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Years ago I saw an interview with a monk in a desert mountain hermitage. He said that hermits had lived there for centuries, and that the mountain was "steeped in prayer." I have always recalled that phrase, and wondered about the sacredness of place. Are there such things as sacred spaces, places where "ordinary" begins to shapeshift into "sacred" -- or where we are more likely to realize that the ordinary and the sacred are not so different after all? I think of the crepuscular moment of the day, that 20 minute period of "painter's light"when the light begins to shimmer and glow at the edge of the day, just before twilight, that instant where the real becomes surreal, and we stop dead in our tracks dumbstruck with wonder and light. Are there places that hide that same secret, waiting only for us to see -- that secret of transformation into something beyond our imagining -- that secret that glistens and sparks at the very edge of language?
For me these places are not generally human-made structures, although many find that churches, shrines, temples, synagogues, mosques -- even homemade altars -- are places where the transcendent shines through in a particular way that is beyond language.
Spiritual bloggers are always grappling with how to express that which feels beyond words. Often those moments, when one is living mindfully (to borrow a beautiful term from the Buddhists), a camera can help freeze forever in time an image of those moments when the air seems changed somehow, and the world is infinitely fuller or vastly more empty than it was only seconds before.
The spiritually conscious photographer seeks certain moments that make the heart shimmer or tremble in awe. Moments that are sublimely ordinary on the one hand, but dazzlingly iridescent on the other. Moments, that unless they were there looking for us, we might miss on our own.
One of the bloggers that does a splendid job at using photography as part of a deliberate and delicate expression of spirituality is Lorraine, who is Buddhist, at Hoarded Ordinaries I loved her entry about Goose Pond as she tenderly photographs skins of ice on a pond and finds connections to the human condition. Her work is always linked to a deep love of place. She teaches in Keene, NH.
Paula, at Paula's House of Toast offers a Christian take on her stunning photographs. As part of a breathtaking entry of photographs and writing called Geist, she says: "At times I feel the spirit of God pouring through me like wind through branches, like light through stained glass."
Are there other BlogHers out there who see their photography as a deliberately spiritual expression? Let us know about those women, and if you are one of them, please do point us all to your work. And thank you, bless you, from one humbled by what it is that you see.
