For Juan

Melt II: Photo by Noelle

Melt II: Photo by Noelle

Melt: Photo by Noelle

Melt: Photo by Noelle

Did you know that when you take a photograph you can be in no other moment than ‘Now’. I learned this from my friend Juan. Our conversation began in a very dark time of grief. I could not find a haven from my sorrow and anger and I certainly could not stop my mind racing in an endless search for answers. He suggested I take pictures with my cell phone as I hiked the foothills near the Rockies. That it would help settle my heart and mind, if only for a moment. I did not own a camera, had not taken a photo in more than twenty years and had, in fact, jettisoned most of my personal photos in the previous year. But I had no where else to go. My rage was so great I couldn’t engage in much of the art that had filled my spirit until then.

So I began to take photos of grass and summer flowers. Most of it not very good. He’d coach me and give me ideas and my work grew. Yesterday, as I looked at these two pictures on my iPad and saw the moment caught so perfectly in this “Now”, I thought of my friend. Stay in the now and you will heal, he said. And I did.

Those drops floating in mid air, Juan, are you.

Negative

Sunset: Photo negative taken by Noelle

Sunset: Photo negative taken by Noelle

The Dalai Lama is quoted as saying, “Sometimes the best thing to ever happen to you is NOT getting what you thought you wanted.” Spiritual evolution comes when we begin to see that the negative events of our life are actually the good things. That these same things, places, events were providing us an opportunity to see the world and ourselves completely differently. That they are meant to strip away our illusions, mainly, about ourself. When you can see beauty and motion and grace in negatives….well…then you are really onto something.

Van Gogh’s Nap

Sewer Run Off better known as The Sewer Sprite: Photo by Noelle

Sewer Run Off better known as The Sewer Sprite: Photo montage by Noelle

The quilt is for someone else. A body that will fill the space that now lies empty. Not my room and yet it is all about me, so I come here often. Shafts drift through Grannie curtains I should’ve taken down, but there’s no more money in the coffer so lace dresses up the poor girl’s pockets. The cats purr on the sills marking the territory with sonar and fur. Nothing much here, except my heart beats louder as I step across the threshold and smell the coconut verbena candles. Something of me that is good and sound lives here. Paint brushes stick out of the overstuffed closet that holds my art. Spent tubes and coffee stir sticks are meant to look neat in cups on shelves. Neat and art are antonyms, really, but I need the order in the chaos to feel accomplished, if at nothing more than organization. If the closet door is closed it’s a lovely, pristine guest room waiting quietly for visitors. But open that door and it’s color and chaos spill into the room a garden of wild flowers. My mind couldn’t be better described and maybe that’s why I come here. To see myself in furniture, folded blankets and used up canvases. The cat stretches in the sun and I lie back on the day bed in the warm pool of light, too. It is right to nap in the light and chaos of one’s creative genius. At least until the guests arrive.