THE UNKOWN

Free yourself from attempts to shape a future that’s beyond your control. - Cameron Allen

I’ve never been into Astrology, never really held any beliefs in what the stars have to tell us in regards to our future. Venus in retrograde is meaningless in my world. Sure, I have been known to read some Tarot but most always it is in jest with a roll of the eyes. Yet, I found myself drawn to that sentence that was tucked into an Astrology article in my latest issue of Yoga Journal. Other then all the work I did to gather scholarships for college, I am not sure that I have actively attempted to shape my future. I just assumed what my future would be. Last year was the first time in a long time where I made active plans to shape something. I wasn’t ready to put a name to that future and even now I am hesitant, but it had a whole lot to do with my photography. I had pretend scenarios in my head where people were wowed by the prints at my showing. In those moments, I imagined selling out and people asking for more. Then I would go and teach a workshop and sound confident and relaxed. People would hang on every word and really learn something about the cameras on their phones.

That little sentence of astrological advice would have been useful around this time last year.

I have gotten sloppy with my photography and have nothing from last year that I feel worthy enough to print and frame. Fifty percent of my photos are of Josephine laying in her bed, which may be an accurate representation of life right now for many of us, but still. How many of those pictures does the world really need? I have never been able to stick to a traditional meditation practice. Instead, I have relied on my camera for moments of mindfulness and grounding and I am beginning to feel the effects of not doing this practice daily. I should rephrase that. I feel the effects of only pretending to practice. I make a forced effort every day, but a forced effort by someone not fully committed results in a lackluster picture. I am not here to beat myself up over it. A year into a pandemic has all of us feeling a bit lackluster and a lot stalled out.

While I sat at my desk writing this piece, 10,000 Maniacs started singing These are the Days. It is a good song to belt along with and I sat there with a dog in my lap doing just that.

These are days you'll remember
When May is rushing over you with desire
To be part of the miracles you see in every hour
You'll know it's true that you are blessed and lucky
It's true that you
Are touched by something
That will grow and bloom in you

These are days

These are the days you might fill with laughter until you break
These days you might feel a shaft of light
Make its way across your face
And when you do you'll know how it was meant to be
See the signs and know their meaning
It's true
You'll know how it was meant to be
Hear the signs and know they're speaking to you, to you

Tuesday, while I was home for the day, I pulled out the accidental potato plant that I started growing last Fall. I decided to repurpose that growing space for some small onions and salad greens. When I pulled up the now sad wilted looking potato vine, I found a small potato dangling in the roots. I grew a tiny potato! These are the days to remember and I am thinking about things with in my control to mold and shape for fifteen minutes into the future. Not any farther beyond fifteen minutes. That fifteen minutes of future holds a tiny bit more mindfulness with a photography meditation practice.

Hopefully, it is a future that will grow and bloom.