Oxherding Is Fun

on the oxherding path
the bull is ridden
and forgotten

I climb once more
into your december soul
rock wall ……cold
no hand ……hold
no crag to grasp
can I resist the leap
through air so packaged,
………printed in crystal copyright blue
…………………..(ulysses butterfly cmyk(92%, 59%, 0%, 4%))
breathless flight
the fall
a brief superman
……..carried upon wings of plastic
at the velocity
of society
…….guaranteed
fourteen false summits
…..and you and I are already starting at the top
a heart
granite hard
still bleeds
green [...]

You say you live in the moment
but are you really measuring time
by what you have done
or what is to come?
Is your vision is tempered
by what your eyes can see
or what your mind tumbles into existence?
Within the mist
do you see the occlusion of vision
or floating ghosts of grey
playing in the realm of the imagination?
I wrote the [...]

When in the field, or in the studio, the first action of photography is “seeing”.  Preparation and visualization might be first but these are not usually “in the field”.  How you “see” might just determine the course and eventual end result of your photography and art.
Recently, I was taking pictures of the Spring wildflowers on [...]

I have a few different spiritual beliefs to explain nature and our role in it, but on a personal human relationship level there are few fundamentals.  I believe in love, and in service, and in union, and in responsibility and giving yourself to others.  A man long ago believed those things and he was crucified [...]

Ansel Adams wrote “Visualization is a conscious process of projecting the final photographic image in the mind before taking the first steps in actually photographing the subject” in his book The Negative.  As we hiked through Yosemite last Autumn I did see this image before I touched my camera.  I saw Adam’s Zone System applied [...]

Which weighs more as it floats in the Merced: El Capitan or the Leaves of Autumn?

Last night I dreamt I was Chuang-tzu who was dreaming he was a buttefly and when I awoke I did not know if it was I or Chuang-tzu or the butterfly who was the dreamer. — adapted of course from Chuang-tzu

…from Smullyan’s “The Tao is Silent”…
There is something blurred and indistict
Antedating heaven and earth
How indistinct! How blurred!
Yet within it are forms.
How dim! How confused!
Quiet, though ever functioning.
It does nothing, yet through it all things are done.

Texas wildflower: Sage

What in the hell is oxherding, you ask?
I can either state that starting early and for a many years I had been searching for the best out of spiritual disciplines from my own Roman Catholic upbringing to eastern Zen and Taoist thought and practices to Native American spirituality to ancient Indian(Hindu) views on creation and [...]