Skip to main content

hiking

When I hike, I usually take my camera, it has become one of my greatest teachers. Before I began taking pictures with the avidity of a dog chasing a bone, I wandered through the woods without seeing. I had to remind myself to look, to listen, to be. I remember one horrible trek over Granite Mountain in Arizona, I was 22 and I was beset by the demon of self. I kept trying to see, to smell, to shut up for five minutes and experience the instant in which I stood in the shadow of pinetrees. I began crying in defeat. Eventually I just let go, I listened to my mind babble away, only occasionally looking around with present moment clarity, usually when startled out of my reveries by other hikers, scat on the trail or an unusually loud rattle. Then I was given my beloved Canon Rebel XTi. I began hiking with it's weight hanging over my breast and something changed. I felt more peace, I breathed deeper, I listened, I stood in awe more, I was quiet longer, I smiled mostly and I lingered. I stopped listening to me and began looking for beauty everywhere. I find it there, where it always is, just beneath our nose, beaming. Now I pause in front of a black widow, a powdery branch, a blaze of color, water rushing over stones and looking through my camera lens, I find it- that perfect moment and snap, then it is gone. My camera has become one of my greatest teachers, helping me to remember that although the lens of self may be small, mortal and narrow- it is still capable of witnessing enormous beauty ... if only we keep looking.

Here are some moments from today's hike:
In the fields...
At the creekside...
and in the woods...
There really is beauty every where.
Labels:

Comments

Karima said…
Angelina,

I know exactly how you feel. That a simple mechanical camera can transform everything: how we see, when we see, what is to be noticed. When done with attentiveness, the camera can slow us down and make us pause, not just to notice properly, but to be in the moment, and then later to give an enduring representation of that moment.

I love how you capture your moments.

Many thanks for the encouraging words on my stalled blog. I have been mostly active on flickr (are you?), but I do need to get back to the more expansive personal world that a blog can provide. Even if it's just for oneself, as a visual journal.

I have added yours to my google reader,
October 31, 2009 at 9:25 AM
Angelina Lloyd said…
Karima,
(Gorgeous name by the way) Thank you so much for your comment and stopping by. I am not on flickr. At the present, with two busy boys and a full life to bounce around in, I find it difficult to maintain more than one cyber account at a time, but I will look for you there. Keep photographing! Your work is lovely and inspiring.
October 31, 2009 at 9:49 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FORGET ABOUT ‘HEALING’

Some days,  you just have to forget  about ‘healing’. You have to stop trying to feel better, trying to overcome your emotional wounds, or trying to be anywhere other than where you are. You have to embrace the day as it is. And you have to give yourself the most sacred permission of all: To shatter.  To break.  To be an ugly mess. To lean into a place of utter humility and powerlessness in yourself. To cry out to the heavens, “I can’t do this!” To admit utter defeat  in the loss of the life  you had imagined. To crumble to the ground, lonely and hopeless and profoundly ruined. To want to die, even. And there, in the darkest places, in the blackness of the underworld, you may begin to rediscover... life.  And learn to love the beginnings. A sacred reboot: A single breath.  The way the sun warms your face. The sound of a tiny bird singing in the tree over there. The raw simplicity of a single moment of human existence. Hell has been transmuted, thr...
Post a Comment
Read more

a story recently shared by a friend

 Once upon a time, there was an island where all the feelings lived: Happiness, Sadness, Knowledge, and all of the others, including Love. One day it was announced to the feelings that island would sink, so all constructed boats and left. Except for Love. Love was the only one who stayed. Love wanted to hold out until the last possible moment. When the island had almost sunk, Love decided to ask for help. Richness was passing by Love in a grand boat. Love said, "Richness, can you take me with you?" Richness answered, "No, I can't. There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat. There is no place here for you." Love decided to ask Vanity who was also passing by in a beautiful vessel. "Vanity, please help me!" "I can't help you, Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat," Vanity answered. Sadness was close by so Love asked, "Sadness, let me go with you." "Oh . . . Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself...
7 comments
Read more

He is no longer here

Another day has begun.  I have lit my candles and incense.  Sat in silence. Worked up a sweat at the gym.  Eaten breakfast.  Straightened house.  Answered mail and dropped my man off at the airport. It is eight in the morning and the world stirs with wakefulness.  The sun climbs in the sky.  The birds sing.  The squirrels chip and chur in tree branches.  A dog barks.  And I look with dull eyes at the long day ahead, contemplating a single phrase, "My father is dead." What strange words. My father is dead. The man has been leaving for as long as I can remember and yet his death robs the wind from my lungs.  My chest throbs and throat tightens.  He isn't coming back. My mom and dad had slipped out of one another's lives before I'd barely begun mine.  Two weekends a month my brothers and I stood on a saggy porch, bags packed, eager for our hero to arrive in his old blue Ford to pick us up.  We vibrated with hope...
5 comments
Read more