The Great Pumpkin

Most would argue the Great Pumpkin exists only in the mind of Linus in Charles Schulz's classic Peanuts comic strip. For generations, the Great Pumpkin has evoked a sense of mystery and intrigue, giving hope to the power of belief in something intangible. Every year Linus waits for the Great Pumpkin to rise out of the pumpkin patch on Halloween night - the pumpkin patch deemed the most "sincere" - and then fly into the night delivering toys to all of the good little children of the world. Every year, he is inevitably disappointed. In attempts to interpret Linus's yearly venture, some describe it as symbolic of the struggles faced by people with practices or beliefs that are not shared by the majority. Others see it as a metaphor for humankind's existential dilemmas. How do you see Linus's unfailing persistence? How do you see your own?

Re-growth, Bainbridge Island

Function turns to form, emptiness to expansion. What once was, now again is. Like old times, the bold, new form embodies vitality and vigor, limited only by the sap flowing through its curious roots. Paint splashes across the crumbling walls, as if rogue artists attempt to demarcate what is ours and what is not; but we don't own the world around us. It owns us. When we step back, forget and desert our rough creations, the natural world steps in and weaves its own strands, reminding us of our foolish efforts to tame what was never meant to be controlled.

Does Stillness Truly Exist Within Motion?

Amidst the chaos of dozens of people circulating through the space, one individual stands still, seemingly calm and relaxed, glancing over his left shoulder at the woman next to him. Is this truly an anomaly? His apparent stillness captured in a brief moment of time, is illusionary. According to Fritjof Capra in his timeless book The Tao of Physics, "The Eastern mystics see the universe as an inseparable web, whose interconnections are dynamic and not static. Modern physics, too, has come to conceive of the universe as such a web of relations and, like Eastern mysticism, has recognized that this web is intrinsically dynamic." Nothing is what we perceive. 

Pike's Place

Pike's Place Market. What image enters your mind when you think of Seattle? Fish flying? Space Needle soaring above the western sky? Elliot Bay and the ferry heading off into the sunset? Has Seattle effectively marketed its image? Does the "personal brand" of this city capture the vital essence of what makes this place tick? Seattle might not have the iconic lure of San Francisco or New York, but its Pacific Northwest dominance entitles a certain degree of pride. 

Revival...

Revival: "bringing again into activity and prominence". So here we go. After a phenomenal turn of events in the past year, it is once again time to revive my photo-thought blog. It's personal & it's who I am. However this time around, my posts will only be weekly rather than daily. Being in graduate school while attempting to photograph and post daily proved unsustainable. Being in a sustainable business program proves contradictory. Welcome, if you have recently subscribed - hello again, if you've been waiting for quite some time...and enjoy...the first photograph beginning this new chapter is from a historic neighborhood in Istanbul, the captivating hillside promontory of Beyoglu...a mid-September eve of my last day in Turkey before returning to the states.

Day 27

Dive headfirst. Is there any other way? Walk in slow, acclimate your body inch by inch to the cold water, water that guarantees slow audible gasps, water that makes your heart explode, water that makes you question your very humanity, wondering if the tortuous process is truly necessary. Or dive in with spirited vigor, knowing full well the entry will only enliven your sensory world, opening your perception like an electrical shock. 

Day 26

Freedom hinges upon the wind. As the mountains breathe, inhalations carry travelers skyward to a place unknown to the land-bound vagabond. Bound to their chute, they no longer succumb to downward pull, to the weight that keeps us in earthly shackles. Up-currents tether them to invisible rivers of air, and through the fortune of thermal dynamics, they connect to the unpredictable rhythm of liberation. 

Day 25

September basks the hues of the cherry plum tree with a golden wash, awakening the crimson tides of chlorophyll infusing each leaf with a brilliant demise. Do we not really live until we feel the rising of truth spread to the far reaches of our extremities, our bodies awash in the revelation of peace, knowing this death, our death, is only temporary? That we, too, shall return after the long, cold winter? 

Day 24

Phil Borges. He captures the likeness of who we are in this world, seeing us, seeing deep into us, no matter who stares into his dark, circular glass, at any given moment. We exchange a mutual gift of transparency. He pulls magic from the medium, casting light into the darkest chasms of our souls. 

