Molokai and Micanopy, My Spiritual Homes

Two photographs from my upcoming show at the Tench Building in Gainesville, as featured artist at this month's ArtWalk...  The Cypress Tree, River Styx photograph I made before I moved to Micanopy.  It was trees and places like this that drew me to North Florida.  Below I explain the healing energies of these places.

The Divinity of Earth and Sky ©Lynne Buchanan

Cypress Tree, River Styx ©Lynne Buchanan

Molokai and now Micanopy are my spiritual homes.  These places sought me out and I heard their call and so the images I make are infused with a sense of spiritual connection, a return to union with the natural world.

During April for the last two years,  I have traveled to Molokai, the least touristy of the Hawaiian Islands.  There is only one hotel on Moloaki with 22 rooms.  Rikki Cooke, Dewitt Jones Theresa Airy and Jonathan Kingston lead an annual workshop/gathering they refer to as "Rekindling the Creative Spirt" on land that has been in Rikki's family.  Everyone who attends is considered family and feels the spirit of Mother Molokai.  Her presence which imbues the earth, guides and inspires us.  Our culture too is experiencing the return of the Divine Feminine and it is this energy that is going to help us heal the wounds inflicted by separation, competition for resources, and conflict over recognition in a world with an exploding population.  Mother Molokai does not fit into the old world paradigm of lack and the need to fight to ensure our share.  She is about abundance, renewal, and creation through rebirth.

Though the ascension of the Divine Feminine is apparent among spiritual and creative people living right now, this resurgence, because the Divine Feminine did rule in our earliest known cultures, must not come at the expense of the Divine Masculine.   The current patriarchy that is being dethroned, which has already in fact lost, arose in reaction to the problems associated with recognizing only one type of energy.  The patriarchy came into being in opposition to the matriarchy.

On Molokai people recognize and live in harmony with the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine.  Though they talk about Mother Molokai, Kanaloa the God of the Sea is equally revered  He is associated with the ocean, long distance travel, and healing.  The Hawaaians have major and minor deities from Kane, the creator, to Hiakawawahilani the cloud holder.  Laamaomaom, the God of winds, lives on Molokai.  It is healing and inspiring to visit a place with the spiritual dimension immanent in the natural world is recognized and valued.  

I moved to Micanopy because the old moss-covered live oak trees on my property called to me.  The sacredness of nature in North Florida is also very palpable.  The springs under the surface of the earth, the prairies, lakes, rives and swamps all contain the primordial seeds for new beginnings.  The presence of the spiritual in nature is alive and well and I have been impressed and inspired by the spiritual people I have met in the few months I have been here.  This too is a special place where feminine and masculine energies can meld to help birth a new cultural paradigm in which we recognize our connection and live in right relation with all living entities and the elements.  In the words of Lakota Tiokasin Ghosthorse, "Humanity must shift from living on the world to living with her."

The Magic of Light

God Rays Hitting the Cliffs ©Lynne Buchanan, 2014

A week from tomorrow, I will be the featured artist at ArtWalk in Gainesville and will be showing photographs from my trips to Hawaii, as well as natural images from North Florida.  As I was printing, I came across some photographs that really made me think about the magic of light.  All photographers know the importance of light and how some conditions make your images really sing, while other lighting conditions make your subjects appear flat and lifeless.  Sometimes, however, the light just has to be from God.  This image was made on Molokai one morning on Land Conservation property.  We were scheduled to go to a beach to photograph the sunrise, but the incessant rain in Hawaii this past spring had flooded out the road.  Rikki Cooke got permission to take us here, to this higher spot overlooking the ocean and the cliffs, but then we arrived and it was all cloudy and everyone feared the morning was going to be a bust. (Actually, I didn't think so, as any morning in Hawaii is a morning well spent no matter what the conditions.)  Then suddenly these God rays started coming through the clouds and it just went on and on.  They were so powerful, they created pools of light on the surface of the water that were so bright it almost felt like you could step in them and get beamed up like in Star Trek.  No one in our group could believe their eyes.   The God rays got so wide, they took up the entire frame of my camera with my wide angle lens on.  It truly did seem like heaven on earth.

Magical Light ©Lynne Buchanan, 2014

Another afternoon, we were driving along the main road on our way back from a full day at the other end of the island.  The weather had been on and off and then suddenly we got to this spot and the storm clouds passed and the light lit up the field, the mountains behind, and the pool of water in front.  No doubt this particular landscape always appears lovely under any conditions, but when the light hit it, I could feel the pulsating energy of every blade of grass and even of the leafless trees.  Again, our jaws all dropped.  It was hard to take in all the beauty around us and it was unmistakable that this beauty was being revealed by this magic light.  The light, thought it did not take the form of God rays, was so intense and non-ordinary that it seemed divine even though it was totally immanent in this world.  It's importance was so great, that it almost seemed to be the subject.

Flowers by the Sea © Lynne Buchanan, 2014

Sometimes the magic light isn't outside the subject lighting it up.  Sometimes this magical light is within the flowers or even you and me.  These beautiful sunflowers by the sea made such a lovely foreground.  They were actually yellow, but I knew the luminescence within them was lighting up the whole landscape.  The cliffs on Molokai, being the tallest sea cliffs in the world, are always spectacular, but with these abundant, celebratory flowers near the edge, it made for a heavenly vista.

