Another Kind of Christmas: Close to the Earth

Woman and Child - Refugee Camp, Gaza City © Zoriah/www.zoriah.com
Note from the Photographer: A woman holds a child in Gaza City's Beach Camp, one of the world's longest-standing refugee camps. The poverty in such areas often makes you feel as if you have taken a step back in time.

And so it was that while they were there, 
the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him
in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger;
because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2: 6-7 KJV

May the God of your Soul give you peace in this Season of Brotherhood and May Angels walk with you into the New Year.

The Spirit of Christmas ~ Haiku My Heart

©2011 Thomas Hawk – The Spirit of Christmas – Alameda CA  (some rights reserved)

The Soft Glow of Lights

The Scent of Sweet Pine Branches

The Warmth of Friendship.

-Noelle Renee

Linked with Rebecca’s Blog at Recuerda mi Corazon

~~

About the Photographer

Thomas Hawk Sometimes I like to think of myself as a photography factory. I see my photographs mostly as raw material for projects that might be worked on at some point later on in life. When I'm not taking or processing the pictures I'm mostly thinking about the pictures. I'm trying to publish a library of 1,000,000 finished, processed photographs before I die. The absurdity of my obsessive compulsive view on photography is not lost on me. But it is the absurdity of life that I find most beautiful of all. Where Sisyphus had his stone I have my camera and a bag full of lenses. Most of my images are Creative Commons licensed, non commercial with attribution.  If you'd like to use any CC licensed images for non commercial or personal purposes feel free.  If you'd like to use any of my images commercially, please contact me. "Don't think about making art. Just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they're deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol

Birdwings ~Rumi

Birdwings

Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror

up to where you’re bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.

~Jalaluddin Rumi

Excerpt from an Online Essay by Margaret Lottridge July 2004

Jalaluddin Rumi (Mawlana) 1207-1273

http://www.towerpoetry.ca/talk-lottridge.html

Jalaluddin Rumi, Persia’s best known lyrical poet and mystic, was born circa September 30, 1207 A.D. in Balkh, Central Asia, in what is now modern Afghanistan. Eighteen years later his family fled from invading Mongols, settling for a time in Laranda, Central Anatolia (present-day Karaman, Turkey) where Jalaluddin married Jawhar Khatun. His father, Baha’uddin Valad, the “Sultan of the Learned," moved the family to Konya (modern Turkey) in 1228 and founded a school of Islamic philosophy and theology.

Jalaluddin Rumi became a teacher and theologian who wrote scholarly articles. His traditional education was enhanced by the guidance of his father, a mystic and theologian, and through initiation experiences with his first teacher, Sufi master Sayyid Burhanuddin Muhaqqiq of Termez (a former student of Baha’uddin). Upon his father’s demise in January of 1231, Jalaluddin Rumi inherited the school and took over the responsibilities of guiding its students.

Rumi’s theoretical knowledge of divine principles was transformed by his relationship with Shamsuddin Muhammad of Tabriz. Shams, an enlightened being, a wandering dervish with an existential initiation and teaching style, was searching for someone to receive his knowledge – “someone whose soul was as wide and deep as his own.” Rumi, with his open, questioning mind, found in Shams the perfect mirror of his own soul – his Beloved – the Friend in much of his poetry.

Rumi and Shams met on a street in Konya in the fall of 1244.
Various accounts of their first encounter illustrate that the bond between Shams and Rumi was immediate and life-changing. In one account, Shams falls to the ground in a faint at Rumi’s replies to his introductory queries. Another account has Shams throwing Rumi’s treasured books into a fountain and telling him to begin to live what he’s been reading. He says the pages will be dry, as they were, if he lifts them out. Rumi leaves them in the water and they begin the first of many mystical retreats together. This is when Rumi’s scholarly writings took on the wings of poetry….

~Margaret Lottridge 2004

Father's Day: The Gift ~ Li-Young Lee

To pull the metal splinter from my palm

my father recited a story in a low voice.

I watched his lovely face and not the blade.

Before the story ended, he’d removed

the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.

I can’t remember the tale,

but hear his voice still, a well

of dark water, a prayer.

And I recall his hands,

two measures of tenderness

he laid against my face,

the flames of discipline

he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon

you would have thought you saw a man

planting something in a boy’s palm,

a silver tear, a tiny flame.

