Seeing Life

Harshness, beauty, despair, Hope.

Small scenes

Soul Music I

“A young mind exposed to something new…may be a little changed by this musical exposure, and a little changed mind can change the world.”

Soul Music II

“Let the music of our souls ring forth, and let us give thanks to the composers and musicians that provide the channel for that connection.”

Bridges of Sound and Light

“Sound and light, this stuff that serves as the tenuous connection among souls, this flimsy bridge we struggle to refine and craft and carve and polish, then call it “art”.”

Terlingua

“Terlingua can't afford the luxury of pretense.”

Blanket Man

“Was there security under those blankets? Was there ever a smile under those blankets?”

Pre-dawn Ragged Blanket

“Turn from it, dampen the senses, pull a ragged blanket over awareness, like the homeless do on the cold nights in the park.”

Belonging and busyness

Childish Questions

“The curiosity and incredulity and bafflement and criticism with which children view our human world are exquisitely justified.”

The Curse of Approval

“How many triggers have been pulled, lies marketed, and forests bulldozed in order to gain approval of an officer, boss, or owner?”

Material Separation

“How coldly and lifelessly the material possessors to which we give our souls take from us opportunities for the eternal.”

Antithetical Societal Solution

“Contemplation is the anti-quick fix, the anti-instant gratification, the anti-productivity… Contemplation/prayer could not be more antithetical to modern society.”

Screens and belief

Digital Storm

“The digital storm, the storm of manipulation. We were not ready for this.”

Digital Disruption

“The digital disruption has unleashed the worst of human nature and created levels of illusion and delusion and detachment never before experienced.”

Machine Mirrors

“We can say that the screens and keyboards are both mirror and window, revealing the unfiltered condition of the human spirit.”

Trust Your Robot

“All the while we just need to listen to each other.”

Mindfield

“People will give their lives to save others. People will kill to defend their ideas and beliefs.”

Digitally Fractured Beliefs

“Shatter beliefs and shatter a nation, fragment beliefs and destroy a civilization.”

Digital Migrations

“We now migrate digitally. Our tribe and ethnic group has been replaced by those who listen to the same news sources.”

Artificial Intelligence and Real Stupidity

“Artificial intelligence will be no match for real stupidity.”

Judgment and perception

Judgement Daze

“Judgement is always bad for the soul, yet from the first message and first flicker of the screen the daily words and images demand that we cast judgement.”

Many Truths

“And there it is, the great destructive force of our times, the great deceit that has without warning overcome our society.”

Overlapping Realities

“The seductions of this carnal world leave us all living a dream, overlapping individual dreams perhaps, but being dreams they are not grounded in a shared objective reality.”

Reality Gap

“Human perception has little to do with reality. People will see what they expect to see.”

Small World

“The world looks small this morning, the thinness of the atmosphere somehow evident, the rippling geology only a thin crust, the burgeoning population compressed into an acutely finite area.”

Common Madness

Oblivious to the Obvious

“There is no easy breaking of this spell, this spell cast by the rich and powerful seeking more riches and power, this spell cast via media manipulation.”

No Time for Grief

“No time for grief, these times, no time for grief. Too much to get done in too short a time.”

Inevitable War?

“Wars arise from freely chosen evil in the hearts of malevolent and politically popular leaders.”

For the Children

“What if they simply want to raise their children in safety and security…might we surprisingly find ourselves on the same side?”

Impact of Refugees

“God help us if we are not changed by the encounter. We will not change the world, but can we change a life?”

Syrian Ceasefire

“Ceasefire…opening the door to the Choice, the Choice we all make every day.”

Religion and belief revisited

Crumbling Temples, Crumbling Lessons

“In each of those Roman temples we now see as ruins there had to be a last priest of that cult.”

The Bass Voice of God

“Why would God need masks or altars or guilt or amplifiers to reach us?”

Faith Crisis, Faith Freedom

“Disproving one belief casts all the others into doubt. Horror of horrors, we are forced to accept personal responsibility for what we believe!”

The meadow and the field

In Need of Meadow

“We need meadows in our lives, we need a chance to get some momentary distance, some perspective.”

Coyote Creation

“There are no answers in this scene, at least none I can yet understand. But there is sublime ineffable beauty, Purpose evident even though inscrutable.”

The Fledging of Downy Woodpeckers

“Everything encompassed in this moment, the entire universe, all Life, all right here, right now, an eternal now.”

Coyote Tales and Red Moon Omen

“The moon was a sickly red last night high in the sky, an ominous portent from many fires.”

Our Nature

“We can celebrate Nature, no longer afraid or intimidated…if we haven't killed it.”

Alate Assist

“Let life rise, let us all rise, and let us be for each other the aid and uplifting to allow bodies and spirits to soar.”

Ripples in Time

“Does every event and action and choice leave an unending wake in the following universe?”

Contact Eternity

“Take your life seriously. Take every contact seriously. Take every interaction seriously, for they are each profound, enduring, eternal.”

Enduring Consciousness

“The only thing that has endured throughout our entire lives is our individual consciousness.”