Organic Light Pan

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Glowing Stones on Pebble Beach

One of the most striking characteristics of being on a beach is the contrast between the constant tumultuous onslaught of the waves and the comely patience exhibited by the rocks, pebbles and sand.  The beach faces the waves of the ocean, big or small, without fear or even a wince but on the contrary, uses the power of its turbulent water to obtain a polish that evokes calm and serenity in the hearts of its visitors.

This polished look did not happen overnight.  Much time had to pass before the beach could help people feel peaceful as they walked along it.  Old souls are like that as well.  They have this tranquility about them, this glow that only comes from from years of endurance, years of riding out the tribulations of life with demanding patience.  I was thinking about this the other day when read a qoute about patience online that now, in all my impatient frustration, I can no longer find; that patience is  conducting oneself with constancy in the face of both good and troubling times.  I wanted to use that quotation and while searching for it again, I found the above quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

When I read that, I said to myself – ‘Exactly!’  That is Mother Earth’s secrete.  Back in the spring of 2006 in Issue #10 of the Organic Light Photography Newsletter I examined what it meant to be patient.  Here is the last paragraph of that issue.  It seems fitting here.

Learning how to move at the speed of time: that is, finding a balance between haste and sloth, something that we call patience is really nothing other than living our lives at the speed of time. It seems like such a difficulty but in reality, it is not that hard. Everything is destined to occur when it is supposed to and nothing we do can bring a future moment in time to us any quicker nor can we do anything to slow time down. No one knows this better than one who has lived a long life. Something that occurred to me a few weeks ago while leading a workshop in Big Basin State Park in the heart of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

 There in the middle of the forest was a tree that the park service had named the Father of the Forest. An ancient Sequoia Semperviren estimated to be older than 2000 years. With a girth of 70 feet at its base and towering more than 250 feet above the forest floor it truly did give the sense of standing at the foot of a great father. Its age most apparent from its shear size and wrinkled bark covered in moss. While other trees one-fourth its age or younger are found toppled over very near by, this tree stood firm. One cannot reach such an age without an immense amount of patience. Something the younger trees failed to learn from the ‘Old Man’ in their rush to uproot and just fall over. Patience is what allows one to grow old. It allows a person to live in the present, neither longing for the future nor sorrowing over the past, and to appreciate what one has from the many blessing we take for granted every day. It is truly humbling to think that this old tree waited all this time for me to come by to teach me the importance of patience. I can only hope that we as humans can learn to foster patience within ourselves so that we can live as peaceful a life as this ancient tree.

Peace to you all.

“Whoever is not grateful for blessings is asking for them to vanish.  Whoever is grateful for them ties them up with their own tether.” ~ Ibn ‘Ata illah

All to often life takes hold of us and runs us so ragged that we forget to appreciate our blessings.  From our health to our homes to our friends each is such a blessing that words fail to adequately describe.  I don’t know if we ever really understand or appreciate the significance of these blessings.  I do know that I am guilty of forgetting and when confronted with the loss of a blessing, only then do I realize what a blessing it was.

The great spiritual Guide of the 13th century Ibn ‘Ata Illah in his famous Aphorisms said “Whoever is not grateful for blessings is asking for them to vanish.  Whoever is grateful for them ties them up with their own tether.”  2009 was a hard year for most of us.  We have seen much good fortune vanish.  Businesses have disappeared, jobs lost, homes foreclosed on, people left homeless and in some cases worse.  I need not remind  anyone of all that as we are still in the midst of the fallout, and we probably would all like to forget all that and move on to better times.

The consensus among all those who have written commentaries on the Aphorisms of Ibn ‘Ata illah is that we show ingratitude for our blessings when we misuse them.  Blessings are a gift from the Divine for us to use to bring us closer to the Divine, to recognize the Divine, to give thanks to the Divine and to show appreciation for what we have.  I think we could all understand how we would feel if we graciously gave someone a gift who then scoffed at, ridiculed and disregarded that gift.  We would be hurt, regretful for giving it and possibly wish that we could take it back.  It is chilling to think that being heedless of the good things in our lives would result in those very things being snatched away from us, but it does happen.

To tether our blessings we must appreciate them.  We must use them properly and care for them.  I am sure, like me, we all have more blessings than we can enumerate or even realize.  Nevertheless I want to reflect on two.

