be a bad idea either, but ...)

I love it. and these kids. and I wouldn't do anything else for the world.

(also, loved finding out today that some old pop culture references, random though they might be, are still present in today's youth. Well, beyond old movie junkies like me, that is. "'We are all out of cornflakes - FU.' Took me 3 hours to figure out "FU" meant "Felix Unger.")

Dhyāna Series: Photo 6

Representing my two favorite times of day: rise and set. There is so much thought that can be applied to that image: beginning and end, circle of time/life, presence of mind, "nowness," impermanence, reflection and reality, awareness. It is a quiet more beautiful than silence for me and one time (either early or late, but both if possible) I reserve to appreciate in its wonder.

Dhyāna Series: Photo 5

Haven't posted one of these in a while. Life tends to fast forward at the end of the summer. As school begins, I want to get back on a regular rhythm and positive thoughts and peaceful situations need to be a part of it.



I had the wonderful opportunity of experiencing New England for the first time. Lived on the water among the trees and played music all day long with great people who felt the same. As summer fades and academic-related stress begins yet again, I hold this moment in my mind. Scenery might be different, water might be missing, but the people are just as loved.

Frame.
Focus.
*click*

Dhyāna Series: Photo 4

Discover the power of your own house and experience the joy of having beloved people over to cook for, play music, have conversation, overcome politeness: that is a valuable kind of peace.

Dhyāna Series: Photo 3

The next door neighbors here have great joy in their yard. Their backyard is a jungle of all kinds of plants from this grape vine to palm trees to roses to "beautiful, but invasive ground-cover" gardened by those that obviously love each and every one. They care about the fate of a small plant's life, health, and prosperity. That, to me, is worthy of note.

Dhyāna Series: Introduction

There is a great deal going on in the world, and close to home that I (alone) can do very little about as a (currently) unemployed grad student but that disturbs me greatly. This is a series of photos that I am beginning in a centering effort to do something, hopefully a little more toward peace and order in a world more and more of chaos and hate.

(do feel free to correct cultural/informational/any inaccuracies as I am a grasshopper in this) In Sanskrit, Dhyāna ध्यान, is a root word for varying forms of meditation, positive/negative and modified/traditional. A lovely article by Shinzen Young sums up Patanjali's three levels of concentration as:

Dhāranā: Attention wanders from the object and is brought back over and over again.

Dhyāna: Attention on the object is effortless and continuous like an unbroken stream of oil.

Samādhi: Attention is so complete that the yogi becomes the object!

Some of this hits a little too close for comfort in a number of ways. However, in one small way I offer as much as one photog can in this series of increasingly horrible events unfolding in our world. We may not be able to undo what we've done, and how many of us feel more and more agitated at the inability to effect change? Positive thinking is one thing. Prayer another. little as it may be or do universally, please accept a moment of peace and stillness as a reminder for ourselves. These are the first two photos I have designated in this series, and hopefully, the first of many:





gassho and love to you all.

"In the Frame"

I've thought about it for a while and find myself more and more looking at the teaching lessons of life through the act of framing. Intentionality and accident; awareness and ignorance; containment and randomness; art and impassivity--all encompassed in our frames. As director Scorsese says about cinema: "It is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out," but more and more I see that applicable in my life as a whole. There is so much to be learned and taught through what is found in the frame. I would like this topic to now be reflected in this blog (might as well as I seem to go on and on about it so much anyway). Anyhow, more later.

a few of my favorite quotes below:

"Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame."
Gilbert K. Chesterton

"Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet."
Victor Hugo

"Humor expands our limited picture frame and gets us to see more than just our problem."
Allen Klein

"Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning."
Katherine Anne Porter