poetry – Quakers and Mutual Aid

Taking photos often takes me outside myself. Or makes me more aware of where I am in the moment. The Spirit is constantly moving through me, in and out, interacting with the physical world. It is much like Quaker meeting for worship, where we sit together in silence listening for the Inner Light.

I sometimes refer to photography as meeting for worship with attention to photography. I usually spend about two hours every day taking photos. Then another two or three hours editing those photos. When I’m feeling unsettled, I’ll go out to take photos.

Some of my photos are on my new photography website:
https://jeffkislingphotography.wpcomstaging.com/

Once while talking about photography with my friend Diop Adisa we laughed when we realized we both took mental photos when we didn’t have a camera along. We decided to call that Zen photography.

Having lived my life without a car, I’m used to having the ability to stop and look for, perhaps take a photo. I long ago developed the habit of carrying my camera with me all the time. I don’t like to have to drive somewhere to take photos, which means I often travel the same path. To and from work when I was working at Riley Hospital for Children in downtown Indianapolis. In Indianola, there was a nice walking trail. Or the Buxton Gardens on the campus of Simpson College were within walking distance.

Currently living in Madison, Wisconsin, I can walk to the trail to Picnic Point. I have a whole series of photos in various weather conditions there: https://jeffkislingphotography.wpcomstaging.com/2023/11/15/picnic-point-madison-wisconsin/

Sometimes a theme emerges as it did yesterday morning. We’d had a good amount of snow. On the tips of the branches of the trees were pieces of ice as the water re-froze. You wouldn’t notice this unless you were looking up and the sun was in the right position. Once I noticed this I looked for the ice on all the trees I passed.

When I edited the photos, I had to make the sky much darker than it actually was in order for the ice to be seen. Adding a little contrast, and some sharpening made the ice crystals stand out. I thought of them as constellations of stars. That reminded me of Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “starry, starry night.” So I named the series of these photos “Starry, Starry Day.”

I also remembered Don McLean’s song, “Vincent (Starry, Starry Night).” I hadn’t played it in a while and had forgotten how beautiful it was.

“Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)”
Don McLean

Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer’s day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul

Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they’ll listen now

Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent’s eyes of china blue

Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they’ll listen now

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night

You took your life, as lovers often do
But I could’ve told you Vincent
This world was never meant for
One as beautiful as you

Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frame-less heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget

Like the strangers that you’ve met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

Now I think I know
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they’re not listening still
Perhaps they never will

End of the year reflections have me looking back over some of the quotations I’ve gathered along the way.

Silence, spirituality, and photography

Many of my photographs come from walks over the same path, over and over. In Indianapolis, it was walking to and from work. I lived about 2 miles from Riley Hospital for Children. I developed the habit of always carrying my camera with me. I was quite conscious of seeing more and more detail emerge from walking the same path. That made me look more closely intentionally, challenging me to look more deeply. This became a spiritual experience. I realized I was waiting in silence to be shown more clearly what I was looking at. I would look inward to help me see outward.

This helped me listen for the Spirit more closely during Quaker meetings for worship, where Friends sit in silence together. There is a circle of silence between photography and spirituality. Below are some images I made with the help of artificial intelligence to try to envision this.

Carrying my camera all the time meant others would see the War is Not the Answer button on my camera strap.

Some of my own quotes are about photography:

I listen with my eyes
Learn to see what you are looking at
Photography is a spiritual practice
Meeting for worship with attention to photography
Zen photography

I like this quote by W.B. Yeats, which I also think of in terms of photography. The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

That stillness and vastness that enables the Universe to be, is not just out there in space…it is also within you. – Eckhart Tolle

Close your eyes and follow your breath to the still place that leads to the invisible path that leads you home. – Mirabai Starr

In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence. – Robert Lynd

We Indians know about silence. We are not afraid of it. In fact, for us, silence is more powerful than words. Our elders were trained in the ways of silence, and they handed over this knowledge to us. Observe, listen, and then act, they would tell us. That was the manner of living. -Ella Deloria

Once we start to act, hope is everywhere. So instead of looking for hope, look for action. Then, and only then, hope will come. –Greta Thunberg

Mutual aid is the radical act of caring for each other while working to change the world. - Dean Spade

My activism did not spring from being black. Rather, it is rooted fundamentally in my Quaker upbringing and the values instilled in me by the grandparents who reared me… Those values were based on the concept of a single human family and the belief that all members of that family are equal. – Bayard Rustin

Capitalism has violated the communities of marginalized folks. capitalism is about the value of people, property and the people who own property. those who have wealth and property control the decisions that are made. the government comes second to capitalism when it comes to power. In the name of liberation, capitalism must be reversed and dismantled. meaning that capitalistic practices must be reprogrammed with mutual aid practices. -Des Moines Black Liberation

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something. -Neil Gaiman

But to do the truth, to live a life that enforces what we once had, a life and culture that made a millennia of humanity possible to thrive, is to be at war with what has defined and destroyed this world for too long. -Ronnie James