i think i have had a hard time fully trusting that the light i see is real. that what appears to be coming from the openings will still be there if i fully surrender to it and cross-over. but, more and more, i am allowing myself to linger in the faithful just a little bit longer. to hold the gaze and believe. and i recognize how when i slip back into the cages of my own making, that the light remains, right there, waiting for me to release. and move even closer still.
i just want to be free.
really.
and there's only one way there...
i love you.
let's share this ride.
these things i see- simple. ornate. utilitarian. soft. hard. rough. layered. metallic. texture and light and shiny and red. orange. yellow. green. blue. indigo. violet. transparent and opaque. flowing and still. open and closed.
i could go on. and on. and never take a breath.
the camera allows me to stop. to take it in. even the cracks in between.
explaining in a way i never could with words.
today is all about foundation work. mission statements. intentions. operating systems. files, virtual and otherwise, being named, organized, and made accessible.
and in perfect (albeit loud) harmony, there are about a dozen men under my nearly 100 year old house drilling and pounding an earthquake retrofit to make the house more stable. literally, they are reinforcing the underpinnings of our home.
in kind, so am i.
with lists and details and lining things up just so.
order. a system. everything in it's place.
(it's tedious. and frustrating. and necessary.)
this needs to be done.
so that the doors will continue to open.
and i will continue to walk through.
with grace. with ease.
and with a (solid) foundation.
**in other news, check out the recent interview i did for the wonderful kate swoboda's the courageous traveler site. be sure to look at kate's main page, too, with links to many fabulous things, including both an e-course and a retreat in 2010.
a mother seen. vatsalya's health clinic for commercial sex workers. ajmer, india 2009
driving down the road a couple of weeks ago, it hit me. in the way that revelations tend to come: unexpected, surprising and concluding with a perfunctory "well, duh." my thoughts were drifting in that moment, drifting through the time-line of my story. the ways that events have strung themselves together. how where i've been led to now, in an imperfectly perfect sort of way. i was thinking about mothers and birth and how, for the better part of two decades, i wrapped myself in an impenetrable focus on becoming a midwife. so much so that i spent years studying toward the goal and even earned a BSN nursing degree at the top of my class in 2004-- all the while ignoring the knots in my gut and, at times, the impossibility of taking a deep breath.
so, i'm driving down the road a couple of weeks ago, and i am suddenly taken over by the memory of where that trajectory began. where i made my mind up that "this is what i will be when i grow up."
i was seventeen years old and a freshman at UC Santa Cruz. i was sitting in the middle section of an amphitheater style classroom. the class was developmental psychology. the professor introduced a guest speaker for the day who was a local midwife. the lights dimmed and the fan on the projector whirred up to full speed. the screen lowered.
she had me at the first image. a woman. brown skin and a long, dark braid down her back. loosely dressed in a thin, sheer, white, cotton dress that revealed the taught ripeness of her belly. she was hanging on to a trellis lodgepole, forehead to the wood, eyes closed. her feet were large and strong, solid on the deck where she stood, a most stunning mountain landscape behind her. and she was lit perfectly by a sun either coming or going, casting shadows and a soft glow that swallowed me whole.
there were, of course, more images in the series. each telling the story of this woman's birth. the shedding of the garments, the unraveling of her hair. eye contact, sweat, and hands gripping. furrowed brow, anguish, rapture, and the smoothing that comes with letting go. she was free and wild. captured on film with a knowing and an allure that left me sure and longing.
captured so well, that a seventeen year old girl was forever changed. i knew i would chase the feeling stirred in me by those images to the ends of the earth.
twenty years later, i see where i missed the mark. i see that what was alive in me that day was not the desire to do the work that was the subject of those photos, but, rather, to be filled with the essence of the photos themselves. to witness, frame, and capture the beauty, the connection, and the faraway place. so that i, we, can feel swallowed whole by a soft glow.
i look into her eyes, this other woman that i captured in the photo above, and that seventeen year old girl is awakened once again. the full circle moment has come. i can smile, shake my head, and say "well, duh."
and i can get on with it.
photo of me by denise andrade.
i think it's time to rest upon the grass and close my eyes. again.
to feel the ground beneath me and to allow it all to not make sense. to vision this next phase coming into being without drama. untangled. just easy. flowing. harmoniously. simply. providing.
to take some of those deep belly breaths. to yearn. and want. and desire. unabashedly.
none of us are really that wise, are we? but i do believe our hearts are.
and mine would really like a nice long moment to speak and be heard. with nothing but the wind to fill the pauses.
how about you?
jodhpur, india 2009
there is absolutely so much going on inside of me right now. familiar darker things that crave a voice but, at the same time, feel tired and old and like they just need some dirt kicked over them. and new things, too. colorful, intense, could-they-really-be-true kinds of things that have my heart beating strangely and the top of my head blowing off repeatedly. i am scattered and one-tracked, depending on the hour, and i can be anxious or still, depending on the minute. i am slightly insane and zen at the same time.
