In these transformative times, we need art to help us navigate difficult conditions, find ways to endure and reconcile both individual and collective suffering, and locate the path towards a realistic, hopeful future. Can you name an image that has endured in your mind and served to alter and expand your consciousness? I remember many but a few stand out from my formative years. As a high school senior in […]
Art and Spiritual Practice
What Are We Working For?
So many heartbreaking conditions are taking place in the world today: environmental destruction, massive inequality, violence and oppression, income inequality, extreme polarization, and a vast tearing of our social fabric. As world citizens, we must not be silent. We must speak out and protest all forms of injustice to each other and to the environment by any and all means possible. That is our necessity and our responsibility. But we […]
Mirror of the Mind: Creativity and the Nature of Consciousness
Creative work can be a pathway into the nature of the mind. I am currently exploring the science and art of creative response with a camera and in viewing art with a recent body of photographic work. The human mind runs deep. Of this there can be no doubt. Cognitive neuroscientists claim that only 5 percent of our brain is conscious while the rest lies beyond our awareness. The conscious […]
Photography and the Fluid Awareness of Zen
What is the relationship between photography and Zen? Both share an emphasis on cultivating presence, the capacity for being attentive to the moment, and both encourage an intuitive, spontaneous approach. Zen has attracted many artists and musicians for good reason. It is a system of thought that allows our minds to soar, that examines the human condition, and attends to our individual evolution in fluent, effective ways without being theistic. God […]
Awakening Sight
What motivated me to write Zen Camera: Creative Awakening with a Daily Practice in Photography? Sometimes it feels as if all the elements of my life have lined up, conspiring to help me realize this endeavor of writing a comprehensive book on the creative process in photography. A lifelong passion for the arts, a propensity for teaching, a long-term investigation of creativity as an artist and writer, and the resonating […]
Creativity and Zen
Creativity and Zen practice are deeply allied. They are both ways of life and are not just something you do. Rather, they are related to what you are—how you live your life, and on what kind of values you bestow meaning and importance. Creativity and Zen are pathways that can help make us whole and help us become more present, awake, and alive. Many artists intuitively grasp the necessity for […]
Zen Camera: Seeing and the Five Visual Elements of Photography
Each of us has in our possession a powerful and time-honored way of knowing about the world. Observation, direct perception in the present moment, teaches us about ourselves and others and helps us interpret the many dynamics that surround us. It shapes our response to the world and forms the basis for both knowledge and action. In one’s way of seeing lies one’s way of action. —Alfred Stieglitz, photographer Both […]
Art and Self Knowledge
Who Am I?Know Thyself.” Socrates words resound with an inner force as clear and direct as their first utterance over twenty-five centuries ago. These two simple words lie at the heart of the world’s great teachings and have had a profound impact on the thought and inquiry of western civilization. What do these powerful words really mean? How do we approach this vast and essential task? And for our purposes: […]