Good day to you readers! It is a beautiful spring day in Melbourne, sunny, breezy, free of work commitments and replete with unexpected surprises.
I've discovered a great new photographer whose work left me in awe. David Stephenson has an exhibition showing at Monash Gallery of Art and it is amazing. Do yourselves a favour....
Transcendence is the theme of the exhibit and there are photographs from several projects he's undertaken in recent years. The most moving, to me, were the series from his 2009 project 'Dusk to dawn', taken at Northwest Cape, Western Australia.
They are arresting images, in a very large format which emphasises the sky's colours and the horizon line perfectly. There are also images from his series on Vaults and Domes, which are exquisite in revealing the details of great ceilings, particularly in places of worship around the world.
Sitting before one of his 1.2 metre high photographs - 95% sky and 5% sea and horizon line, I felt deeply connected to all that's around me, grateful for the beauty of nature and particuarly of our Australian coastline. It was a lovely moment.
(If you're in Melbourne, make plans to visit MGA before the exhibit closes on 16 October. It's free and there's a great little park by the gallery, so it's a lovely spot.)
After leaving the gallery and reflecting on the impact the art I'd seen had on me, I felt both really good and a bit lost. I don't think we expect to feel these things concurrently, but it seems to me that life is full of moments like these.
That got me thinking how when someone we love experiences a great high, it is only right that those close to them feel deep joy, satisfaction and a bit of a reflected glow. In fact, one of the best feelings in the world is the feeling you (I) get when someone you love experiences something pure and good and close-to-perfect (I don't believe in perfect, but that's another topic).
There are other times, when our (my) reactions seem to mirror and be at odds with what's happening in others' lives, all at once. Perhaps in the midst of genuine happiness for others, we feel a stab of loneliness or loss, an echo of something without language, reminding us of someone we've loved and lost or something we've known but no longer have.
And in that vein, I think the truest, most precious relationships are those where you experience the intimate honour of seeing someone at their best and their worst. I didn't used to think that, but I'm getting a little wiser to these things as I get older.
In fact, the older I get the more I see that love/beauty and sorrow are intertwined, and that without one, you can't fully know the other. There's a strange otherworldly beauty that can be seen and felt in sorrow, because sorrow is part of loving more than yourself. In the same way, without deep love, we wouldn't grieve when we lose people. I heard this at a funeral I went to earlier this year and it deeply impacted me and changes the way I see grief (that's another post too, and a vastly unfinished thought).
I guess that's what I felt when I looked at the art at MGA today. Beauty and love, joy tempered by loss, deep connection and strange isolation.
I guess I want to express that I'm grateful for the beauty I saw in David's photography, and in the other works I saw, and for the surrounds that gallery sits in, greenery and quietness, for the sunshine and the freedoms I have.
And I also want to express that all this freedom means diddly squat unless I have something bigger than just myself enjoying it - purpose in life, people to share it with, people who need me and want me in their lives, as I do them.
I need something to give myself to - whether that takes its form in service, relationships, a career path that segues into the satisfaction of a vocation, true friends, bonded family, a creative expression of some description, something bigger than myself. I need that.
I wrote the above couple of paragraphs as 'we' statements, but then I realised I was doing that to distance myself from these feelings. Not honest, so I changed it.
Hmmm, as the afternoon sunshine falls across my shoulders I feel both content and discontent, plugged in and disconnected. Maybe that's a good thing, something I should embrace not run from... maybe it means that I'm pondering my life and what it means to be happy, free and growing.
'What do I want my life to look like? Think about it..... ' it says on my kitchen whiteboard, so I am, and now I'm blogging about it too.
To those of you who are suffering deeply and to those feeling on top of the world, for all of you I hope the same thing - that you have someone's arms around you as you do the bravest thing in the world, which is live in the moment you're in. It's all we've got.
I kinda like this head space, I think it means I'm paying attention to my whiteboard - and that's pretty important. : )
Annette x x
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