Had you followed that boy

you would have arrived here,

where I bend over my wife’s right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down

so carefully she feels no pain.

Watch as I lift the splinter out.

I was seven when my father

took my hand like this,

and I did not hold that shard

between my fingers and think,

Metal that will bury me,

christen it Little Assassin,

Ore Going Deep for My Heart.

And I did not lift up my wound and cry,

Death visited here!

© 2012 Istvan Kerekes 

I did what a child does

when he’s given something to keep.

I kissed my father.

Li-Young Lee, “The Gift” from Rose. Copyright ©1986 by Li-Young Lee.

About Istvan Kerekes

Photographer

In His Own Words

I have been a photographer since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images. One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it: “the good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.

~Istvan Kerekes

Istvan’s website: http://www.kerekesistvan.hu/

*Copyrighted images are posted with kind permission of the photographer.

Heartbeat

 

©2013 Louise Fryer ~ Heartbeat

“Memory was that woman on the train. Insane in the way she sifted through dark things in a closet and emerged with the most unlikely ones - a fleeting look, a feeling. The smell of smoke. A windscreen wiper. A mother's marble eyes. Quite sane in the way she left huge tracts of darkness veiled. Unremembered.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro from Vitùc on Vimeo.

Shot with iPhone and Hipstamatic App / Tinto 1848 + D-Type Plate
Italy 12.2012

Music composed by David Ianni
Prayers of Silence - Rosa Mystica I
http://davidianni.com

“The Lit Angel We Desire”

Istvan Kerekes ©2013 Feeling

What is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.

What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire,

what disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.

~David Whyte

Excerpt from “The Winter of Listening”

“The Back of the Hand to Everything”

 

©zoriah/www.zoriah.com ~ Residents of Breezy Point comfort each other amidst the rubble of what was once their homes.

Hurricane

It didn't behave
like anything you had
ever imagined. The wind
tore at the trees, the rain
fell for days slant and hard.
The back of the hand
to everything. I watched
the trees bow and their leaves fall
and crawl back into the earth.
As though, that was that.

©zoriah/www.zoriah.com ~The devastation of hundreds of homes in the wake of a fire caused by Hurricane Sandy in Breezy Point New York

This was one hurricane
I lived through, the other one
was of a different sort, and
lasted longer. Then
I felt my own leaves giving up and
falling. The back of the hand to
everything.

©zoriah/www.zoriah.com ~ Residents of Breezy Point Queens haul salvaged belongings from their homes.

But listen now to what happened
to the actual trees;
toward the end of that summer they
pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.
It was the wrong season, yes,
but they couldn't stop. They
looked like telephone poles and didn't
care.

©zoriah/www.zoriah.com ~A young girl stands inside of a wet store that was destroyed by the water that breached New York City’s East Village.

And after the leaves came
blossoms. For some things
there are no wrong seasons.
Which is what I dream of for me.

MARY OLIVER

A Thousand Mornings
The Penguin Press

 

About the Photographer

Zoriah is an award-winning photojournalist whose work has been featured in some of the world’s most prestigious galleries, museums and publications. Zoriah's clients have included The BBC, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, ABC News, NPR, Focus and many others. With a background in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Aid, Zoriah specializes in documenting human crises in developing countries. His vitae not only lists photographic achievements and study, but also the in-depth training and experience necessary for working under extreme conditions in some of the world's harshest environments.

In One Kiss

An American Wedding by Thomas Hawk November 12, 2010

“A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.”
― Alfred Tennyson

A Boy and His Dog

©2013 Istvan Kerekes  posted with kind permission

 Boy and His Dog
Edgar Guest 

A boy and his dog make a glorious pair:
No better friendship is found anywhere,
For they talk and they walk and they run and they play,
And they have their deep secrets for many a day;
And that boy has a comrade who thinks and who feels,
Who walks down the road with a dog at his heels.

He may go where he will and his dog will be there,
May revel in mud and his dog will not care;
Faithful he'll stay for the slightest command
And bark with delight at the touch of his hand;
Oh, he owns a treasure which nobody steals,
Who walks down the road with a dog at his heels.

