Intermittent blogging ahead. I’ll be on the road for a couple of days. Hopefully I can return with some interesting pictures.
Month: August 2008
Success
When the Fog Finally Lifts
It was one of those all-too-typical days here in the Pacific Northwest where even the sunniest day can begin with heavy fog that takes hours to burn off.
Needless to say, the best opportunities for shots of birds took place within the first hour of my Nisqually hike, when the fog was its thickest. This little Downy Woodpecker wasn’t more than six feet away, but the ISO was so high that it was impossible to eliminate the noise and, despite some Aperture and Photoshop magic, he appears much dingier than he really was.
Of course when I saw another one later in the day, it was so deep in the shade that the picture wasn’t nearly as good as this one. Despite the complaining, it does seem you’re more apt to see birds up close when it’s overcast than when it’s sunny.
For instance, I doubt this harrier would ever have flown this close to my head if the fog hadn’t forced him into a low flight pattern.
By the time the sun came out and I could actually set the shutter speed up high enough to stop motion, all I could find to shoot were dragonflies,
And this little robin who ran up to everyone walking by with his mouth open, begging for a handout,
even though it seemed he was perfectly capable of flying up into the blackberries and getting his own.
I guess, in the end the only proof I have of just how beautiful the day finally turned out is this shot of an Indra Swallowtail on a bull thistle.
“That Great Absence”
Although I’m drawn to R.S. Thomas for his views on nature, I often find myself sticking around to listen to his views on religion and God. Part of the appeal is his willingness to admit his own doubts about God.
IN CHURCH
Often I try
To analyse the quality
Of its silences. Is this where God hides
From my searching? I have stopped to listen,
After the few people have gone,
To the air recomposing itself
For vigil. It has waited like this
Since the stones grouped themselves about it.
These are the hard ribs
Of a body that our prayers have failed
To animate. Shadows advance
From their corners to take possession
Of places the light held
For an hour. The bats resume
Their business. The uneasiness of the pews
Ceases. There is no other sound
In the darkness but the sound of a man
Breathing, testing his faith
On emptiness, nailing his questions
One by one to an untenanted cross.
It’s seems little short of amazing to have a minister writing lines like “Is this where God hides/From my searching?” or “There is no other sound/In the darkness but the sound of a man/Breathing, testing his faith.” Equally remarkable, what does one do with “These are the hard ribs/Of a body that our prayers have failed/To animate.” Of course, it’s the sheer poetry of the last five lines that holds me most in the end, “testing his faith/On emptiness, nailing his questions/One by one to an untenanted cross.”
But as I’ve mentioned in an earlier discussion, I’m also drawn to his discussion of “the quality/Of its silences,” an aspect that is more central in:
VIA NEGATIVA
Why no! I never thought other than
That God is that great absence
In our lives, the empty silence
Within, the place where we go
Seeking, not in hope to
Arrive or find. He keeps the interstices
In our knowledge, the darkness
Between stars. His are the echoes
We follow, the footprints he has just
Left. We put our hands in
His side hoping to find
It warm. We look at people
And places as though he had looked
At them, too; but miss the reflection.
I’m particularly fond of “the empty silence/Within, the place where we go/Seeking, not in hope to arrive or find,” perhaps because it comes close to describing my own state of mind when I take time to meditate. I never meditate with the hope of arriving somewhere or finding something. Just the opposite. I manage to free myself from things and in that freedom find revitalization, but I suspect that what I find there is very similar to the feeling I sometimes get while hiking or birding, perhaps echoes of His passing.