Reality is Not Symbols

"If you want to know what reality is, you must look directly at it and see for yourself. But this needs a certain kind of concentration, because reality is not symbols, it is not words and thoughts, it is not reflections and fantasies. Therefore to see it clearly, your mind must be free from wandering words and from the floating fantasies of memory."

- Alan Watts (1915 - 1973)

Land of Mordor

"And as the captains gazed south to the Land of Mordor, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent: for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell."

- J.R.R. Tolkien (1892 - 1973)
The Return of the King

Intimate Landscapes

"Though it is generally accepted that abstract art refers to those works inspired by the imagination of the artist rather than by objective reality, in photography, in which images are produced by the lens, this distinction is difficult to sustain. In the broadest sense of the term, an optical image is an abstraction from the natural world-a selected and isolated fragment of what stands before the camera. When the selected image is self-explanatory and does not imply more than what lies within its area it is usually referred to as abstract, that is, independent of its surroundings-a pattern of rock, for example, or lichens, or grasses. On the other hand, in the wider scenic view common in most landscape photography, the selected image implies a world outside the limits encompassed by the lens."

- Eliot Porter (1901 - 1990)
Intimate Landscapes

New Zealand Light #2

 "The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
-Version 1-
...
The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
Let others follow it who can!
Let them a journey new begin,
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.
-Version 2-"

-  J.R.R. Tolkien (1892 - 1973)
"The Walking Song," The Lord of the Rings

Notes. Version 1 of the "The Walking Song" is "sung by Bilbo when he leaves the Shire and is setting off to visit Rivendell." Version 2 is "spoken by Bilbo in Rivendell after the hobbits have returned from their journey. Bilbo is now an old, sleepy hobbit, who murmurs the verse and then falls asleep." [Ref]

New Zealand Light #1

"We are all constantly in the midst of light. We are surrounded, bathed, and nourished by it. This miracle we call light can transform. It can teach, reveal, evoke, and heal. It speaks in many voices. We tend to see light as something that makes form visible, but light reveals much more. It reveals us. In the subtle, soft undulations of a snowscape illuminated by an overcast sky, in the raw presence of a backlighted, towering, ancient oak, both subject and photographer are revealed. Light makes visible the invisible. It can show us love where there seems to be only a rotting log or a solitary rock perched on a ledge. Sometimes the subject is illuminated by light, sometimes the subject is illumination itself. Then the subject itself glows; there are no shadows."

- John Daido Loori (1931 - 2009)
Making Love With Light

New Zealand Zen #3

"Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet...
Every step makes a flower bloom.
...
When a leaf falls from a tree,
when a river flows to the sea,
when a bee flits from flower to flower,
it happens without "action" or "doing."
Nature is simply being.
In the same way,
human beings should simply be.
...
... when we look out at the world,
we are nature gazing upon itself."

- Philip Toshio Sudo (1959 - 2002)
Zen 24/7: All Zen, All the Time

New Zealand Zen #2

 

"I asked the leaf whether it was frightened because it was autumn and the other leaves were falling. The leaf told me "No. During the whole spring and summer I was completely alive. I worked hard to help nourish the tree, and now much of me is in the tree. I am not limited by this form. I am also the whole tree, and when I go back to the soil, I will continue to nourish the tree. So I don't worry at all. As I leave this branch and float to the ground, I will wave to the tree and tell her, "I will see you again very soon." That day there was a wind blowing and, after a while, I saw the leaf leave the branch and float down to the soil, dancing joyfully, because as i floated it saw itself already there in the tree. It was so happy. I bowed my head, knowing that I have a lot to learn from that leaf."

- Thich Nhat Hanh (1926 - 2022)
Peace Is Every Step

Note. I saw these little Zen leaves at Queenstown Gardens in New Zealand. Of course, since New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere, our (i.e., northern VA's) spring is its autumn, we were treated to a spectacle of color and recently fallen leaves, not just at Queenstown, but throughout our stay on the southern island. The mostly 50/60ish degree weather was also a welcome respite from the looming 80/90ish weather we typically get where we live (and are now experiencing after we got back from our trip). Here are a few more leaves that caught my attention in Queenstown.

New Zealand Zen #1

"In a forest of a hundred thousand trees,
no two leaves are alike.
And no two journeys along
the same path are alike."

