Stuart Sweeney's Debut Album 16:9

About a year ago I received an email from Stuart Sweeney, who introduced himself as a U.K. based (and Scottish born) musician. He said that after years of working behind-the-scenes for other musicians, he was in the process of releasing a debut album of his own music and that he was looking for images to feature on the CD and album case. He asked if he could use one of the images in my Spirit & Light portfolio that both he and his wife were both strongly drawn to. After a few exchanges via email (during which an "over the pond" friendship soon emerged), and my listening to samples of (what were at the time, unmastered) tracks from the album, I quickly gave my permission. After hearing Stuart's music, I can say unreservedly say that I am honored to be featured on this enormously talented musician's debut album, which is now available for purchase (in both physical and digital form: click here for the official order page from Stuart's label Oomff, based in Corby, Northants, UK; an mp3 version is also available directly from Amazon, which contains links to samples). While it is always difficult to attach meaningful words to music (particularly when relying on "conventional" labels and descriptions) - one must always listen and judge for oneself; click here for sample tracks - Stuart's style is best described as ambient music, with a mix of classical, jazz, and new age (electronic / synthetic). On a more gestalt level, Stuart - as an artist - may be described as an impassioned painter of richly textured sonic landscapes. To my ear (an untrained musician, though I used to play the piano, even before I ever touched a camera), Stuart's aural excursions touch on territories visited by Brian Eno, some early work by Klaus Schulze, and (if an analogy can be drawn between Stuart's electronic creations and the tones of the human voice) Arvo Part. But all of these are but acoustic cousins, which are useful for context but do not do service to Stuart's own creations; for Stuart has carved out a unique - and uniquely beguiling - blend of ambient textures. Each short, self-contained piece transports the listener to other worlds and ethereal dimensions. The soulful interplay between quietly developing melodic strands and rhythms, generates a moodily meditative and contemplative atmosphere. As each piece gently takes hold of your imagination, you are compelled to co-create fantastic acoustic landscapes in your mind's eye as waves of music unfold - and enfold - around you. If I seem to speak of Stuart's music in almost reverentially spiritual terms, it is because that is the effect it has on me. For Stuart has created some of the most beautifully ethereal - and intellectually mesmerizing! - music I have heard in a long, long time. For anyone who likes to listen to ambient music, I urge you to download some samples and listen to this extraordinary new artist for yourself. Congratulations to an amazing start of what I am sure will be a stellar public musical career! And thank you Stuart for featuring one of my photos on the inside of the case, and the CD itself!

Cosmic Ripples

"If a stone is thrown into a pond, waves are produced that travel throughout the pond. Every wave produces effects in every part of the pond, resulting in some influence or other. Similarly, the wave of individual life through its activity produces an influence in all fields of the cosmos." - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Science of Being and Art of Living "We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects."

- Herman Melville (1819 - 1891)

Polarity, Paradox, Perception

"Everything is dual;
everything has poles;
everything has its pair of opposites;
like and unlike are the same;
opposites are identical in nature,
but different in degree;
extremes meet;
all truths are but half-truths;
all paradoxes may be reconciled."
- Hermes Trismegistus
(The Kybalian: A Study of the
Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece, 1908)

"Every perception is an
awareness of contrast,
of a right/wrong, is/isn’t,
bright/dark, hard/soft situation.
If this is the very nature of
awareness, any and every circumstance,
however fortunate, will have
to be experienced as a
good/bad or plus/minus
in order to be experienced at all."
- Alan Watts
In My Own Way (1972)

Ethereal Light & Color

"I almost never set out to photograph a landscape,
nor do I think of my camera as a means
of recording a mountain or an animal unless
I absolutely need a 'record shot'.
My first thought is always of light." 

- Galen Rowell (1940 - 2002) 

 "Color is the place where our brain and the universe meet." 

- Paul Klee (1879 - 1940)

Trees as Sacred Bearers

"Trees are the teachers, revealers, containers, companions, and protectors of the sacred, and our relationship to them, whether we meet them gently in a forest or, muscled and equipped, cut them down for the price of lumber, touches on our deepest values, emotions, and sense of meaning."

-Thomas Moore
The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life

"The tree bears its thousand years
as one large majestic moment."
- Rabindranath Tagore
Philosopher / Poet
(1861 - 1941)

Longing for Light

"...far from light emerging gradually out of the womb of our darkness, it is the Light, existing before all else was made which, patiently, surely, eliminates our darkness. As for us creatures, of ourselves we are but emptiness and obscurity... Radiant Word, blazing Power... reach us simultaneously through all that is most immense and most inward within us and around us."

- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Philosopher (1881-1955)

"The longing for light is the longing for consciousness."
- C. G. Jung (1875 - 1961)

Smallness, Vastness, and the Mystical State

"We pass into mystical states
from out of ordinary consciousness
as from a less into a more,
as from a smallness into a vastness,
and at the same time
as from an unrest to a rest.
We feel them as reconciling,
unifying states."
- William James
Variety of Religious Experience


"When we are touched by
mystic grace and allow ourselves
to enter its field without fear,
we see that we are all parts of a whole,
elements of an universal harmony,
unique, essential and sacred notes
in a divine music that everyone
and everything is playing together
with us in God and for God."
- Andrew Harvey
The Essential Mystics