Listening to Silence

Meditative Heron ©Lynne Buchanan

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"We make a space inside ourselves, so that being can speak." --Martin Heidegger

This is the quote Mark Nepo (www.marknepo.com) opens the chapter entitled "Entering Silence" with, in his recent book Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What is Sacred.  Nepo writes: 

"Mostly we are caught in a storm of activity.  For we live in the world, and are always drawn above and below and in between...When we can spend enough time below the noise of the world, even though we have to return, we might even say that, from time to time, we live in the unspoken  Then we might be blessed to experience Oneness."

On December 31st, as 2012 was coming to a close, I was walking in Myakka Park with my dog and son and his girlfriend.  As we came upon the scene, we all grew very quiet.  My dog miraculously sat down and watched with my son and Arias, while I crept a little closer and took several photographs. I was immediately overcome with a sense of inner piece.  It was as if the Heron, sitting on that ideally situated gnarled branch, was seeing beneath the clear, still water and his own image to something deeper.  Being in the presence of this meditating bird, we were all able to achieve deep listening.  As Susan McHenry writes: "Deep listening is more than hearing with our ears, but taking in what is revealed in any give moment with our body, our being, our heart." What a prefect way to end one year and begin the next.  I was so grateful to have shared this moment with those who are close to me.

Coexisting with our Fellow Birds and Other Creatures

Limpkin Camouflaged in Moss ©Lynne Buchanan

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I just uploaded some new photographs of birds and other creatures to my website at http://lynnebuchanan.com.  Some of the images will be featured in my upcoming exhibition, "On the Rivers of Florida: Lynne Buchanan's Photographic Meditations," which will be opening at the South Florida Museum on March 14th.  In preparation for the exhibition, I recently spoke with Justin Bloom, the head of Suncoast Waterkeeper http://www.facebook.com/Suncoastkeeper, and Ann Paul of Audubon Florida www.audubonofflorida.org.  Our conversations  made me reflect even more deeply upon our behavior with respect to the natural environment. Visiting wild areas is often very thrilling.  I see all kinds of animals and birds that I would not otherwise see, and I love to watch their innate behaviors.  In a way, it helps me regain touch with parts of myself that get buried living a hectic life in the 21st century.  It is my hope that raising public awareness of the beauty of our rivers will motivate people to preserve them.  Yet, many of these animals would probably much rather that we left them in peace and never entered their environments.  I do believe we can all coexist together if we tread lightly and keep a respectful distance, recognizing that we are just one being in an interconnected web of life.  Birds and other animals are beautiful in the way they interact with their habitats, camouflaging themselves amidst branches and moss, and needn't be flushed out to be appreciated.  If they happen to stretch their wings, or fly away unthreatened, that is always an added bonus for me.  I know I am going to paddle even softer the next time I go out in my kayak.

Instead of dominating the earth, I believe the earth teaches me as this Ute prayer so eloquently states:

Earth, Teach Me

Earth teach me quiet~as the grasses are still with new light.

Earth teach me suffering~as old stones suffer with memory.

Earth teach me humility~as blossoms are humble with beginning.

Earth teach me caring~ as mothers nurture their young.

Earth teach me limitation~as the ant that crawls on the ground.

Earth teach me freedom~as the eagle that soars in the sky.

Earth teach me acceptance~as the leaves that die each fall.

Earth teach me renewal~as the seed that rises in the spring.

Earth teach me to forget myself~as melted snow forgets its life.

Earth teach me to remember kindness~as dry fields weep with rain.

Stumbling upon Divinity

Oswegatchie River @Lynne Buchanan

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"To trace the history of a river or a raindrop...is also to trace the history of the soul, the history of the mind descending and arising in the body.  In both, we constantly seek and stumble upon divinity, which like feeding the lake, and the the spring becoming a waterfall, feeds, spills, falls, and feeds itself all over again."--Gretel Ehrlich, Islands, The Universe, Home (www,gretel-ehrlich.com)

I came upon this quote while reading a compilation prepared by the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, as I was preparing for my upcoming exhibition at the South Florida Museum that will open on March 14th.  Gretel's words touched a chord in me and reminded me of this photograph I took in upstate New York after working with Jan Phillips (www.janphillips.com) this past fall.  I love the way the water splits at the top, coming in from divergent sources that we assume were one though we can't see that far back; then merges, divides, and merges again.  It parallels the way we were originally all one and then continually disconnect and reconnect with each other, the natural world, and the divine within and without.  When we stumble upon scenes such as this, this process is concretely illustrated in an exquisite manner.  It is hard for me not to be touched by divinity in these moments, and when I experience the divine in nature like this I feel it in my own self.