Hello all,
Hope you are keeping well. Today for our Press Pause, I am taking you on a rather damp walk, with the help of two wonderful thinkers, Manchán Magan and John O’Donohue, speaking now from the departed realms through their books, whose words have left such a strong trace in so many of our hearts. You’ll need your camera for the creative practice to go along with this (your phone camera will be just fine), and if you are in Ireland these days, you’ll most likely need your raingear too!
And, a date for your diary: A reminder, that our next monthly gathering is a Writing Sanctuary on Sunday 8th March, 6-7pm Irish/UK time. I’ll send an invite to paid members in advance.
Happy Noticing,
Clare.
Light Noticing.
The light is not falling golden these days. It is not honey nor lush; more slab, more subtle. The mist has been hiding the mountain this morning, another day of concealment. It has been mostly like this for weeks now. I dip into Manchán Magan’s Ninety-Nine Words for Rain, and nearly every one has had its way these days.
Frasach. Showery.
Fluichbháisteach. Drizzle.
Drúnscoth. Light mist.
Fionncheo. Bright mist.
Scammallaigh. Cloud mist.
But between it all, I have been noticing,
Drithle- a drop, glancing in the sun, a twinkle, a glimpse.
And that alone has been drawing me out.
The glimpse is a tool of deepening too, at least in the eye of John O’Donohue, whose book Divine Beauty I have been dipping back into. He reminds me that even a quick intake of the familiar, in this case of the mountain, cast in a new light, renders the whole presence of the mountain more vivid; that in ‘the imagination of light’, the mountain is never the same twice. In his words,
I love the imagination of light: how gradually light will build a mood for the eye to discover something new in a familiar mountain. This glimpse serves to deepen the presence of the mountain and remind the eye that surface can be subtle and surprising. Gathered high in silence and in stillness, the mountain is loaded with memory that no mind or word can reach. Light never shows the same mountain twice. Only the blindness of habit convinces us that we continue to live in the same place, that we see the same landscape. In truth, no place ever remains the same because light has no mind for repetition; it adores difference. Through its illuminations, it strives to suggest the silent depths that hide in the dark.
As with mountains, so with days. And I realise it’s time to take my camera out, uproot encroaching habits, and see the familiar anew.
As creators, we are always working with light, either physical or metaphorical; its presence, its absence, ourselves in relation to it. As a photographer, the light is literally my main tool; only ever is a photograph a representation of how light, in any given moment falls. And with light as both teacher and creator, you come to appreciate that it is infinitely nuanced. It’s tone, vibrancy, the time of day, the time of year, what surfaces it lands on, what objects it diffuses or distorts, how one moves ones own body in relationship to its source, and its shadow, are all determinants in how art is made. The light is ever changing, and our art is made in the choices we make in relationship to its source.
As with art, so with life.
This morning, as the mist shrouded the mountain for another day, I knew I had a choice; curse the givens of the day, or walk right into them, to see what I can see, to notice what imagination of light is at play today, trying to find the unfamiliar even within the damp familiarity of the grey.
It took a few moments to let go of expectation and open my eyes anew. But soon, there they were.
Puddles reflecting buds, soon to burst.
A liquid sheen on every leaf, fence post, branch.
A blackbird, foraging in the mud, the bright orange orbit of its eyes held in a kind of cosmic, planetary beauty set against the dark constellation of soil.
And among all the trees, there they were, drithle. (Of which I am unsure of its plural form!)
But those twinkles, those glimmers.
When I returned home, I uploaded my images from the walk. They are not the most glowing, nor the most spectacular, but evidence of noticing the ever changing nature of change, falling in love again with the imagination of light, and within it those tiny and bright glimpses winking me back, awake.
Creative Practice
So, over to you now.
Whatever the weather, how about taking your camera out to a walk, to notice how the light falls. What are you drawn to? How does the light reveal itself on different surfaces or textures? And how does this act of noticing turn the familiar towards the unfamiliar?
