PHOTO ART FRIDAY ~ 1 FEBRUARY 2013

I love the word, Minimalist. I canNOT say exactly why, but there is something that connects me like a transatlanic phone conversation to my grandmother’s voice when I was very young.

I have spent my Life BEing a collector of Stuff I Shouldn’t Let Go Of BEcause You Never Know…

And I have moved so VERY MANY TIMES over my nearly 60 years.

My last move, from the West back to the East in 2009, has blessed me with an extraordinary capacity to know connection without Stuff.

In fact I am on some sort of a mission, it appears, with NOT acquiring, NOT holding onto, and NOT BElieving for one more second that THINGS & STUFF have magical palliative properties.

Oddly, my word for 2012, Discipline, was a grand encouragement for me. I Let Go of having a motor vehicle, and learned I could BE strengthened by walking or simply NOT going going going.

Along the way I Let Go of sugar and “treating myself,” instead deLIGHTing in new habits and practises through which I discovered the sheer JOY & Wonder of BEing creative.

Like a runner building to a 10K or marathon, I showed up every day and wrote, along the way learning to digitally fiddle, and discovered really magical things that I could DO with nothing more than what I possessed in abundance: Time, Curiosity, and Desire.

This year, aside from BEing the Year of the Giraffe, my word is Enough. I did NOT “choose” it, nor did I choose Discipline. Both found me and, like best friends, we were just There and NOW Here with one another.

Learning to see myself and my Life as Enough is rather amazing. It feels like I am baking bread and I just have an innate trust telling me how long rising will take. NOT too much. NOT too little.

While the leap from Enough to Minimalist may or may NOT BE clear to anyone else, to ME it is sweet harmony. The Wonder [to and for me] of digital fiddling, which is what Photo Art Friday is ALL about, has opened my eyes to a World rich and overflowing with only the simplest most essential things.

I love the container PAF gives my creative wandering, something I realised even more when we were on a break throughout December. I love the opportunity to meet wonderfully creative people and see what they’ve done week to week. I love the time I devote on Fridays to meandering through, looking, reading, and even spending a little extra time poking around others’ blogs and websites.

I love how simply this fulfills the essential need for human touch in my deliciously solitary Life.

The 3 pieces I’ve  brought to share speak eloquently to me of the simple ways digital fiddling does its  magic. Each one a part of a photograph, all taken in 2006, and all that I have fiddled with BEfore.

Follow me…

This little rock with a hole in it so captivated me in Sedona one May morning with everyone from Healer School, where the 12 of us met and lived together for 21 days. I think I loved this so much BEcause it showed me myself. There was a little opening. In the rock that was me. And I was safe to see what lay BEyond it.

Some leaves on the hillside in the woods BEyond the condo in Tahoe. Little yellow leaves on pine needles. They looked like a table set for a splendid feast. They weren’t in any hurry. All the leaves around them having gone orange and red and gold. They encouraged me to breathe and trust even though I could NOT see HOW.

Little rocks and some sand at Kiva Beach. Gracie was swimming and deLIGHTing in the sticks I’d throw her to catch and bring in. I remember looking down at them. Seeing the way they all were together yet sufficient unto themselves. My Life was about to make a HUGE change. How often I return to this very photo to encourage myself to just keep on as I am…

Minimalist digital fiddling. The sort of “stuff” and “things” that really matter to me anymore. I have none of what I had then. Except Gracie, and she is neither “stuff” or “things.”

I have moved on.

Let Go.

Lived and lived through.

What is essential is invisible to the eye…