i've also been short on words around here. i realized today it is because i've been feeling a struggle around how to bring this space back into the present, which isn't the rich textiles and spicy chai of my time in india, nor the speeding train that led up to going. honestly, i just don't feel that interesting, dynamic, or able to adequately express anything when my current experience is so inward. the present is about slowly returning to the land of unknowns. to the routines of carpool and lunches and squeezing my life in between the hours of 9 and 3. to paying bills and shaking watering money trees. to facing limitations and surrendering to the slower pace of practice and learning.
there are exciting trips being discussed and also there is groundwork to lay for how this passionate living thing will continue to play out. and there's the niggly voice of pragmatism, too. the one that knows that it is time to consider things like value and worth and business plans. like how to open doors for some revenue and to streamline this vision i have for the doorways project--and also how to seek some help with that. you know, the whole trust-in-the-universe but make-good-choices, too, paradigm. finding a balance between being faithful and being smart. faithfully smart? clearly setting intentions and then letting go.
so, honestly, this time for me is about so much, and so little. it is life simplified and expanded. it's as much about the pot of soup on the stove as it is about the next trip to afar. it is glow-in-the dark make-up on my son's face and my daughter's blissful tellings of campfires on her middle school trip. it is asking myself how much reassurance i need before i accept that i am good enough to keep taking pictures and sharing stories (including my own). it is persimmons at the market and a house that still doesn't feel like home. it is a feeling in my chest that is warm and radiating and almost more than i can handle. it is me, raw and tender, alive and vulnerable. passionate and ten steps ahead--circling back and surrendering.
it is everything. and nothing.
and it's as all over the place as this post.
i know there is richness and spice here, too.
probably more.
i look at her and all i see is purity. sweetness. understanding. she appears as refuge to me. as hope. as peace.
it's been challenging re-integrating into my day to day. defining my roles, finding meaning and joy in the slowness after such an adventure. i'm craving the sensory overload of india, and, at the same time, keeping mostly to myself, quiet and at home. fall is a familiar time of introspection for me. a season that has been filled with stirrings and self-examination in years past. i am remembering. and i am also noting how this year is different. how the train of awakening continues to move forward, even in the in-between time.
nothing else is scheduled yet, which beckons both fervor and inertia in me. it's a little uncomfortable. but i am doing my best to let it be. to stay in the cave working with the bounty that i returned with. staying open to whatever comes and trusting that, when it does, i will be conscious enough to say yes. and i am finding deep gratitude for the purity and sweetness inherent in all aspects of my life. on adventure and at home.
all the while, i'll keep sharing. even when it's all disassembled and scattered. because it is the wellspring of our connection to one another that keeps me alive. and because i cannot imagine keeping it all for myself.
see below the (very choppy) video i took on my last night in india, as we stumbled, yet again, upon more celebration and festivity. in india, there is always an opportunity to dance with the divine...
What seemed to matter to Sugan was the moment that she was in. The moment that inspired her to drop these clothes in my lap, insist that I keep them, and instruct me to wear them when I visited her home. I was later told that it may take her six months to replace them. But what seemed to matter most to Sugan was that we connected freely in just that moment--two women sharing a cup of tea and an afternoon. Giving and receiving one another's time, attention and intrigue.
As I continue to struggle with how best to assemble the project that will tell the story of my time with Sugan, and facing my perceived limitations in the process, I keep coming back to her easy way with me. She was uninhibited and free with herself. Strong and proud. Dare I say, sassy and bold? Those are the qualities that I want to bring to the telling of her story. Those are qualities I want to possess in myself.
Sugan is a member of one of Vatsalya's women's self-help groups which provide women the opportunity to create goods and services, in community, enabling them to earn money to support themselves, their families, and one another.
(second photo by Eduardo Sciammarella)
daughters at vatsalya's health clinic for commercial sex workers, ajmer, india 2009
it is because of them that i have been hesitating. and it is because of them that i can't any longer. my tendency toward procrastination is not laziness. it is so much more a fear of fu**ing things up. of not doing justice or of not mastering it. of not being good enough. but they are so much more important than nailing the color correction or getting the layers quite right. they are not simply exotic subjects and this is not photography or writing for the sake of doing so. this is about THEM. real people. daughters who have a right to a better life.
i was not there as a voyeur. i was there to make a difference. to capture them so that you can see that they exist. that they matter. that their mothers want more for them. as much as my futile ego wants to idle around and tweak these images until i deem them good enough that you might think i'm worthy to do this again, so that someone may want to actually finance my way to the next story or piece of equipment--these images make me see the absurdity of such things. because these girls are real. it's not really about me. the experience of beholding them for a moment was so much bigger than me. i'm simply a messenger. in perfect alignment to capture their beauty. to bring it here. to pay it forward.
you see, it's undeniable that i want this so bad. to do more of this work. to have the next plane ticket and the next lens to keep this feeling inside of me ignited. but, truth is, this is not about my will anymore. the passion and the creativity that are coming through me are not driven by my mind. nothing about the last six months has been "rational." it is all heart. surrender and heart. these are the layers that matter. and it is from underneath it all that their stories need to be told. from the center of truth that these images need to be processed and shared. if more doors open after that, than so be it.
tomorrow, i really begin. doing the best that i can, with the tools that i have.
for them.
