Center Piece
fall
Life As We Know It: Adrift
Orange Falls Into Red
Dancers On A Tightrope
One Thing Matters: Nothing
Bottoms Up
Twists & Turns
First Snow – Creekside
First Snow – No Outlet
First Snow – Two Sides
First Snow – The Kids Are Alright
First Snow – Riverside
First Snow – Morning Pathways
First Snow – Mornings Broken Blues
First Snow – Fallen
First Snow – Lean To The light
First Snow – Sunset View At Sunrise
First Snow – Golden
First Snow – Gateway
First Snow – Driving Up That Hill
Original
Rendered
And The Walls Fell Down
… on… lessons in rust….
Hello again everyone. As many of you know I have a preoccupation with the subject of rust in my photos. More than a few of my photos feature rust in some form. Today is no different. I’ve been thinking about why I find rust to be such a dynamic subject. Part of it is (as I’ve written on my previous blog) the Wabi-Sabi aesthetic; Finding beauty in the imperfect, the flawed and discarded. But it also goes beyond that. I think rust has many lessons to teach us. No only about the inevitable end of all things but also how we can come to terms with the inevitable end. Rust is strong. It’s strength does not lie in speed, or the forceful blow to its subject. Rust is gentle. It does not seek to hide – it is visible in its destruction. Rust takes it’s time; the object of its affection is coaxed into its corrosive embrace.
You and me like all things must end. It is the nature of things. We are mortal. That means we will not live forever no matter how hard we try to extend the time we have. I don’t care how fit you are, how free of disease you have been, your physical fitness, or your emotional health. You will die. In fact, you might say you are already dying. And that’s okay. There is beauty in the process. What? Yes, there is beauty in the process of dying = it’s all in how you look at it. You can approach it with grace and appreciation for the time you have and the inevitable end or you can fight it every single step of the way. I once heard a woman say, “I do not plan to grow old gracefully, I plan to fight it every step of the way”. I’ve always found that viewpoint rather tragic. But that is the prevailing viewpoint in western society. In fact the exception in western culture is that you must fight it and with medical and technological advances you can fight aging, disease etc. But that is all a delusion. In the west we have become masters of delusion and self-deception.
Why do we find Autumn to be one of the most beautiful times of the year? Autumn is the season of dying. The leaves on trees are the most colorful just before they die and fall to the ground. And this change seems to happen rather fast but the change actually started at the point the leaf first came out and reached maturity on its branch back in the Spring. Our lives are the same way. It’s not just the newborn and young that are beautiful. Beauty is enhanced through experiences that are both good and bad. Rust is like that; it is one of those experiences that may seem to hasten the demise of something but it does not know that. It just is. It is a part of nature. A part of life experience just like disease, physical and emotional discomfort. Those things exist to add to our beauty.
You find me
Slowly you Change my life
I love you
**************
I feel your presence
your corrosion adds beauty
glory of Autumn
**************
Your rough embrace
Enhances my life through change
I welcome you
**************
The color of love
Textures the smooth beauty of life
Open arms tremble
**************
Sing a song of rust
A slow ballad of decay
Autumns dying love
***************
Sound of slow scraping
Crippled dry dusty fingers
Wabi-Sabi world
****************
Illusions of age
You teach strength through weakness
Beauty in Frailty
Your music moment provided by a band I recently discovered and had to buy all their albums – Do Make Say Think – A TENDER HISTORY IN RUST from their album You, You’re A History In Rust.
Album version
Alternate version
****Hey! if you have short form poem or haiku about rust and the ideas I’ve written about, please feel free to post in your comment. 😉
… on… photo editorialism….
***I found the subject for this photo near my home and felt it legitimately illustrated how I feel about what is happening here in the US.
In Trumpmerica – the left is not tolerated. The legitimate press is not tolerated. There is only one way – the right – Trumps way.
It’s funny how someone’s desire to “Make America Great Again” has actually made it worse. Muzzle the press. Authoritarian rule. Punish the opposition. Meanness. Lack of noble character traits. Ignorance. Re-writing history.
Q: What happened to my country of birth?
A: SHE’S GONE AWAY (Nine Inch Nails – as performed in TWIN PEAKS: The Ltd Series)
….on…. beauty of imperfection
Autumn is the season of imperfection. Yet it is also, strangely enough many people’s favorite season. I say “strangely enough” because most people are resistant to change, yet in Autumn, there are more changes crammed into a short time span than any other season. We may see summer temps, foliage color changes, rain, and even freezing snow. It is one of the most difficult times to forecast the weather because of these rapid changes. Even scents change; the autumn flowers carry a dryer less sweet scent and there is the scent of fruit and harvest. In the cooling air sounds themselves seem to have more clarity….
Perhaps it is these rapid changes that cause us to really sit up and take note of natures beauty. So maybe Autumn is truly an “awakening season” for many (even though many see Spring as a season of awakening).
If we look closer at what makes Autumn so beautiful we will see it is full of imperfections. In fact nature seems to celebrate these imperfections. A yellow leaf is never truly a solid yellow and a red leaf is never a solid shade of red. There are subtleties and flaws in all these changes that occur. Leaves are mottled or spotted and eventually fall from the trees as they lose their ability to cling to life. They clutter and clog our drains and gutters. Branches become brittle and break off from their life source. Fruit that is being harvested is rarely perfect; it is not uniformly colored and is filled with the scars or bruises caused by hard weather, insects, birds etc. The changing weather requires us to be more aware and dress accordingly. Yet this is often declared the most beautiful season of the year. Why are we more accepting of imperfections in the natural world outdoors than we are of the imperfections in each other? What would happen if we would accept the imperfections we perceive in others and accept those imperfections as part of what makes that person beautiful? Has the quest for perfection and comfort made us completely intolerant to the beauty of imperfection? Have we finally become at odds with nature and our own mortality?
The image above is titled “FALLEN ANGEL” and is simply a photograph of autumn leaves on a hiking trail. I loved how the large leaf seemed to be in the shape of an angel.
