April 2009

Great Blue Herons in Nest over Rose Photo

A screen capture of the video Lynn Serafinn created reading her “The Song of the Rose” from her beautiful and inspiring THE GARDEN OF THE SOUL book.  I love the stories, real and fictional, throughout the book, documenting in a unique way her personal transformation growth and develoment.  (More later)  and since the photograph is a beautiful image of love, I’ll continue with my friend Morgine Jurdan’s

Love Can Change Your Life!

My entire body tingled as I awoke, snuggled in crisp clean sheets, warmed by the sunlight kissing my skin. It was as if several hundred pounds of emotional excess has been released from my life these days! No more endless processes, books and courses attempting to change myself any more! I am free at last, bathing in the simplicity of Love!

Thinking I knew what love was, and having an intimate relationship with It, was life transforming for me. I liken it to being in love with my partner for over 10 years from afar, and finally having that first kiss! I could barely sleep for three days! Many mystics and scientists alike agree there is “an energy” everything emerges from and which creates all we experience here and beyond. I too, began to see this energy and call it Love.

It seems this Love is Infinite and without conditions, powerful and healing. Yet being everything, I also found it inside anger and war, inside cancer cells and toxic chemicals. There seemed to be no place Love does not call home and my entire perspective of life was altered! I released definitions which had so confined my life and now live outside that box.

I learned how to connect with my inner wisdom, at first usually when disaster struck. Then when I consulted it daily, fewer disasters would occur. Life became easier and easier. I only needed to ask, “What choice would Love make here?”

For me this Love lives through me, breathes me into existence, loves me endlessly just for the sheer joy loving brings. This Spirit fully embraces all It’s creations. Daily I am bathed in love from inside and also, outside in the form of Nature, animals, buildings, people, and so much more!!

I ask for guidance all day long and allow this Spirit of Love to bring clarity to my life in the midst of chaos, returning me to a peace beyond words. I truly believe It desires what is best for me, allowing me the free will to listen or not. It guides me to fully living the brilliance I truly am! It sings endless songs of praise and encouragement, if only I remain open.

I am Love and I have always known everything I needed to know connecting with this inner wisdom. When I step into fear, struggle, pain or judgment, I am aware I am pretending I am alone and separate. Love is the Key. I am learning to trust it more and more every day and know it changes my life when I follow Love’s lead.

© Morgine Jurdan
4-21-2009

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Today’s Picture to Ponder Photos
Upper photo – Mixed Vegetables that had been in a foil pan awaiting selection for cutting and being photographed in a Workshop, placed here on a field of wheat for background.

Lower photo – Cut Green Beans reveal Hearts, in a pottery candle holder I made.

Today’s photos are not so much about beautiful photographs.
Rather they are here as an introduction to what could be possible as we take things apart and look closely.

The lower photo needed “doctoring”, given it was slightly blurred, in part because of poor lighting, and my desire for you to also see the “hearts” became more important than a high quality photograph.

The Story
Given it was Earth Day when I started putting together today’s issue of Picture to Ponder, I was drawn to the vegetables as I sorted through my photos.

Then, even though I recycle aluminum foil pans, it somehow did not seem appropriate to highlight it on this day. I thus used Photoshop Elements to remove the assorted vegetables from the pan and placed them on a “natural”, more suitable background.

The green bean photo above is a result of a Saturday discovery. I became fascinated when, at a fresh vegetable stand, I snapped open a green bean and saw a heart!
I propped the bean amongst tomatoes for a “photo shoot.”

None of the close-ups I took of Saturday’s “heart” were sharp. Nevertheless I wanted you to see one, thus the small picture just above and the set-up one featured here today.

One of my reasons for sharing these photos is my desire to point out that in the “Inspirational, Transformational” Through and from the Lens Telecourse, starting Monday (afternoon session) and/or Wednesday (night session), you will have the opportunity to open up to seeing things you may never have noticed before.

The grouping of vegetables in the upper photo is a “Treasure Chest” of discovery of colors, shapes, textures patterns, all awaiting your excitement when you open them up, cutting into them in traditional, and perhaps non-traditional, ways.

The Through and from the Lens course could be viewed as a treasure chest. As we cut into vegetables and fruits, should that be a path we choose, we open up to looking at other patterns and textures in our lives, within ourselves and among those with whom we interact. These openings result in increased self-confidence and joy in our lives.

