A friend of mine, the one who got me started using the term ‘wondering around’, recently sent me a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, who was the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913).  Here’s the poem:

There is a point where in the mystery of
existence contradictions meet;
where movement is not all movement
and stillness is not all stillness;
where the idea and the form,
the within and the without, are united;
where infinite becomes finite,
yet not losing its infinity.

About 10 years ago I took a workshop with Freeman Patterson.  In the course of the workshop, he made a point of talking with each participant and discovering something that was of particular interest to that individual.  It was in October and I said something about the upcoming  Spirit and Place festival in Indianapolis.  The day before the end of the workshop he gave each of us a photo essay assignment to be completed in 24 hours.  Mine was ‘Spirit and Leaves’.  Here are a couple of images from that trip:

Ever since then I have worked at finding external correlates to internal states.  Or, more to the point, I want to reflect states of being such as peace, stillness, reflection, spirituality etc. in photographs.

When my friend – I’ll call her S – sent me the Tragore poem I was moved to treat it as a source of ideas for photographs.  For example, what single image would best reflect what I was getting out of the poem?  I’m sure my answer to that will change over time and I will keep coming back to it because I love the poem.  Here’s today’s version of the image, I don’t know what I will think tomorrow.  The poem is repeated below the image.  You might try this exercise yourself.  Let me know you make out with it.

There is a point where in the mystery of
existence contradictions meet;
where movement is not all movement
and stillness is not all stillness;
where the idea and the form,
the within and the without, are united;
where infinite becomes finite,
yet not losing its infinity.

Thanks, Freeman, I’m still working on the assignment.