METAPHOR - PHOTO POEMS
About the Art
The artist, like the shaman, walks the fine line between the sacred and profane; between the conscious and the unconscious. Knowing that reality exists on many levels, they use this knowledge to move between levels and to draw power from this knowledge.
Both the artist and the shaman sit in that quiet space around which the universe revolves. It is all happening at once. It is all true. It is all relative. We know it is meaningful because when we touch that space it feels sacred, with the potential to rise above the dichotomies of life.
In these images I have attempted to hint at this place where the truth is evident in the space between events, between objects, between breaths. It is a truth that cannot be established as true, yet it is not false. It is a truth that draws us in, yet leaves us incomplete. It is a truth that is dynamic, always changing and yet consistent.
The meaning of the image is in our hearts and minds as the image sits in our consciousness and the contradictions are revealed. The meaning of the image is in the tension between the elements and in the resolution that seems to hover just out of our reach. It is a hum – a vibration – and if we allow ourselves to sit with it for a while, it no longer appears to demand resolution.
It is the place where our ordinary reality interfaces with the mystical and with the spiritual; where the tensions of our relationships seem to hover in mid-sentence; where time is suspended and the energy of the moment lasts forever. This is the place where we dream our lives and our dreamt. It is the place of knowing without knowing that we know; of feeling without labeling the feelings. It is the place where we know that we are all one but are still unable to forget that we are not. It is the ordinary day to day life and it is crucible of the gods.
We cannot find the dreamer in the dream, for the dreamer is of a different level. we know that he is nearby, however, and from our first steps we are already on our journey back. The journey is so simple and has many signs pointing the way. But we forget where we are going, and forget that we are on a journey at all. But if we awaken just a bit, there are signs everywhere. The mystery reveals itself not by thunder and lightning but by the simple things in life.
More than anything else the mystery reveals itself in our relationships – in our delicate balances, in our quiet rage, and in the quests of our heart– in which we consume the other and are ourselves consumed. But that is part of the journey also and the spirit of truth is at work here too. The signs are everywhere waiting for us to see them.