Showing posts with label pagan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pagan. Show all posts
October 27, 2015
October 9, 2015
September 23, 2015
September 9, 2015
August 28, 2015
February 17, 2015
February 4, 2015
December 1, 2014
As the crickets' soft autumn hum...
Oak Tree, Petaluma California
November 29, 2014
As the crickets' soft autumn hum
is to us
so are we to the trees
as are they
to the rocks and the hills.
~Gary Snyder
November 22, 2014
Rock Found At Bean Hollow/Pebble Beach
This stone is the most sacred relic in my home.
To this day, I'm astonished that I found such an immaculately sculpted rock, not sculpted by human hands but by the sea, the elements. At the time, the word "animism" had not even entered my purview, but I knew in my heart that spirit was at work here and that this rock had something to remind me. This rock, and all rocks, as inanimate as they seem, are of spirit. So are the waters, the winds and fires. Everything Is Alive. Everything.
I made this picture in 1999 with a Hasselblad Camera, in an altered state, during a lunar eclipse.
November 12, 2014
Zero Gravity- Black & Photography by Norm Halm
It was so fun to find this slideshow I made a few years ago but never published. It contains selections of my black and white photography from three portfolios that I started work on over 22 years ago… It's now apparent that I was an animist, pantheist, pagan before it even occurred to me to use such words to describe my worldview…
November 6, 2014
September 22, 2014
Hail Rock Mother~
Rock Mother
(Pachamama)
She is indomitable.
Silent. Impenetrable.
Interminable. Still.
Autumnal Equinox, Welcome Fall
Mabon, 2014
Autumnal Equinox, Welcome Fall
Mabon, 2014
September 6, 2014
The Water Of My Life
I know why the soft animal of my body loves what it loves*
Moonrise Over Gaylor Peak
Upper Gaylor Lake, Yosemite National Park
The Gaylor Lakes, with their pretty streams and stark lands, are on the eastern edge of the Tuolumne River watershed which provides drinking water for the city of San Francisco, held at the Hetch Hetchy reservoir at Yosemite National Park.
Seventeen years of living in California, and I still had not been to Yosemite until last weekend. When I got there, I felt an instant familiarity and bond to the land. It was as if I already have a memory of this place being like home. They were not memories like thoughts, images or words… it was memory known in my body.
It's strange because usually when I go to a new place, engaging with the land's spirit is sort of like a first date experience. I don't come on too strong. I feel out as we go whether or not my spiritual engagement is welcome. Humans have an egregious record of doing terrible things to the land, and some places are dubious about our intentions. Some spirits of the land have retreated far beyond our purview… I have felt this message in some places, "You are still one of them, we don't care how spiritual you think you are. Let us alone, human. Just let us be." And I've also enjoyed being joyously welcomed by a place as a long lost son. Those are extremes, but most experiences are pretty neutral and every place is unique. Since I choose to be a healer of the land and not an aggressor, I let that place decide whether I move forward or go away. I always respect any boundaries admonished.
"How do I already know you?" I asked. And the answer was… "Through the Water that makes you."
The waters of this land are the same waters that have nourished my body for many years. I have literally been taking the memory of this land into my body- as its memory is stored in the water I take from my tap everyday. These are the waters of my life and I remember and honor my place in the sacred order. I know why there is a deep love for Yosemite in my body. And Hetch Hetchy, the Tuolumne River and its watershed.
* The above "the soft animal of my body" is a reference to the poem Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
Middle Gaylor Lake, Yosemite National Park
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Wild Geese
Mary Oliver
For More information:
About the Tuolumne River
Restoring Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
San Francisco City Water
For More information:
About the Tuolumne River
Restoring Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
San Francisco City Water
March 28, 2014
The Numinous
The Numinous. It is the most brilliant, brightest light and it is the deepest, darkest depths. It's the subtle hum of the entire Universe, at first most recognizable in the beings like ourselves~ the animals. But then too, if looking with the heart, the plants we are also. And the inanimate rocks. The land, the rivers, the mountains, seas and winds. And the discarnate. What Grace in me, inherent in the very atoms vibrating, composing my own body; calls me to remember this kinship.
nu·mi·nous [noo-muh-nuhs, nyoo-] adjective
1. of, pertaining to, or like a numen; spiritual or supernatural.
2. surpassing comprehension or understanding; mysterious: that element in artistic expression that remains numinous.
3. arousing one's elevated feelings of duty, honor, loyalty, etc.: a benevolent and numinous paternity.
Origin: 1640–50; < Latin nūmin- (stem of nūmen ) numen + -ous
nu·men [noo-min, nyoo-]
noun, plural nu·mi·na [noo-muh-nuh, nyoo-]
divine power or spirit; a deity, especially one presiding locally or believed to inhabit a particular object.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2014.
numen (ˈnjuːmɛn) — n , pl -mina
1. (esp in ancient Roman religion) a deity or spirit presiding over a thing or place
2. a guiding principle, force, or spirit
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd.
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