Day 23

I used to live in a house on Phinney Ridge that rested high above Ballard and Puget Sound, staring the Olympics in the face. Rare mornings, I would lift my head three inches above the pillow and watch the mountains shift from purple to gold as the eastern sun illuminated the serrated peaks. Then, if fortunate enough, I would drop back into a deep slumber. Summer nights, I would watch the sun settle behind the peninsula from the balcony, scattering orange and blue into the night sky. Shortly after, I would lay down, head raised for as long as I could, watching the sky turn black, then drift off into the star-speckled heavens. 

Day 22

Fire-breathing dragons survived the gallant days. They reassembled their cellular design into human-like figures and began masquerading as harmless street-buskers, casting their will upon the masses, mesmerizing all through daring acts of temerity, ready to strike when the moment provided. At least until valiant bicycle cops rode by with joust in hand, helmets covering all but their eyes, casting a warning glance to the scaly beast that times have changed. 

Day 21

Electricity radiates from his strings, striking everything in its path. She fills the room with small thundering explosions. They are conductors of energy, of heat, voltaic masters hurling radiant bolts of lightening, pounding a rhythmic surge into the core of our beings. No one escapes their magnetic pulse. We all stand, mouths wide open in passionate disbelief, unsure if what we witness is humanly possible. They are Gods.

Day 20

"Doubtless God could have made a better berry (than the strawberry), but doubtless God never did."    William Allen Butler

“There is something in the red of a raspberry pie that looks as good to a man as the red in a sheep looks to a wolf.”    E.W. Howe

What more can I say?

Day 19

Benny the Stonedancer (aka Fawzi Benhariz, originally of Libya) balances stone upon stone along the streets of Fremont, impressing the occasional passerby with his feats. Life in balance. I strive for this. When I find it, the moments of my day roll like a Spanish R off my tongue, flow like a raging river channeled into a smooth-rock sluice, swirl like the centrifugal force created when you hold on to your friend's wrists and circle beyond dizziness.

Day 18

First used in March of 1943 to land U.S. Army troops on the shores of Noumea, New Caledonia, later mounted with 4.5-inch rockets for the beaches of Normandy. More than 60 years later, they saved lives in the flooded streets of New Orleans, rescuing and evacuating environmental refugees from places inaccessible by other large water craft. I vote to dispatch more ducks and less bombs. 

Day 17

We live and work in a vertical world, layer upon layer of earthen materials stacked skyward, reaching for the heavens. Do we notice the separation from the ground, or the ethereal presence that neatly surrounds our daily movement? We are creatures of the terra firma, yet we crave to fly in fossil-fueled contrivances, slumber hundreds of feet above the ground, toil in structures engineered to sway when the earth shifts violently beneath our urbanity. Is this our destined evolution?

Day 16

We have passed through the portal into autumn, rues de la chute, los cielos de oscurecimiento. Time is the revolution, our perception, the revelation. We walk this earth, gathering an array of moments like firewood in our arms, collecting what we can to bring to the fire, keeping us warm, alive, present, until we burn everything to embers. We watch the dying light, the fading heat, knowing our time will soon come, knowing the ash enriches the soil, knowing we shall return. 

Day 15

American pastime. Beneath light-blasted skies on a warm September evening, we join the growing chorus of criticism, shouting to the batter that we could do better, that he shouldn't have swung at that last pitch. Profanity and grunts of anger fly faster than the curve ball that struck him out. I am one of them, Bud Light in hand. We, the spectators, know better, could play better, could hit a home run every single, damn time.

Day 14

Concrete, steel and glass rise 770 feet above Seattle's undulating city streets. This 55-story skyscraper, formerly the Washington Mutual Tower (and the former world headquarters of Washington Mutual Bank) , is now dubbed the 1201 3rd building. WaMu's roots dig deep, founded 120 years ago after the great Seattle fire of 1889. Their empire collapsed late last year, due to unwarranted greed and exploitation, the largest bank failure in American history.

Day 13

I have come here many times over the years, to this stream, to the smooth sculptured rock, to the vegetation that glows with a surreal luminescence. We all connect to the world around us in ways we cannot always comprehend, swept into the mystery of place, influenced by the power of topography and climate. This vale holds a sacredness that speaks to me, creating revelations that spark movement. Here marked the beginning and end of a 19-mile venture I undertook because I believed, because I committed to the possibility of undertaking something beyond my known limitations.