Photography is something that fell into my life that I never intended on.  It was truly a gift as it has helped me realize how beautiful a world we live in, which is an amazing blessing in its own right.  Every photo I make has significance to me and hopefully to others as well.  One photograph that I made in the spring of 2003, ‘After The Rain’, has risen head and shoulders above all the rest.

Photographed on the foundation of respecting another’s property while most were violating it, After The Rain, reached the 250th print sold late last month!  Most photographers that I run into on the art show circuit that offer limited edition photography limit their editions at 250, at such high number it is assumed the edition will really never be discontinued.   Reaching this number is a hallmark for me, a mark I never thought would occur but very grateful it was met and hopefully it will continue to meet new marks.

The caption that accompanies this photo eludes to showing gratitude for the rain – “As gentle rain falls from the sky it moistens the hard sun baked hills and the Earth drinks to its fill. Seeds, from a generation of grasses and flowers long gone, drink as well. And with that drink they start to come to life by the Mercy of the Merciful. In their gratitude for the Mercy of life they come out in blazing colors glorifying the One who sent them the Rain and the One who gave them Life. The Mercy of God, the Creator, follows the rain, as the Rain is God€™s Mercy. For without it, all life would cease. Be grateful for the rain, the flowers are.”

However, our gratitude needs to encompass much more than the rain and we need to appreciate every moment we have, the sweet ones as well as the bitter ones, for without the bitter moments, the sweet ones would not be as sweet.  At that level, we would find all of our blessings well tethered.

The second blessing that I want to reflect on is the patron.  As an artist in business the patron is absolutely crucial.  In fact whether the business is art or the manufacturing of microwave energy wave guides for communication satellites, the end customer who seeks your product is king and needs to treated as such.  Even if you are an employee you still have a manager that comes to you for your contribution to the end product, a manager who must be pleased with your contribution, and then takes it and promotes it to the next level.  Displease your pseudo-customer and you could find yourself …well let’s not go there.

I have always known that customer service and satisfaction is key in business and I have always done my best to treat my patrons well.  And even though I was always grateful for a sale, a registration for instruction or any request for any of my many photographic services, I don’t think I was ever truly appreciative of their patronage until this past year.  Patrons were definitely far and few in between in the economic desert of 2009.  Much like the desert wildflower bloom of 2006, one of the meekest on record, as depicted in the photo ‘Desert Fare’ above, patrons were still there.  That spring did not dazzle photographers nor the viewers of the photos captured, but we photographed it anyway.  And like that, I still provided my services to those that still appeared from the barren economic wasteland we find ourselves in.  However, now each patron was the most important patron I ever had, for without them my ability to exist as a photographer would be put in jeopardy.

So I think that is all I have to say right now.  I know I lost some pretty heavy-duty blessings this past year and so I will definitely be tethering what I have left, you included – you are appreciated more than you know.  And hey if you think Organic Light is anything of a blessing in your life…well, I’ll let you put 2 and 2 together about how to tether it.

Peace to you all, and a better 2010!

In A Hole

Mother Earth ceases to amaze me with the visual allegories she serves up.  If we are in tune to seeing them we could find them everywhere.  On seeing these small pebbles trapped in these holes in Tafoni sandstone I thought how many of us feel like we are in a hole?  Overwhelmed by the state of affairs we find ourselves in, we feel trapped with no way to get out of the hole.  Unable to see over the rim of the hole that traps us we fail to realize that others are probably in a hole was well.

Navigating through life without falling into a hole or two is unheard of as the journey is riddled with them.  But like any trial that we endure in life, falling into a hole is not permanent, we will eventually climb out.

I am home today waiting for dinner.  I spent last night making pumpkin pie from scratch and was very proud of myself – it was the first time I ever made a pie.  This morning I finished the pumpkin puree by making two more pumpkin pies! 

Homemade Pumpkin Pie

Then I made a middle eastern rice stuffing that I grew up eating and stuffed a 15 lb turkey with it, and put it in the oven to roast.  I needed some whipping cream for the pies later tonight and headed over to my local Whole Foods market to buy a pint only to find they were completely sold out!  I then made a 10 mile trek to the next nearest Whole Foods to get my pint of organic cream.  Along the way I started to think.

