These fragments of texture, movement, light and shadow evoke the most powerful memories I have from childhood and my adult life. Observing and sitting with them is what I define as presence. Something that vanished in my late childhood and remained lost until my mid-twenties.
The ability to absorb the environments we find ourselves in and the creatures, human and non-human, we are surrounded by is a natural state of being and surviving. Each moment is an experience that derives information about our place in the universe, to be impressively deciphered through all human sensory passages. The biological intelligence at both the cellular and "conscious" brain level share a powerful relationship; the latter is not possible without the former.
Our capacity to interpret our circumstances should not be merely unconscious or conscious. These two levels of intelligence, under natural conditions are harmonious; communicating effortlessly.
Without modern super-stimulants, fabricated food-like substances, manufactured toxins, over-population and technology, the human super-organism knows when and what to eat, when to stop, when to flee, when to fight, when to mate and how to protect her young.
Clearing my mind and body of the disruptive physiological chaos that ransacked my attention for years involved many variables. A few of them, I'm inclined to think, being of greatest impact.
Facing new challenges, doing uncomfortable things, meeting new people, traveling more places, falling in love with someone I could disagree with, writing, practicing awareness and introspection, getting organized, reading, movement, eating real biological foods.
- Eating real biological foods while gradually fully eliminating processed "foods," sugar and alcohol
- Reading
- Movement
- Practicing awareness and introspection
The changes above have led me along the inspiring path to heightened curiosity, strengthened memory and communication skills, relationships of nonmaterial substance and physical and mental growth. Transforming me into someone that is more observant of and interested in others. A living organism healing a dysfunctional communication system and re-learning its inborn language. The most wonderful part of all of it, is that I'm not done. I'm not perfected. Genuine self-improvement is a moment-to-moment fascination with what we still have yet to understand.
It wasn't until I could begin to interpret the experience I was in again that I would become successful as a photographer. My images prior to 2018 were missing the most valuable thing I now possess; my ability to absorb the world and people around me.
How will we recognize whether we have lost our connection to the present?
We will start by asking the question.
