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Photography Lost and Found, a celebration

Yes, I am absolutely celebrating tonight.
The candles are lit, the jazz is loud. Bring out the Baccarat coupes and oh, to hell with it, just shake up the champagne and shower it over my poor grinning face, I don’t care.
For I am so deeply happy. I have been given quite the gift.
But. I have something to admit. While I am a stickler for honesty, I haven’t been so with you. Not about one certain but very important (to me) subject.
For some time, there are those amongst you who have been kindly making suggestions (or occasionally, demands) that I do a book or sell art prints, to which I always demured or agreed, but vaguely.
Now, hold on, no editor has approached me yet, that is not the news. You see, I know how your mind works because we are so in sync after all these years…
More than six, to be precise.
And for these past twelve months…for a reason that is lengthy and deeply personal to explain…I thought that all of the photography from the first five of those years, the full files, were gone. Lost. Just gone. 
During that time I was publishing three times per week with anywhere between 20 to 50 saved images for each post. This times 260 weeks. Even at a conservative estimate, that is over 5000 photos. Without high resolution versions, there could never be a book nor could I sell prints. I would really like to do both, once my life is more in order.
Now I can.
Because, in such a wonderfully mysterious fashion, those files were found today. Very much hidden in an unlikely source, stacked away under miscommunication amidst the deep confusion of my leaving Provence. Of course, now I am here again, and miraculously, so is the photography.
So not all is Lost forever. 
For me, that is quite something and a source of Hope so tangible that I could stretch to kiss the night stars shining. And do you know what? I just might.

 These are a few of a series of photos that I have saved for quite some time; put aside, squirrel-like, for the eventual day that I might do a book. At least some of them. But oh, how I have come to learn to not wait for life to give you the green light. They were taken at a friche industriel, or abandoned industrial site in the hills above L’Isle de la Sorgue. I think that they pretty much sum up what I am aiming for at Lost in Arles, in a very general way, to express my love for this time-worn and tested region…

I know that quite a few of you in the past have been interested in participating in Together Rising‘s incredibly positive and inspiring fund-raising efforts, in which all proceeds go to directly help individuals in dire need. In light of the most recent anti-Muslim travel ban, today’s is especially poignant. Tonight I will be celebrating by giving. It may be little (donations are a maximum of $25), but it will be a tangible echo to the gratitude that I deeply feel.  

My promise to Spring

Maybe it is due to the pending solar eclipse, but I have been trying to take a look at some of the shadowy trails in myself – those wisps or lightning stikes that tend to block out the sun of my own light, my true self.

I wrote, in what seems like really another lifetime ago, that fear was running the show and that it was something that I wanted to work on. Save that it most certainly is the same lifetime, because I am still dealing with that exact issue. Granted, life has provided me (and us all) with some fresh material.

But amazingly, importantly, I might be getting to the heart of it (and I chose that word carefully): fear is expressed or conceived in direct relation to my lack of trust – in myself and, sadly, in the universe (or The Powers that Be if you prefer). If I am looking in the mirror and that is the reflection that I see? Well, it is tempting to look away, I can tell you that much. But how can I trust myself if I can’t accept myself first? I get that. So I am digging down in my bones to summon the bravery and courage to lean in, even though I still am looking so dearly for something to hold onto, a structure that seems solid enough to carry my weight. It has to come from within.

I remember being on the plane on my way to the States very nearly one year ago. For some reason, I had a really clear idea that I should get the word “trust” tattooed in the whiteness of my inside wrist. The same blue-grey as my eyes in a sloping but formal cursive. So now, after so much, I have circled back to that very word and it is written, actually, only on the inside, and it is asking for attention. Shine a light, shine an eclipse.

Can I “imagine that life is always right,” as Rilke asks? I have a blissfully good imagination, it is my main source of company at times. That too is in the footfalls of a leap towards trust. Off a cliff of the known into other, certainly, but there is great beauty in it.

And if there is anything where I can unhesitatingly invest my trust, it is in beauty. In Natural Beauty, specifically, that of the universe’s gold dust. So I do.

It is where I will start, or start again (for the hundredth time), while coaxing that voice within me to believe that it is reliable and that I am too. I can grieve whatever experiences of abandonment happened either in childhood or, say, last month, and then move on. It will get there and I am listening. In the meantime, I can make a promise to Spring.


“Dear Spring, I give you my firm intention, to be open and present, to do my best ‘à me liberer’ from outdated beliefs. I will let your beauty guide me to renewal, with trust that all that I am experiencing is or will be for my best. I am so grateful to still be here and turned towards facing. Together, I hope that we can breathe anew. Thank you.”

Trust could become the True North on my inner compass. Growth can spring from even blackened branches.

The words Self-Care and Potential are popping up quite a bit for me right now. Like popcorn. The latter makes me squirm uncomfortably and always has. It sounds like a threat but what if it isn’t and is more of a promise instead? It feels possible, certainly when linked to another “P” word that has been swirling like a hawk: Purpose.


What do these words mean to you? And what promises are you hoping to
make to Spring? No need to share (but by all means do if so inclined or
email them along). It just might be interesting to ask, with the utmost
of kindness, or maybe I am just hoping you will be by my side while I
do. I know that I can trust in that too.

PS. I have a feeling that this is one of those posts that will come
off as sad when it was meant to be anything but. There is so much
positive that is buzzing in me, like the bees around the almond tree
blossoms, announcing a new season.

PPS.  Thank you for stunning me yet again with your overwhelmingly kind responses to my previous post. You give me the courage to publish posts where I feel vulnerable to do so, such as this one!
 

