Sunday, December 31, 2017

Happy New year!



Another year has zipped past both of us, so glad we are both still right here, right now. With a number of not so good health conditions under control thanks to a fistful of prescriptions, i plan on continuing on.....to make photomontage digitally even though my bad back has forced an end to traditional darkroom.

My New Years wishes?

I hope i keep seeing things that tickle my creative nerves.
The verb to 'see' is an onion - many layers, literally the eye sends signals from the retina to the brain.
But that's only the beginning. After the seeing ends, the perception begins...





I hope i take the time to 'stop, look, listen'. Carefully.




Not just once, but often. And at great leisure.



I hope to apply whatever skills and wisdom 
i have acquired to good use.





I hope my dreams remain sweet.



And i hope i always keep this saying, or prayer as it is called, close to heart.

The Serenity Prayer is the common name for a prayer written by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971). The best-known form is:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer

So right now you're thinking "uh-oh, is this guy some kind of evangelical religious ranter, standing on a soap box?"

No, only "sort of".

My parents made us say the Lord's prayer before bedtime, go to church and sunday school. Age 10, i was sent to a boarding school, mildly religious - a short (10 min.) chapel service every morning, a long one on sunday, complete w/ sermon.

Did it all sink in?
"Sort of".
The essence of the teachings is right on target, but i would delete any reference to an anthropomorphic 'God' or 'Lord'.

I think Buddhism gets closer to the truth = there's no 'higher power' but perhaps there is a deeper resonance in the universe. 
And in us, all of us.

I'll end w/ a very short bit of wisdom, a Warren Zevon song lyric:

"We contemplate eternity under the vast indifference of heaven"

Enough said - Thank you Warren, you left us too soon.