Photography and the Mind

Our minds frame experience just like a photographer, choosing where to focus, how much light to let in and what remains in shadow.  We frame our experience with meaning, memory and expectation.  That frame affects the way we feel and how we experience the world.  We tend to think that our frame captures the truth about the world.  It may be our personal truth in that moment, yet changing the frame can change our perception, its meaning and how we feel.

 

The Re-Frame is a powerful tool for expanding our experience, mining the riches of meaning and improving our state of mind.  “The Healing Power of a Sunrise” is a meditation on how watching the sunrise has become a healing experience for me.  We are each unique in our personal experience of this world, yet there are fundamental human connections that bridge that divide.  The sunrise epitomizes that paradox: we are each unique and we are all one.

The Iris is the circular muscle that gives our eye color.  Whether your eyes are brown, green, blue or flecked with gold, your iris closes its focus on the details in front of you or opens to light up a larger landscape.  Like the aperture on a camera, the iris frames an image before it is sent to the mind to be paired with meaning, memory and our understanding of the world.  As a result, the Iris plays a key role in how you frame your experience.  

 

In mythology, Iris is a messenger, sending wisdom from the heavens down to earth, riding a rainbow of color out of the clouds.  Messages that are colorful, visual and rich with meaning have a powerful impact on our minds and hearts.  Iris is also a flower, and an excellent example of how layers of meaning can be conveyed through a simple image.  

 

Flowers speak to me and I can’t help myself from taking zillions of flower photos.  They are so beautiful, colorful, unique and miraculous!  Flowers embody the zest and zing of life and they have done so for eternity.  As such, the “Language of Flowers” has evolved, building bridges of meaning between blooms and stories from the past, expressions of love and life lessons learned.  One Rise honors the Iris as a messenger who celebrates the beauty of this world, respects the wisdom of the divine and asks us to focus on the healing power of perception.  What images speak to you, and what can you learn from their message?

Water is an essential element of the living world, a place we think of as fixed.  Yet water’s form is elusive and mutable.  It reminds us that change is ever present, forgiving and wise.  Water speaks to us through the rhythm of waves, the babble of a mountain stream and the mirror of a calm lake at twilight.  We feel the flow of tides within us, delight at the splash of fresh cool water on our skin, we drink it in.  

 

Seek out “The Way of Water” and allow it to become part of your consciousness.  It will help you find balance and grace in the face of change.

Expanding the frame with which you view the world can alter your experience, your feelings and your expectations for the future.  These changes can all be made in your mind.  However, there is nothing like the fresh breeze of new experience to open up your world view.  Exposing yourself to new people, places, landscapes and cultures inspires creative thinking and reflection.  It makes you realize what you have taken for granted and what you have been missing. 

 

I have lived my life in the Northeastern United States and have been known to complain about too many rainy days, until I took a trip to Arizona.  I was awed by the beauty of the landscape, the red rocks, the majesty of the Grand Canyon, the Spirit of the Wind on the wide, open plain.  I also witnessed the challenge the Southwest is facing in not having enough water.  The land is dry, you have to pick and choose what you can grow, there are plans about how to share what water is there, but it is not enough.  I read about this problem before my trip, but it did not become real to me until I felt the way that limited water limits growth.  I returned grateful for even the cloudiest day and the gift of lush green gardens.