P/P Photoweek: Hidden Lake, Last Light (VIII.11.08)

Photography as Mandala

A ritual circle which brings the far away, the very small,
the ignored or half forgotten, into the magical middle realm
of the eye of the beholder.

A circle which not so much displays beautifully, but reflects
both the beautiful and the ugly through the clear yet
necessarily imperfect lens of partial truth.

Credo (I)

Nature knows no waste, no contradiction, no conflict.
The way of the natural, religious life, it seems to me,
likewise begins with the intention of ending of all waste,
all contradiction, all conflict.

On the Necessity of Roadless Land (II)

It is true: Once a road is built, it becomes easier and easier
to get to places that are less and less worth going to. If it can
be said that roads have a tendency to bring out the worst in
people—the grinding of the noisy gears of destructive greed
and self-centered haste—then paths bring out the best, the
simplicity of waste-not-want-not of a high spiritual self-reliance.
One is a sharp-edged knife that necessarily rips apart the fabric
of meadow and forest; the other is a single thread which in
the walking weaves itself back into the natural world. Clearly,
it must be said that we obviously need good, well-designed
roads. But at the same time we need even more the wisdom
that lets us know when not to build them.