Pickerel Weed and Lotus Blossoms ©Lynne Buchanan, 2014

It is not necessary to travel to Hawaii to experience the magic of light and even at times of day when it  is not supposed to be any good, sunlight still has its miracles to reveal and flowers still open to emit their own light.  The photograph above is a close up of the pickerel weed that lines Paynes Prairie all summer.  Peak conditions for this subject occur between 11 am and 2 pm from my daily observation driving back and forth from Gainesville.  Very early and very late, the pickerel weed closes up and hides.  It takes the rays of the sun before it will fully unfurl and then the purple seems to explode across the prairie. The lotus blossoms dotting the landscape punctuate the rhythm of the pickerel weed and lovely light patterns are created.  Like the pickerel weed, lotus blossoms also close up at night.  This wisdom of opening and closing is something I have been learning from the flowers of late. When I do not turn within and integrate the unconscious which is the source of creativity and regeneration as well as my shadow,  I start to feel as if I will flicker out from shining my light too brightly and for too long. It is always a balance between inside and out, light and darkness, and it takes one polarity to make the other come into being...

 

A Fantastic Alan Watts Quote and a Stunning View of Nature I Was Blessed to Stumble Upon...

On the Way to Orange Lake ©Lynne Buchanan

I read an Alan Watts quote recently that appeared in an Elephant Journal entry by Jennifer White entitled "The Best Quote I Have Ever Heard. Ever."  I would have to agree...  There is so much to savor every instant we are alive.  Just walking by a river could stop you in your tracks forever appreciating the feast around you.  The photograph below I made last week by the little stream that enters Orange Lake near Marjorie Rawlings House.  Enjoy and delight in all you see today as you wander about.  Thank you Alan Watts.

Here's the quote:

“As it is, we are merely bolting our lives—gulping down undigested experiences as fast as we can stuff them in—because awareness of our own existence is so superficial and so narrow that nothing seems to us more boring than simple being.  If I ask you what you did, saw, heard, smelled, touched and tasted yesterday, I am likely to get nothing more than the thin, sketchy outline of the few things that you noticed, and of those only what you thought worth remembering. Is it surprising that an existence so experienced seems so empty and bare that its hunger for an infinite future is insatiable? But suppose you could answer, “It would take me forever to tell you, and I am much too interested in what’s happening now.” How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a god? And, when you consider that this incalculably subtle organism is inseparable from the still more marvelous patterns of its environment—from the minutest electrical designs to the whole company of the galaxies—how is it conceivable that this incarnation of all eternity can be bored with being?”

~ Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The Magic is Continuing to Unfold

Imprisoned in a Prism of Light ©Lynne Buchanan

The magic continues to unfold in North Florida.  The changeable weather patterns create some wonderful lighting effects.  After a wet morning, the sun suddenly lit up these great fronds creating a translucent stained glass-like effect.  The colors were so spectacular they stopped me in my tracks, and I loved how the curve of the leave echoed the lines of the leaves but perpendicularly.  After I made a few more images of the play of shadow and light on overlapping leaves, I met another dragonfly, who I once again had a long conversation with.  When I packed up my tripod to go, he came with me for a stretch.  It was the second one I talked with yesterday and about the fifth this week.  Something is going on with me and dragonflies.

Interactive Sign ©Lynne Buchanan

Just a short while earlier, I had met this beautiful creature at the pond in Kanapaha.  I have been missing the lilies that used to be there every year with their giant lily pads.  I saw some mesh in the pond and some little pads starting up again.  I asked the dragonfly what had happened.  I think he was trying to tell me, but I don't understand dragonfly language 100 percent yet.  I'm working on it.

Gloriosa Ladder ©Lynne Buchana

The flowers of course, were spectacular.  It is always lovely to see them in soft, indirect light with rain drops still clinging.  I feel so blessed to live near these wonderful gardens.  What I love most about them is how natural they seem to be–well cared for without being overly manicured.  Working on this same approach with myself lately.  

Those were some of yesterdays blessings.   Then, this morning I saw a fantastic sunrise on Paynes Prairie.  There were some clouds in the sky while I was driving there, but I didn't think it would be amazing.  It was just nice to be outside.  I thought I'd drink my coffee and meditate on the wide open expanse of land and just experience gratitude for the peacefulness the prairie always offers me.  Then shortly before the sun arose, it was like God had spilled a paint bucket.  This amazing Z cloud started to form and in the upper right corner of the image it looks just like the clouds were being poured and thrown onto the sky like a Jackson Pollock canvas.  I think that might be my favorite image, although the one of the sun just breaking through the horizon is special too.  I always look forward to the magic of the sun's first rays.  It's just by then, the cloud had stretched and smoothed and turned into what I recognize as cloud.  I love those days when nature just decides to put on some very interesting show that I wasn't at all expecting and shows me something I hadn't remotely imagined.  Makes me appreciate being in the moment even more... 

Pouring on the Clouds ©Lynne Buchanan

Paynes Prairie Sunrise ©Lynne Buchanan

Now it's back to work printing for my show at the Tensch Building in Downtown Gainesville.  I will be the featured artist at ArtWalk July 25th.