Simple Ideas
26/09/09 13:03 Filed in: spirituality,
dreams
Some people
might think I'm a brainy kind of guy, but actually I
love simple, bold ideas. When I was in high school
and was sent to a photography seminar, I was the only
student with an old Crown Graphic press camera--you
know, the big black box camera that weighed about 10
pounds. Everyone else had a 35 mm or a twin-lens
reflex camera (sorry, no digital in 1966), so I stuck
out as a casualty of my school's relative
backwardness. When we turned in our photos at the
end, I could only submit 8 shots, because each of my
negatives were 4x5 inches, and the pro who taught the
class said that he couldn't process any more than
that. Everyone else turned in 36 shots. My photos
were pretty pathetic, with the excepton of one photo
that I took in a remote courtyard. In the middle of
the quiet garden, there was a tiny fountain. I loved
it. It was a perfectly symmetrical image, much like a
mandala, and the focus on the resulting photo was
razor sharp. In one sense it was dull and lacked
dynamism, but it captured a simple beauty that I
loved.
So what is the contemporary equivalent of that simple image in my own work? I suppose it's the idea that permeates everything I do...the idea that life and dreams is one unfolding initiation. That instead of evaluating the quality our experiences on the basis of external conditions, we might learn to see our high and low experiences alike as as challenges that make us draw deeply upon resources that we may not have yet tapped in our lives. And that every experience, no matter how discouraging or unsettling from the outside, can be "redeemed" by a response from the inside, such that our lives unfold toward wholeness in spite of the conditions that we face. Such a stance does not render us passive in the face of adversity; to the contrary, it challenges us to discover the very thing that we are called to do in response to it. Maybe to fight the good fight, perhaps to surrender.
That's the way I see dreams, as many of you know. Years ago, I realized that to "interpret" a dream without regard to what the dreamer did in the dream, and could have done, is to participate in the disavowal of responsibility, and the abdication of the only power that we really have: the power to respond to whatever comes to us. So my approach to dreams focuses on the dreamer's capabilties rather than the speculative and often-arbitrary process of trying to reduce the imagery to something familiar. The deeper meaning that we seek, and the communion for which we all yearn, still eludes us whenever we analyze only the content of our experience. But when we discover our capacity to respond differently, and tto ake responsibility for when we fail in doing what we are called to do, then we become warriors and initiates on a path that leads directly to ecstasy and joy. Of that simple fact, I am sure.
So what is the contemporary equivalent of that simple image in my own work? I suppose it's the idea that permeates everything I do...the idea that life and dreams is one unfolding initiation. That instead of evaluating the quality our experiences on the basis of external conditions, we might learn to see our high and low experiences alike as as challenges that make us draw deeply upon resources that we may not have yet tapped in our lives. And that every experience, no matter how discouraging or unsettling from the outside, can be "redeemed" by a response from the inside, such that our lives unfold toward wholeness in spite of the conditions that we face. Such a stance does not render us passive in the face of adversity; to the contrary, it challenges us to discover the very thing that we are called to do in response to it. Maybe to fight the good fight, perhaps to surrender.
That's the way I see dreams, as many of you know. Years ago, I realized that to "interpret" a dream without regard to what the dreamer did in the dream, and could have done, is to participate in the disavowal of responsibility, and the abdication of the only power that we really have: the power to respond to whatever comes to us. So my approach to dreams focuses on the dreamer's capabilties rather than the speculative and often-arbitrary process of trying to reduce the imagery to something familiar. The deeper meaning that we seek, and the communion for which we all yearn, still eludes us whenever we analyze only the content of our experience. But when we discover our capacity to respond differently, and tto ake responsibility for when we fail in doing what we are called to do, then we become warriors and initiates on a path that leads directly to ecstasy and joy. Of that simple fact, I am sure.
