Namaste

In today’s post I’d like to share with you a photo. Actually, I share photos with you in just about every post don’t I? In fact, for me sharing photos (the vast majority of the ones I post on this blog are made by me.) is a really special and important element of my spiritual practice.

As is the actual making of them. My camera is – I think has always been – a tool for contemplation. Essentially, I wander around with my camera ready, my eyes open to see and receive, and with my heart and mind open. These last two are in the ‘much as I can’ category, but really that’s what I try to achieve: a kind of open, receptive, presence.

Then, sometimes, my eyes, mind, and heart all sort of see the same thing at the same time, or something draws my attention, or an insight dawns. Then, I raise my camera to my eye and the picture is made.

Anyway, let’s back to the topic. This isn’t a post about Contemplative Photography. My intention today is to share this photo with you.

It’s called At a Time of Prayer, and from the moment my senses, mind and heart too, coalesced to cause me to raise my camera to my eye and make the photo, it’s had a unique or special resonance for me.

And not only me: The photo has gone viral here at the hermitage, appearing on phone screens and tablet desktops and lock screens. And it appears very often in my thoughts and prayers, my contemplations and even in conversations.
Perhaps you will allow me to share the little story behind this image as well as a possible explanation for its hermitage wide fame, favour, and love.

About a month ago I was walking along the lake front in the seaside town hosting the hermits at the moment, heading home after a long walk. I was listening to and chanting a favourite mantra (one about removing obstacles).

Absorbed in the music and the vibe of the mantra, I looked up – seemingly at random – and saw, well what you see in the photo. Without thought or hesitation and simply instinctively, I raised my camera to make the picture.

Ah yes, I see what you mean. You are quite right, I can’t exactly say I saw the scene in tones of grey, not technically. Though the camera did actually see and record it in monochrome. Let me explain.

You see, sometimes I switch my camera to only make black and white photographs, with the intention of shifting my way of looking and seeing the world around me. It’s always amazing to me how differently I start seeing things, once I get used to the change. I never get tired of it really. Like magic!

Anyway, once I lowered my camera, I said a prayer to Surya,  the divine in the form of the sun.

Everyday, each morning when I first get up, I go to a window in the hermitage that faces the rising sun. I give thanks and praise for the life given and sustained by the sun; I praise its beauty too and give thanks for its light and warmth. Today, although the cloud is mostly covering the sun, I know it is still there and still shining, giving us all life.

Okay, back to the moment of the making of the picture. It was after my small prayer – my Surya Namaskar –  my salute to the Sun – that the name of the photo came to me: At a Time of Prayer.

That made sense to me: I was already praying before I made the photo, then after it was made, I once more said a prayer. It truly was a time of prayer.

Now, the big question: Why has this particular photo had such an impact here in this haven of the hermits? Why, even now, do I find it a really appealing focus for contemplation?

Despite it being a dramatic photograph of start contrasts between light and dark, it seems to me to exude a kind of serenity. Perhaps it’s precisely the balance of those contrasts that makes for a peaceful easy feeling in what otherwise might not be seen as a quiet and calm image.

And it may be just that serenity arising due to that balance that contributes to the sense I get when looking at the photo: All is well.

All is Well. Why sense that in particular? Perhaps because I was there at the time. Perhaps because I was praying, looked up at just that moment and all my senses led me, along with my camera, to make the picture.

And in a sense, it’s a moment I can relive and remem ber through the photo, especially given the prayerful, contemplative mood in which it was made. At that moment of making it did indeed seem that All’s well.

And now? I know that All is well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well (paraphrasing and with thanks to Julian of Norwich.)

There is too, the power and light of the sun illumining life, which here is represented in the form of the towering Pine Tree.

Yes, I sense that balance again. A kind of harmony also. This time between life itself and that which enables and supports life. It is good to contemplate balance and harmony.

Anyway, a gift given to me, now shared with you.