OVER THE PAST WEEK OR SO I HAVE BEEN afflicted with a kinda constipation, i.e. the making of many discursive promiscuity pictures, placing them in a number of individual blog entry setups, and then not posting any of them them cuz I couldn’t come up with any words to accompany them. Add to that that I have been spending some time sitting out on our front porch and our back porch while contemplating the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address and there you have it - the recipe for letting time and other stuff slip by and backup.
The Haudenosaunee interest-the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy (People of the Longhouse)-Address-a Greetings to the Natural World-was instigated by a recent visit-I have been there a number of times-to the nearby Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center. The Address is kinda like a meditation which expresses and encourages gratitude for the earth, people, earth, waters, plants, animals, birds, bushes, trees, winds, sun, moon, stars, as well as the unseen spiritual forces. It recognizes that are a multitude of connections between human beings and all living things in the world and that we have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things.
What I find very mysteriously attractive about the Address is the fact that, as one person expressed it, it…
…conjures up no image of a vassal bowing in thanks before his lord who grants blessing or apologies-as in the medieval world view that still frames much of our contemporary western world. Instead, this gratitude situates us in the great web of all life, with all being, and helps us remember the true miracle that it is to be alive and our deep relationship with all things.
FLASHING RED ALERT - before you start thinking that I’m going down a hippy-dippy, loopy-metaphysical, mystical rabbit hole, stop. That written, I call your attention to my recent entry, a river of time stopped in its tracks, wherein I wrote (and discounted) that “I wonder if my constant-near daily-making of photographs of seemingly inconsequential things in or around my house is a subconscious attempt to slow things / time down. To hold on to and appreciate every moment that is left to me.” END OF ALERT
The writer of the above comment suggested a writing exercise that express gratitude for something you have gratitude for. One such example given was to…
….write a piece expressing gratitude for this moment, just as it is, with all its ordinariness, imperfections, and/or wonderfulness.
In thinking about that idea I came to realize that that suggested subject matter comes pretty damn close to describing how I have been drawing with light* - making pictures of daily life, snatched from a moment in time, just as it is (straight photography), with all of its ordinariness, imperfections, and, as I see it, (potentially) wonderful form.
So, does that suggest that I have been expressing in my pictures a gratitude for the everyday? I have never thought of it that way but, on the other hand, I have thought of it as an expression of appreciation for the oft-overlooked “gifts” as found and seen in the commonplace. An appreciation that I hope might be a sorta contagious influence for others to become aware of that state of awareness.
On the other hand, as written in the aforementioned entry, I am just making pictures of what I see and how I see it. That is, making pictures that I hope are made in a fashion which others may find interesting, for reason or another, to look at.
*Ya know, photography-from the Greek words photos (light) and graphos (drawing).
FEATURED COMMENT from Garet Munger
I wonder if this from Poet Mary Oliver might be a statement of gratitude fitting the sentiment of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address you refer to….
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird — equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever. ~ Mary Oliver