Day 12

A woman appeared out of nowhere as I, lost in my self-absorbed world of shooting, looked up to her voice, surprised anyone was anywhere even within shouting distance. Slightly thrown off-kilter, I managed to hear her say "follow this trail to the base of the waterfall." Then she disappeared around the verdant bend. And so I went.  

Day 11

Beneath a burning ball 93.2 million miles away, wave after wave rolls furiously toward our continent, inexhaustible, unrelenting, eight years to the eve of the attacks that damaged our hubris and carried fear into our sheltered world. We can never be immune to forces we don’t understand, to power we try to subdue, to the will of tragic desperation. Acts of violence rise out of poverty, out of fear, out of anger. Until we change the way we act upon the world, the waves of terror will never end.  

Day 10

Consolations and desolations, lightness and darkness of the inner spiritual life. Six Japanese Katsura trees. A box of wild grasses and black Palisades basalt from Mount Rainier in six-inch-deep water. Hand-carved Alaskan yellow cedar doors, seven glass lenses radiating sacred light. Intention and dogma created this space. If each of us constructed our own temple, our single solitary pool of reflection, we would see beyond the looking glass, beyond grass and stone and wood.

Day 9

King Crab catcher, plunderer of northern waters, you rest at port in the calm of the Lake Washington Ship Canal. Do the men who guide you through the Bering Sea wonder if you'll bring them home safely to their love, to their families, to their quite abode resting above the grey waters? Do they wonder if Alaskan King Crabs will endure the warming tides, if their livelihood, dependent upon their catch, endures the collapse of fisheries worldwide? In time, Arctic Sea, you will crumble into the sea as the great polar ice-caps crumble into the sea. What, then, will endure the failures of humankind? 

Day 8

Ms Coco, the four-and-a-half-foot tall, fiberglass, art deco pig, lives in perpetuity at Antioch University. Jamie, a cyclist and hopeful DJ, bids adieu to well-fed, well-drunk patrons. Both are here this evening for one reason: Green Drinks: an international organization created with the intent to link together left-wing, radical environmentalists plotting to take over the world with their eco-socialist ideas. Well, not quite. But here's to hoping it works. 

Day 7

Her name is Kytami, fiddler for Delhi2Dublin, a Vancouver-based, electronica, Bhangra-Celtic explosion. I love Canadians. Not only are they so damn nice, they somehow produce phenomenal musicians that fuse together elements of beautifully diverse music into a global sensation. If you do just one thing, listen to them. Judge for yourself. Just click on Kytami and be whisked away into a transcendental realm.

Day 6

Omnipresent. Omniparient. Omnipatient. We are incessantly watching and being watched, listening and being heard, sensing and being sensed. The great and mighty eye that sees all casts its gaze upon us as we ambivalently wander through our daily routine, paying little heed to the world that carries angels on the wings of airplanes and cranes. What if, just in a rare while, we looked up?

Day 5

We wrap ourselves with extravagant contrivances to lead the other down a hollow path of self-directed consentaneity, perhaps as a means to subvert our deepest yen. We want to be seen, to be heard, to be understood. We desire connection, community and confidentiality. We seek to trust and be trusted, love and be loved. Why, then, do we cloak our vulnerability through sophistry and guile, smothering the smoldering core of who we truly are? 

Day 4

Roadburn. Gasworks. Firefly. Tricks. We live in a world rusting, crumbling, slowly decaying beneath the night sky, above the rain-soaked ground, beneath the breath that keeps us alive. The new monuments we build will one day resemble the old, decrepit ones, foundations turning to rubble, thin structures holding onto the last word. We, like pinnacles of industry, are crumbling, rusting, dying, in an ever-present state of entropy. What does it mean when we lose control, when we depend upon someone else to put out the fire? Why do we rise and then fall again?

Day 3

The current of her voice swept me away into strange lands as I closed my eyes, finger-picking a rich new progression on my East-Indian rosewood-lined guitar. I breathed in dank, earthy fragrances of myrrh and sandalwood, tasting the sweet sounds on my tongue. I played, listened, played more, losing sense of my fingers pulling on metal strings, losing sense of where I stood silent, no longer in the fading light of a Pacific Northwest dusk, but far away, in a foreign land of dusty streets and raucous peddlers, flooded with memories I've not yet experienced, saturated in a downpour of fluid notes through soft metal, imbibing all that I could as the sun set over the western horizon.