This year the holiday season here in the United States begins with Thanksgiving as the holiday season for the Muslim world comes to its end with Eid al-Adha, or the Festival of Sacrifice, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  For me It will be five days of holiday starting with Thanksgiving and culminating with Eid.  And yet when thinking about these two holidays they seem so diametrically opposed, not in spirit but in practice.  In spirit Thanksgiving is about showing thanks for the blessings and bounty that we have.  I am sure originally thanks was given to God, but today I don’t know who exactly people thank.  Folks today in the U.S. believe in so many different things or in nothing at all that I have given up on trying to understand who thanks what anymore.  Growing up, Thanksgiving was always a strange holiday.  People cooked more food than they could possibly eat, then ate more then is healthy.  Someone, either a guest or neighbor, always consumed to much alcohol, became intoxicated and then spoiled the day with some boisterous diatribe about how the world was all wrong and he never got a fair shake.  The very act of giving thanks on that day seemed so contrived and disingenuous.  All the while there was the guy on the street corner, like today as I left Whole Foods, with a sign in his hand that read “hungry”. 

At the same time this year, 2 million humans converged on Mecca in the Arabian Peninsula, for the annual Islamic Pilgrimage. 

Mecca at Hajj

From all over the world and from every walk of life these people make a sacrifice to get there, and in some cases their entire life savings, and seek out forgiveness for the wrongs they committed in their life so far.  They sacrifice their time, leaving family behind in some cases, and make a trek into and through the desert for a glimmering hope of starting life a new without any mistakes to account for.  After 9 days of slogging through the desert these 2 million people make one more sacrifice.  They purchase an animal; lamb, goat, cow or camel, they have it slaughtered and the meat is given away to those hungry people in the world, wherever they might be.  The meat is processed there in Mecca, flash frozen and then distributed worldwide to those who need food.  After all the Eid that follows the pilgrimage is called the Festival of Sacrifice.  But all is not roses there during the Hajj.  There is wasted food, more waste than I think I have ever seen in my life when I made my Hajj 11 years ago.  Leftover food, half eaten loaves of bread, plastic bags filled with uneaten cooked rice and curry litter the pathways.  For a spectacle like no other where sacrifice and giving are the hallmark, it is utterly embarrasing and repugnant to see so much food discarded.  All the while beggars are every where asking for help.

Growing up in my home these two holidays were about feeding other people rather than feeding ourselves.  Each year my aunt calls me about a week or so before Eid and asks are you going to hold Eid this year?  What she means is – are you going to feed people?  This year she also asked if I and my family were going to spend Thanksgiving with her.  Like my dear departed mother, she has a obsession of generosity that is only placated by feeding people. 

It is said that it is always better to give than to receive.  Thankfulness for something given is expected.  Being thankful for the ability to give is another matter all together.  The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said ‘charity does not diminish wealth’.  What ever one gives out will return ten fold.  The ability to give to and sacrifice for others is deserving of thanks.  It is a state of well being that marks independence and fortune.  It pains me when those that have the ability to give hoard what they have for themselves and leave others to pine for what should be enjoyed by all.

This year my wife and I have the good fortune of hosting our extended family at our home for Thanksgiving.  It was a sacrifice for us as well as times are tough and we have had to tighten our belts a bit.  But the joy we feel in giving out, and receiving the blessings of family in our home is more than we could ever ask for.  This year, think about thanks and what you are thankful for and who you are thankful to for what you have and for what you have the ability to do.

Peace.

At some time in life everyone will have come across the feeling of being left out, alone, or not part of the “in crowd”.  As social creatures it is natural to want to be a member of a group.  Membership has it privileges but it also has its casualties.  What if the group you happen to fall into has a modus operandi that goes against your grain?  What if the group sees itself as perfect and everyone else full of fault?  What if following the group forces you to compromise your principles?  Where does that leave you?  Alone.

Outcast

Alone takes courage.  Alone requires fortitude.  Alone demands resolve and patience.  Above all, it is a station that is not for the faint of heart.  Difficulties abound in life no matter what buttrying to navigate it alone brings additional dangers.  Just like the stray lamb gets eaten by a wolf, our Enemy seeks out the person who is alone and confounds, deludes and consumes him.  Be careful, of finding yourself alone.  The outcast rarely will outlast.

Just some food for thought.

In a rut?  We have all been there.  Creatives find this state often and sometimes it is hard to get out of it and move on.  But it can happen to just about anyone for any reason.  Sometimes the trials of life are just relentless and can drive a spirit into a state of apathy making it feel like you are stuck and can’t move – almost paralyzed.