No other can lure him away from his side;
He's proof against riches and station and pride;
Fine dress does not charm him, and flattery's breath
Is lost on the dog, for he's faithful to death;
He sees the great soul which the body conceals--
Oh, it's great to be young with a dog at your heels!

About the Photographer

Istvan Kerekes

In His Own Words

I have been a photographer since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images. One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it: “the good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.

~Istvan Kerekes

Istvan’s website: http://www.kerekesistvan.hu/

*Copyrighted images are posted with kind permission of the photographer.

Outliers, Vol. I: Iceland - "Black Beach" (Film)

Outliers, Vol. I: Iceland - "Black Beach" by Deru from www.scenicstudio.tv on Vimeo.

Shot on location at Reynisfjara Beach, Iceland. October 2011.

http://www.outliersiceland.com

Buy the film in 1080p or 720p HD:
http://downloads.scenicstudio.tv


Editor: Anthony Ciannamea
Art Direction and Design: Ryan Sievert (ryansievert.com)
Motion Design and CG: Mark Wisniowski (probe3.com) and Anthony Ciannamea (effixx.com)
Cinematography: Mark Wisniowski / Ryan Sievert / Anthony Ciannamea (ScenicStudio.tv)
Music: "Black Beach" by Deru (deru.la)

Tribal Woman

Rajasthan ©2012 George Koruth with kind permission

Closed Path

I thought that my voyage had come to its end
at the last limit of my power,---that the path before me was closed,
that provisions were exhausted
and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.
But I find that thy will knows no end in me.
And when old words die out on the tongue,
new melodies break forth from the heart;
and where the old tracks are lost,
new country is revealed with its wonders.

Rabindranath Tagore

 

About the Photographer:

George Koruth

George Koruth is a photographer based in India. His collection captures India's rich culture and traditions. One of his specialties is street photography. Be it a smiling child or a wrinkled old woman, you will find a unique collection of faces here. He also loves to showcase social issues and hopes his photographs can give a voice to those people who don't have any say in this world. George has done work for international magazines and websites and has been featured in Indian magazines.

Birdwings

"At Highgate Cemetary” ©2012 Louise Fryer

Birdwings

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror

up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,

here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.

If it were always fist or always stretched open,

you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small

contracting and expanding.

the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated

as bird wings.

  ~Rumi

 

 ©2013 Louise Fryer

Photographer Profile: Louise Fryer

I first got into photography in May 2009, after spending some time experimenting in various different areas I found the subject that interested me the most was street photography. It is since January 2011 that I have been seriously concentrating on this area. I focus mainly on street portraiture, I try to capture sensitivity and feeling in my photographs. My inspiration comes from the people I see, my own empathy and feelings towards them. I feel a connection with some of the people I photograph due to my work and my life experiences.

“I see in black & white, colours just complicate things.” ~ Louise Fryer

Louise Hails from London and is a contributor to Shoot the Streets established to promote the art of street photography and increase the exposure of the many talented, and often unknown street photographers who live, breath and shoot the streets.

All photos are copyrighted and permission to use them was generously granted by Louise Fryer. All Rights Reserved.

Note: You may find Louise Fryer’s phenomenal Street Photography Here; Here and Shoot the Streets.

It Happens to those that Live Alone

©2012 Louise Fryer –Lillesden, Hawkhurst England

It happens to those
who live alone
That they feel sure
of visitors
when no-one else
is there.

©2012 Louise Fryer –Lillesden, Hawkhurst England

Until  the one day
And one particular
hour
Working in the
quiet garden

~

when the
green bud
at the center
of their slowly
opening silence
flowers
in belonging

©2012 Louise Fryer –Lillesden, Hawkhurst England

and they realize
at once,
that all along
they have been
an invitation
to everything
and every kind of trouble

~and that life
happens by
to those who
inhabit
silence
~

Like the bees
Visiting
The tall mallow
On their legs of gold,
Or the wasps
Going from door to door
In the tall forest
Of the daisies

©2012 Louise Fryer –Lillesden, Hawkhurst England

 

I have my freedom
Today
Because
Nothing really happened

~

And nobody came
To see me.
Only the slow
Growing of the garden
In the summer heat
And the silence of that
Unborn life
Making itself
Known at my desk