Marifran Korb states now that she is taking pictures she feels she is honoring her world and feels more powerful seeing how much beauty there is and how much more interesting her world is. In a phone conversation, (Click here to listen in) she concluded with, “I love my life more!”l

The pattern of Self-Reflecting Queries I pose in Picture to Ponder become ones you create in new and, perhaps, even more meaningful ways for yourself in Through and from the Lens.

It all starts with a camera and your desire to discover yourself and the world around you in new ways. Many, who participate in this course, find their inner artist, one whom they never knew existed. Others find themselves paying much more attention to details in their lives, as well as in what they photograph.

I would LOVE to be taking that journey with you, experiencing your “Pictures to Ponder” and your “joys of discovery!”

If you have not yet checked out the Through and From the Lens page for Subscribers, with your special savings, I invite you to do that now. See COURSE and decide if you, too, would enjoy being on such a “journey.”

If you have been to the page, I invite you to pay another visit. I’ve modified it and made it easier to navigate and find the information for which you may be looking.

Today’s Self-Reflecting Queries
For me today’s issue of Picture to Ponder, the photos and my message, became about my deeply caring about something and struggling with the “perfect” pictures and words to get this across.

Ultimately the only solution is taking action, be it in writing, photographing (for me), painting, meditating (for some) or simply communicating with another AND standing in, visualizing, the JOY OF COMPLETION, trusting ourselves and knowing that one- step-at-a time will bring us to the “perfect” results, whatever they are meant to me.

What actions provide clarity for you?

Is there any place in your life right now where you are feeling particularly stymied? feeling the need to be “perfect”? If so, do you know what you want as the outcome?

If “yes”, I invite you to:
1 – Let go of any attachment to the outcome
2 – Start taking some simple actions and
3 – Trust

As, always, remember to bring fun into the queries and actions.

Specifics on Through and From the Lens
Experience Life through the Lens of Your Inner Artist

We all have an artist within. You may agree with this or be skeptical. In either case, THROUGH AND FROM THE LENS teleclasses could be for you. Through the use of your camera, group interaction with participants and some suggested writing, classes provide the opportunity for you to start seeing your worlds, both inner and outer, in new and different ways, leading to increased creativity, self-confidence and much more.

Classes take place on a telephone conference call line and by email in a 4 week series – Your choice days – Mondays at 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM EDT, starting April 27th or nights – Wednesdays from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM EDT, starting April 29th – (See WORLD TIME to match the times in your geographic location)

Read FULL description, details, bonuses, testimonials and more on APRIL CLASSES.

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LIFE AS RELECTED IN A PARROT TULIP

Ariane Goodwin, invited me to submit a Tulip photo for Featured Artist of the Week on the smARTist Career Blog, stating that “Velvet” was here favorite.

I originally featured these two tulip photographs in PICTURE TO PONDER last month, in acknowledgment of April as Parkinson’s Disease Awareness month (a tulip is the symbol for PD). In that writing I mainly paid attention to the feeling and the textures of the above flower and the one below.  I invited readers to simply “BE” with them.

At the time I thought that my preference was for this second photo. Then, after the communication from Ariane, I started reflecting on the photos and my life.  I thought:

TULIP REFLECTIONS AND LIFE

The first photo is . . .

The tulip yet to fully open
Colors and textures abound
Promises of a rich, bright, velvety future.

Wow, it’s open now
Strong and bold
Rich in color
Has it lost some of its
Variations.

Its back is to me
The way I often present
Myself to the world
Am I hiding?
If so, what?
Is it self-protection?
What am I protecting?

Lots of central imagery
Food for thought.
Hmm. Is my food in the core of me?
I always go to my brain for nourishment.

And now as the petals start to fall
Looking sideways toward
What’s next?

A different form of beauty remains.
Always rich in colors, lines and textures
The curvaceousness of my soul.

The reminder of my path.

©2009 Sheila Finkelstein

I would be delighted if you, too, would share your responses to these photos or my words.  You can see additonal tulip photos in my Flickr Tulip Album and on TULIPS PAGES I put up in other years.  Use the links at the bottom of each of those pages to check the other years – 2007 and 2008.

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