Stuck

Don’t let it get the best of you.  Relax and let it pass.  Focus on nothing, not even the “rut”, and you’ll find that it will pass.

At times, especially in the face of tribulation or calamity, we all find ourselves with feelings of incapacity.  The inability to do something or move forward with plans in spite of the desire to do so is frustrating.  At other times sloth or laziness is out ailment leaving us with the means to achieve a goal and not exhibiting the desire to do so brings on depression. 

Broken

In either case, something feels broken.  You can see where you want to be. You can see your goal ahead of you but you just can’t seem to reach it.  Its like standing on a path broken by a fissure that is too wide to cross on foot.

I have been feeling this way lately.  I know my goal, but I just can’t seem to achieve it.  At times I feel incapacity while at other times sloth.    My fissure is not totally impassable, it just requires additional effort and maybe some ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking to find a way across.

A few weeks ago I found myself immersed in light and form for about forty minutes where many of the feelings I had trouble expressing suddenly appeared to me among small pebbles and sandstone.  ‘Broken’ was the first and it has helped me pass over the fissure in my way.  I will share several more photographs from that evening in the days to come.

I would be interested in hearing if you ever found the answer in the sublimity of nature to a problem that puzzled you or hindered your progress.

I wonder at times about the things in life that attract our attention while we don’t know why they attract us at the time. Sometimes its because of the beauty apparent in what we see. Other times its due to the ugliness. But most of the time its for no apparent reason.

However, as is often the case, understanding something usually occurs after encountering it.  Such was the case with the above photo titled ‘Stripped’.  A barren dead tree snag surrounded by lush green foliaged trees.  I guess what initially attracted me was the starkness of the bare tree.  How its bare branches contrasted against the green.  At the time it held no meaning for me and its graphic nature made me stop and something inside said ‘make a photo’.

Although now, finding myself unable to carry out my business as usual I feel somewhat stripped as well; left unprotected from the uncertainty of the future just like those bare branches are left unprotected from the harshness of the elements.  

Strange is the notion that having the ability to do something somehow imparts the sense of protection or control or stability from unfortunate future events.  Strange how losing a physical possesion effects the intangible spirit.  Strange how in-spite of being afforded every blessing in life from health to loved ones to our daily bread, we still feel bereft if we don’t have money.  How unfortunate it truly is that we attach happiness with monetary wealth.  Especially when we deal with fiat currency – paper has no true value in it – its only worth something as long as everyone believes it does.  Even if the currency was something that had intrinsic worth, like gold, it does not persist.  If we hoard our ‘money’ it is of no real benefit; we can’t eat it, we can’t wear it, it does not hug us or console us with soothing words when we hurt.  And if we do use it, then its gone.  Keep it or not, it cannot preserve us.  Eventually we will expire and leave it behind if it did not already leave us.

I suppose then that it is not the ability to earn ‘money’ that brings us happiness, but the endeavor behind that earning.  When we work as an employee we are paid a wage commensurate with the value of our service.  If what we do is important to others, then we are compensated by them accordingly.  If we work independently providing a service or product to others, we find satisfaction in what we sell when others buy it because we have facilitated ease or utility.  This then has value, and while intangible it still brings benefit to all involved.  Its just that in our age the compensation for our efforts is rewarded monetarily rather than by the transfer of necessities, such as food, clothing, shelter etc…

I photograph the world to share my joy in the beauty that I see.  It brings me great satisfaction when another person finds solace or elation when viewing one of my works.  If it was not a financial burden to produce them I probably would give them away for free, but alas they are not and so I do offer them for sale.  And since we do live in a time where our livelihood is obtained via currency, the photos I sell are also the means by which I provide for myself and my family.  Thus I think being stripped of my ability to bring beauty to others as well as seeking sustenance for myself and those that rely on me, has left me feeling how the tree in the above photo looks.  And until I have the means once again to bring the photos to the world, I have to rely on the world, albeit the virtual one, coming to me to enjoy and purchase one for themselves from this virtual store.

Take care and enjoy what remains of Autumn.

On October 14, 2009, on one of the worse rain storm days I can remember in a long time, I was involved in a devastating accident where I hit another car from behind on Highway 280 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The accident resulted in both of our cars as a total loss. I thank God that no one was seriously injured.