- Paulo Coelho (1947 - )
Aleph

Note. Standing on Milford Sound's shore with one's proverbial dropped-jaw trying desperately to simply absorb the magnificence, it is hard - at first - to "see" anything other than the Wagnerian Gestalt. The mysterious peaks (Mitre, Elephant, and Lion), the always dramatic sky and clouds, and the light - that glorious effervescent light! - immediately and unrelentingly grab hold of your attention. But, as a physical, aesthetic, even spiritual experience, the Milford Sound offers far more for one's eye (and "I" and soul) to enjoy. Among those other experiences is the bounty to be found along a short - but infinitely rewarding - trail that weaves its way through the main part of the sound, including views of some abstract Zen-like foliage (as evidenced by the above image).

Milford Sound

"On 7 March 1851 Captain John Lort stokes sailed the wooden paddle-steamer HMS Acheron into Milford Sound on the last leg of his marathon survey of the West Coast Sounds. 'Milford Sound' wrote George Hansard in his journal, 'is the most remarkable harbour yet visited by the Acheron in New Zealand. [Here] the Acheron's masts dwindled into nothing beneath the towering cliffs. As the ship came abreast of the first cataract [Stirling Falls] the brilliant sunbeams refracted in the spray, which rose in clouds from its base, showed all the rainbow's prismatic colours.' It was a 'most lovely day, warm and sunlit' and the Acheron 'anchored abreast a second waterfall, 200 feet high, [the Bowen Falls] which seemed to burst from a large reservoir with an incessant roar. [A roar] which was heard with additional solemnity during the stillness of the night.'"

- John Hall-Jones (1927 - 2015)
Milford Sound

Note. It is easy to understand why The Lord of the Rings movies were filmed in New Zealand, since it is otherwordly. Its "otherworldliness" is anchored firmly in a magical place called Milford Sound, a fiord in the south west of New Zealand's South Island. It is rare for me to continually go "Wow!" while looking at one of my own images, not because of the composition or processing (neither of which is particularly special, since anyone with a decent camera could have easily captured the scene you see at the top of this post), but simply because of the Wagnerian-scale magnificence - the sheer spectacle - of the dance of light and form. To be sure, Hawaii, Scotland, and Iceland (to name but a few places my family and I have been privileged to travel to) have some magical places, but - my Gosh - Milford Sound is truly one of the most phantasmagoric landscapes/seascapes my eyes have ever gazed upon!

An important part of the story behind this image is that it came about purely by chance. We actually visited Milford Sound twice. The first time was just as "majestic" as what you see above, but the light was flat and uninteresting (heck, it was a mid-day brilliant "anathema blue," well, anathema to most photographers). I have images from that first visit, but none that are worth sharing. The second visit, which resulted in what you see above, came about only because the fly-over my wife had scheduled for us to take over fjords well north of Milford was canceled at the last moment for mechanical reasons. However, the company she booked our flight with (Southern Alps Air - highly recommended) offered the option of joining a different tourist group whose plans included flying to Milford. This option gave us an opportunity to stay and prowl around Milford Sound for over two hours while the rest of the group went on a boat cruise. Thus, it was only because we (happily) agreed to an impromptu change in plans that we got to see Milford Sound again, and experience its magical sunset light! 

Lake Te Anau

"This small lake was of most value as a neighbor in the intervals of a gentle rain-storm in August, when, both air and water being perfectly still, but the sky overcast, mid-afternoon had all the serenity of evening, and the wood thrush sang around, and was heard from shore to shore. A lake like this is never smoother than at such a time; and the clear portion of the air above it being, shallow and darkened by clouds, the water, full of light and reflections, becomes a lower heaven itself so much the more important. From a hilltop near by, where the wood had been recently cut off, there was a pleasing vista southward across the pond, through a wide indentation in the hills which form the shore there, where their opposite sides sloping toward each other suggested a stream flowing out in that direction through a wooded valley, but stream there was none. That way I looked between and over the near green hills to some distant and higher ones in the horizon, tinged with blue. Indeed, by standing on tiptoe I could catch a glimpse of some of the peaks of the still bluer and more distant mountain ranges in the northwest, those true-blue coins from heaven’s own mint, and also of some portion of the village. But in other directions, even from this point, I could not see over or beyond the woods which surrounded me."

- Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
Walden

Note. While Lake Te Anau in New Zealand - a glimpse of which appears in the image above - is considerably larger than Thoreau's Walden pond (133 vs. 0.1 sq. miles, respectively), it inspires the same soothing stillness and serenity. This (or, more precisely, an Airbnb in the town of Te Anau) was our first stop in New Zealand, and anchored the exploration of parts of Fiordland National Park during the first part of our stay in this beautiful country. The photo itself was taken a few hours after sunrise near the trailhead for Kepler Track, a popular (albeit long and challenging) trail a few minutes away from the center of town. My younger son (Josh, a photographer extraordinaire) and I spent a blissful hour or two communing with - and reveling in - lake Te Anau's tranquil beauty.