THEORIES OF WISDOM

My photographs have always explored the spiritual side of life, looking for meaning in everything and answers to questions that continue to puzzle the world. This series is inspired by my continued search for wisdom, and the clouds on the lake are symbolic of how knowledge is gained by sight, wisdom is gained by intuition and not always seen first hand, but you trust that it is there. The work doesn’t answer questions, but explores thoughts and ideas through imagery.  

ONLY BREATH

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion
or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or in the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being

– Rumi

Rumi speaks to the human in all of us in one of his most beloved poems, “Only Breath”. We are often so blinded by our differences that it’s easy to forget that we are all the same. We may not share the same values and principles, but the core idea we collectively fight for is for the strength to protect our communities. Ultimately, there is only one community — a global breathing community.

1. Osbeck, L. M., & Robinson, D. N. (2005). Philosophical Theories of Wisdom. In R. J. Sternberg & J. Jordan (Eds.), A handbook of wisdom: Psychological perspectives (p. 61–83). Cambridge University Press.

“Intuitively” is a frequent answer to the question of how one becomes wise.”1

STUDIES OF TIME AND SPACE

THEORIES OF TIME AND SPACE

You can get there from here, though
there’s no going home.

Everywhere you go will be somewhere
you’ve never been. Try this:

head south on Mississippi 49, one—
by—one mile markers ticking off

another minute of your life. Follow this
to its natural conclusion—dead end

at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where
riggings of shrimp boats are loose stitches

in a sky threatening rain. Cross over
the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand

dumped on a mangrove swamp—buried
terrain of the past. Bring only

what you must carry—tome of memory
its random blank pages. On the dock

where you board the boat for Ship Island,
someone will take your picture:

the photograph—who you were—
will be waiting when you return

– Natasha Trethewey, 1966