WALKING THE SKY WAY
In Portland, last night, I could see the glimmer of the moon, fullish -- hidden in the mists of the late sky; there were no stars to be seen -- except straight up, in the darkest part of the arc of misted blackness. I was thinking about the moon, her symbolism and mystery -- the millions of years that she has told her tale, drawing the tides of the great seas in the pull of her power, as does she guide the tides of billions of others -- the physic, the psychic. There in the mist, fogged as a...
THE HEART OF IRON
Photo by Tim Girvin As I walk the abandoned farm land of pressed grains, weeds and rushes, since there is a chill - I can hear the needles of cedar, pine, crackling like ice. And there, in the field, is a piece of rusted iron, found in the sea, but now resting in the scumbled soil, mixed with the minutiae of time passing. Other bits of metal, sand and shell, volcanic rock, tiny green things living -- that's just hanging on the frost of the morning. And invariably, even in the cold, some...
THE MEDITATION OF CHOPPING WOOD
Photo by Tim Girvin To the wood, the physical practice of chopping wood is the distinction from the hard, and blood scenting brace of cold iron -- the blade of the ax -- to the splitting wet of the wood that is new, and just fallen. And older timbers, that have lain, warmed and dried over time -- the sound and meditation is about the nature of the arcing swing, and the split, just so. There are others woods that are fungi-tinted, and smell of the deepest forest -- cutting them, the blade...
Matthew Girvin | Ten Years
Matthew Girvin, on the day of his receipt of his Unicef passport - the global passcard of commitment to humanity It was today, ten years back, that my father called me to let me know that we'd lost my brother Matthew Girvin. Matt was on a helicopter -- during a rescue mission, for Unicef -- to the remote Uvs, a nomadically inclined provincial region in the deep winter of Mongolia. The helicopter crashed. The layering of those stories can be found here:...
METAPHORS OF THE LUMINOUS INTELLIGENCE
BRIGHT LIGHT Photo by Tim Girvin LIGHT MIND. METAPHORS OF THE LUMINOUS INTELLIGENCE I've been working with scientists, these days, exploring ways to tell stories in a manner that people can understand. Or better still, ways that truly celebrate the power of what they are accomplishing, or dreaming of, in the nature of their work. The issue is that scientists are really great, telling stories to each other, about what they are doing, and what they believe in - for themselves. But the...
SHADOW AND CLARITY
Photo by Tim Girvin Even when the winter emerges, Fall is tinting what's left of the leaves, there is a chance to find a flower or two, hanging on -- yet still resplendent, blasting color into the softened palette. Looking at the wet flowers, drops of water, thriving in the crisp light, there's a beautiful balance in the quality of the burst of brightness, and the precise shadowing of those details. Seeing that, I wonder: there is the flower, there is the shadow -- and what lies between? tsg |...
The Mist of Knowing
Photo by Tim Girvin I was in an alley, early morning, only days ago -- and the cold was almost unbearable. This, 5am -- and walking the alley, steam rose up into the light, creating a kind of painting. A misted water-coloring, awash in seething color and watered plumes of fog and uncertainty -- formless steaming, streaming and gleaming in the light. And I thought about that word, that moves between the space of the certainty of the idea of light, and the painting -- if not spoken and written...
RINGS OF THE IDEAL
As I touch an idea, another comes forth, and I contemplate the strength of the ringed expression of that thought (a story, perhaps,) moving outwardly -- this, arranged on a Fresnel lens -- touching like ripples, but made of glass. Light as idea. Photo by Tim Girvin I carry the symbolism of this lens - the lensing of the lighthouse, taking the concentration of the idea(l) and beaming that illumination outwardly, in the succession of waves and circles that take us from one positioning of insight...
SAVORING THE SHINE
Photo by Tim Girvin SAVORING THE SHINE Today, in NYC, the sun is out, it's brilliantly shining. And in standing near our offices, off Madison Park, I'm looking up into the sun and savoring the shine of the light. A truck with a heart(full) calligraphy, sits there, contemplatively -- light glints off the building. I love that shine. Shine, shrine. The presence of that light emits something joyful, and being in Seatttle's perpetual oysterlit haze -- that luminous low clouded -- "where is the...
THE CENTER OF THE STORM
Photo by Tim Girvin I SAVOR THE STORM - AND THE STORY OF ITS SPINNING Sometimes, the most utilitarian is the most beautiful evocation. I think of seeing things as voice -- there is a calling to the eye. Walking down an alley, in the lushly posh places made in South Beach (Miami Beach, FL) -- so early in the morning that the lights were out nearly everywhere. I saw three people, in a place normally thronged. Nimbus clouds unfurled in the starred morning. Walking there, alley way, I spied this...