Drungpa
Drungpa, Photograph, 2019. Organic botanical form.
Drungpa looks out from the fronds and leaves, buried deep in the shade and rustle of a quiet afternoon at the Asticou Zen Garden in Northeast Harbor, ME. Meditating on temporality he gazes deep within me waiting for the inevitable breeze to blow him away. His image, in that Hillmanian fire of "image as wholeness unto itself" seemed to say, " If the one I love gives up everything to study the teachings, I'll take the holy path too. I'll live in a secluded retreat, and forget how young I am." ( The 6th Dalai Lama, Trans. Coleman Barks). I seemed to send lovingly melting eyes: "The whole world fits in - To seventeen syllables, And you in this hut." (Octavio Paz, "Basho An"). I raised my camera, he is beautiful and real, and took several frames, staring deeply and thinking on the inherent rights of his being, his voice, his power, his presence and in a Pachamamian limerence felt the brush of breath against my lips and he was gone.
#Arts #Beauty #Conceptual
The meditation was of the mystical presence of the 6th Dalai Lama of Tibet and the image came in its own right as an organic configuration of leaves, stems, and blossoms, as a visitation, as a poem, as a deep moment of re-enchantment and love in the world. The photograph is digital.
The photograph was taken with an old Nikon D70, with a zoom lens and an extra wide-angle macro lens, that I thought I would check out, inexpensive and a glassy gorgeous. "Drungpa" remained unaltered, untampered with and just simply adored, as a non-GMO art form directly percieved from Nature. He was not photoshopped or color corrected, just a pure organic loveliness that occurred at the Asticou Zen Garden in Maine,
"Drungpa" has been on the road with me in various Pecha Kucha's speaking out about the inherent rights of nature to be and to be protected, in a gallery show at Goddard College and continues to travel in the Ethers on Behance's Creative Cloud. I have learned never to be afraid of falling deeply in love with Nature, being a fierce advocate, and always stopping to pray with the delicate and the paradoxically strong of the world.
The Nature and Psyche Project, which this photo is a part of, is about the ongoing dialogue between humans and the Earth, though it may be unconscious in most people. It is the way in which we integrate and heal our minds, bodies, souls, and spirits, how we re-earth ourselves and how we bask in the magical quiet of forest bathing as a practice. The project stems from the Satori of being in Nature and coming to ourselves, the present moment and our wholeness in a moment of gratitude and beauty with the Earth. The pictures are quiet meditations, reveries, synchronicities, poems, love songs, laments, and relationships within a larger evolving picture of relationship.