Accident Aftermath

This incident has left me full of deep remorse for disrupting the lives of so many people, my family included. My truck, a 2000 Toyota 4Runner, was a critical asset of Organic Light Photography as it provided transportation to and from photography jobs, and trips into the wilderness areas that I photograph, as well as being the workhorse in pulling a trailer filled with the show equipment I use at art shows and exhibits where Organic Light Photographs can be seen, enjoyed and purchased.

Needless to say I need to purchase another truck that can replace the loss. The whole incident has left me very shaken up. Of course any accident like this is bound to do so, and it is difficult to get past it without wondering what it all means. It is diffcult not to wonder if I had just braked a little sooner, or if I took that risk of veering into another lane if that would have averted the collision. But we can “what-if” ourselves to no end with no real benefit. What has happened has happened and it cannot be undone. When a calamity occurs, we need to find the courage in ourselves to stand up, dust ourselves off, forgive ourselves for our own inability to control things outside of our sphere of influence and find the wisdom in what has happend so that we may hopefully grow as thinking conscience individuals.

We are living in trying times. Tribulations seem to be coming upon us collectively as a society from all sides and as often as we blink our eyes. We tend to feel somewhat sheltered however when it is not happening directly to us, but the truth is that it is actually happening to other fellow human beings somewhere. Everyday someone somewhere is in a car accident, or a family member dies, or someone loses their job, and the list goes on. I am sure you don’t drive down the freeway without seeing at least one wreck a week.

The funny thing is that the traffic that results from drivers slowing down at the scene of an accident always upset me. It is a pet peeve of mine seeing all those “rubber-neckers” slowing down to get a glimpse of what happened, as if they did not have enough drama in their lives already, or enough violence as portrayed through the media that they just needed to see a little more of it so that they can get their fix.

But it has occured to me how incredibly insensitive I have been – not to the rubber-neckers, they still bother me, but to those afflicted individuals involved in the accident. The possible loss of life and property, lost earnings due to injury, the sorrow, the regret , the remorse – somehow did not occur to me. It was as if I was oblivious to all this. This was not the first accident that I have been in. When I was 16, I was in an accident with my first car, a Chevrolet Chevette, and it was pitted against a full-sized behemoth Lincoln Continental, yeah, no mystery there as to which car came out the loser. But I guess in the last 30 years I forgot what it was like being in an accident. I hope I never forget again. For when the world crashes for one person we should feel like it is crashing for all of us. In this way we can always feel compassion for those who are living through any tribulation and always express our gratitude for when we are not and showing patience when we are.

Please be safe out there this Autumn as the roads will be slick and slippery with water and snow as storms move through. The beauty of Autumn should not be overshadowed by the gloom of dealing with accidents.

Peace and Tranquilty to you all.

~ Youssef

Venus and the old crescent moon.

When I was young I would sit out on the front porch of our house at night with my mother, God rest her soul and have mercy on her, which faced east and some times we would see the moon very close to a star.  I would ask my mother about it and she would tell me that that star was the moon’s mother and when the moon was close to it, the moon was visiting its mother.  That story always made me feel close to my mother.  I still recall those days whenever I see the moon close to a prominent star in the sky.

Two mornings ago, I stepped out of my front door, which faces south, and I looked towards the east to estimate how many more days we had left in Ramadan by gauging the size of the crescent moon.  To my surprise it was very close to Venus, the start shown above.  The sky was getting light and I was moved to photograph this pair as they visited each other in the morning sky.

I happend to look to the south and also saw the constellaton Orion, or Musa according to the Muslim Astronomers naming, and its distinctive belt of three stars that I grew up know as The Three Sisters, again named by my mother.

Three Sisters

It has always amazed me how universal the stars are and at the same time how ‘culturalized’ they are at the same time.  Growing up I knew Venus as the Mother of the Moon, and the Belt of Orion as the Three Sisters.  Every cultural or civilization has named the stars by different names and some have crossed over to other cultures.  Of the 57 navigational stars some 18 of them still have Arab names give by the Muslim Astronomers during the Golden Age of Islam.  The list of these stars can be found on Wikipedia at this link.

In a few days the month of Ramadan will have passed and the new crescent moon will make its appearance in the western sky after sunset.  And even though time keeps moving on, the stars, moon and sun will still be there to help us keep track of time and grow richer as they bridge the gaps of culture and the ages.

Did you have any special names for the stars when you were growing up?  I’d love to hear what they were.