Allow me this

I know
you’ll say
with a pat of
a reassuring hand
“It will come again,
It will.
There will be another.”
And while
you mean well
and I even believe you
this morning
my skin
is longing
to be touched
and lightly,
my lips
to be brushed
with a kiss, sweet
and my eyes
to be held
in a gaze beyond
fondness, stirring
shared.
Allow me this.
For I am open
but missing,
not “him”
more than 
another 
for 
a deep breath
of love’s burning
smoke.

If you would like to hear me reading this poem, you can do so by clicking here.

Beyond ghosts and a wishing past

“We have a surprise for you.”
My friends know me so well and they were brimming with excitement. They lead me through a forest path, uneven. I held onto a gentleman’s arm for stability as slick leaves slipped out from under my feet until we leveled out into a clearing. And there, pilled up bricks and stones took the form of an abandoned church. My jaw dropped.
“But the best part is that we can go in.”
The front doors were only held shut with a wire which the gentleman soon unwound.
We stepped in and the grey of the afternoon was blotted out with a burst of warm pastels. Layers and layers of paint and patina, layers of so many histories. What had been and what was, with a fairly breathy bubble in between. I quickly set my light and raised my camera but my heart was beating so as to shake my hands, awkwardly. But joyfully.
For did it make me a bit sad that so much graffiti covered the walls, the floors? It did but they are stories too of people that who had felt so filled with life in this particular lieu that they had to mark it down. “I was here.” “…slept here…it was very cold.” The unmistakable initials of another Romeo and Juliet, so in love, just at that precise moment. I could feel their presence, still, as well as those who had been married in this space or had baptized their children. Such a panoply.  
Since a while now, I have been especially aware that time is really not as linear or neat as we would like, to shrink it to what is palatable, but rather round and expanding. Nearly breathing, if you are willing to follow me without eye-rolling for such an oddly-named scenario. I was breathing with it, in many directions at once.
We stayed our welcome.
It seemed to take us a bit of time, blinking, to readjust to the forest once we had closed up the church. So much brilliant green, things growing. From across a ravine, I could hear the clank of bells and soon the goats strolled into view, herded by a man who seemed remarkably out of time himself. We watched with something nearing disbelief as he coaxed his crew over a small bridge until the little horned creatures were just there, one nibbling on my camera strap. He was friendly and we exchanged what we could amidst Italian and his local dialect. 
Something about that moment was so perfect and direct that it made me forget all of the ghosts just behind the walls. His smile perhaps. That this is his life, that he is good in it, in his skin. With a final call of “Ciao” and a wave he was up over the hill. The bells and bleats echoed on for a minute or two and then silence, present tense.

How is everyone? 
Thank you for being here. 
Sending much Love and Strength, as always,
Heather

Surrender, Dorothy

This morning I finished a 31-day yoga challenge lead by the lovely, funny Adriene of Yoga with Adriene. She calls this series Revolution. For this final practice, she turned off her microphone and simply did the yoga, accompanied by some rather wonderful music and occasionally, her dog Benji. 
As she raised her arms towards the sun, I felt quiet in my certainty of what was next. But as the practice advanced into unscripted territory, tiny squeaks of panic starting popping in my chest, those along the variety of, “Wait, no one is going to tell me what to do?” I tried to match her as best as I could. My neck started to ache as I strained to find her movements on my computer screen, even though I knew instinctively that was going against the grain of what yoga is all about. But that old voice, that is so strong as to be a thrumming drive, kept pushing me on to “do it right.” Follow. And perfectly.
It took a lightening like twinge near my spine punctuated by a short gasp for me to realize what I was putting myself through. I had to stop doing her yoga and start doing my own. It didn’t matter in the least if we were doing the same thing. It was up to me to trust in myself now. That was the final gift of this particular revolution.
I let go. 
My breath returned because it is faithful. It is a patient teacher, offering lessons…about impermanence, attachment, grasping or when I am caught in a trance…if only I listen. My body followed instinctively. In the midst of the two reuniting, tears arose. There is still much sadness in me over recent and current events. 
I let them fall and kept going, letting every moment be exactly what it needed to without trying to mold or shape it beyond what the form of the poses required. Some of them, such as Downward-Facing Dog, I have been doing since I was about my five, as my Mom, then a hippie yoga teacher, stood above me on the lawn, smiling. My body remembers, it knows the truth, except when I lie to it repeatedly or get it drunk on fear. I got out of my way. I let it move.
At the end of the practice, vibrating with energy, I bowed my head in Namaste…the light in me honors the light in you…and I had a glimpse of a certain understanding. 
The word “surrender” has been following me around for the past two weeks or so, popping up unexpectedly and insistently. I have been chewing on it, nervously. What could it possibly really mean? It is a word that sounds so passive at best and so denigrating in its extremes. 
But what if I choose to surrender to what is truest in me? Then the word becomes very active as I turn away, past the noise and dive in and in. This is what we are doing now, many of us. We are being guided by our Highest Self and that my friends, is Love. 
Last week I was so ashamed. That was an old surrender, wasn’t it? This week I am grateful and am growing in determination. That, I know with a big inhale and exhale, is the new. On we go, finding our own direction as watching, then copying, will not work anymore. Heart, body and minds together.
 

“Picture
a tree in a storm. At the top of the tree, the small branches and
leaves are swaying violently in the wind. The tree looks vulnerable,
quite fragile – it seems it can break at any time. But if you look at
the trunk, you will see that the tree is solid; and if you look down to
its root structure, you will know that the tree is deeply and firmly
rooted in the soil. The tree is quite strong. It can resist the storm.”

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