©2012 Louise Fryer –Lillesden, Hawkhurst England

My hands
Still
Dark with the
Crumbling soil
As I write
And watch

©2012 Louise Fryer –Lillesden, Hawkhurst England

The first lines
Of a new poem
Like  flowers
Of scarlet fire,
Coming to fullness in a new light.
~David Whyte

Note: My Gracious Thanks to Louise Fryer for these Extraordinary Images
Linked with Postcards from Paradise at recuerda mi corazon

The Last Supper

Portrait ©2012 Istvan Kerekes with kind permission

Here they are gathered, wondering and deranged,
Round Him, who wisely doth Himself inclose,
And who now takes Himself away, estranged,
From those who owned Him once, and past them
flows.

He feels the ancient loneliness to-day
That taught Him all His deepest acts of love;
Now in the olive groves He soon will rove,
And these who love Him all will flee away.
To the last supper table He hath led.

As birds are frightened from a garden-bed
By shots, so He their hands forth from the bread
Doth frighten by His word: to Him they flee;
Then flutter round the table in their fright
And seek a passage from the hall. But He
Is everywhere, like dusk at fall of night.

                     ~Rainer Maria Rilke

About the Photographer

Istvan Kerekes

I have been a photographer since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images. One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it: “The good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.

~Istvan Kerekes

Istvan’s website: http://www.kerekesistvan.hu/

*Copyrighted images are posted with kind permission of the photographer.

Linked to Postcards from Paradise at Recuerda mi Corazon

Has Anyone Seen the Boy?

Best Friends ©2012 Istvan Kerekes

Have you seen the boy?
"I had been looking for him for years...  I
remember him, full of love, generous heart, a
fiery passion." 
Some boys have a story to tell:
They get lost to us....

Has anyone seen the boy
who used to come here?
Round-faced trouble-maker,
quick to find a joke,
slow to be serious, red shirt,
perfect coordination, sly,
strong muscled,
with things always in his pocket:
reed flute, worn pick,
polished and ready for his Talent--
you know that one.
Have you heard stories about him?
Pharaoh and the whole Egyptian world
collapsed for such a Joseph.
I'd gladly spend years getting word
of him, even third or fourth hand.

There is a wonderful, magical energy in a
boy.  And the tragedy is that it can be so
easily lost.  It is a peculiar wildness of
heart. 
Have you ever met that wild heart?
He is so longed for and dearly missed.  Oh,
how we miss our boys.

~(Blue portion is from Rumi’s (Red Shirt))

Preface and Closing in gold taken from Here

Story of Red Shirt may be found here .

linked to Postcards from Paradise at Rebecca’s for Memorial Day

About the Photographer 

Istvan Kerekes

I have been a photographer since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images. One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it: “The good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.
~Istvan Kerekes
Istvan’s website: http://www.kerekesistvan.hu/
Best Friends can be found on 1x.com
*Copyrighted images are posted with kind permission of the photographer.

Entrance

Termeszet ©2012 Istvan Kerekes

Entrance

(After Rilke)

Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
Out of the room that lets you feel secure.
Infinity is open to your sight.
Whoever you are.
With eyes that have forgotten how to see
From viewing things already too well-known,
Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree
And put it in the heavens: tall, alone.
And you have made the world and all you see.
It ripens like the words still in your mouth.
And when at last you comprehend its truth,
Then close your eyes and gently set it free.

~ Dana Gioia ~

(Interrogations at Noon)

Poem found at www.panhala.net/Archive/Entrance.html

The Guest House

 

Moving Around ©2012 Renato Manzi

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi ~

(The Essential Rumi, versions by Coleman Barks)

 

About Renato Manzi:

Renato is an Italian portrait and fashion photographer, who moved to Oslo,Norway in 1977. He has worked with Miss Norway Agency since 1990. You can find him on 1x.com.

Semejanzas Paradojas y descontextos (video)

Questions that can make or unmake a Life

Street Portraits © 2012 Louise Fryer

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories
who could cross
a shimmering bed of dry leaves
without a sound,
you come
to a place
whose only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,
questions
that have patiently
waited for you,
questions
that have no right
to go away.
~ David Whyte ~
(Everything is Waiting for You)

Linked to Postcards from Paradise at recuerda mi corazon