In the Spring of 2018, I took a photography workshop with Kim Manley Ort on Celebrate Impermanence. Each week, I’d get an email with thoughts, pondering and a theme for the week. My job was to read think, pause and then capture images for the theme. One or two images were to be posted on Instagram with the hashtag #celebrateinpermanenceweek(week number) and search for others who posted. This page will have week by week images with my commentary on Instagam as well as the theme for the week.
WEEK 1: Signs of Impermanence
What is more impermanent than a wave? It was very windy and cold this week in Yarmouth when I captured this. So windy that it was hard to hold my camera still. Wave after wave crashed against the shore, each one very different and fleeting such that a higher shutter speed was needed to freeze the wave shape in place for a moment in time.
WEEK 2: Time
Miniature daffodil in very cold winter temperatures and covered with snow in the season of Sprinter, when Winter overwhelms Spring. 8 hours later, the snow in the ground is melted. Tomorrow morning I will see if the daffodil survives this abuse. This form of Impermanence is captured at an opportunity that doesn’t happen predictably.
WEEK 3: Change
Change. Embrace change. Resistance is futile! This image was captured in October on the Pacific Ocean. Tide was low so there was a wet, sandy beach to walk on. I glimpsed this pattern in the #sand in the shade of a large rock outcropping. Hence the “blue” color of light. I remember thinking at the time that this was #impermanent and #fleeting by its very nature. The tide would come in and wash away the pattern. When the tide retreats a new pattern will be made by kelp, logs and rocks. So the only existence of this place in time is this image. But I like the patterns in this image. It is worthy of permanence, not change! But the tides will come in, regularly. The footprints and patterns are washed away and the design begins anew. You can’t stop the tides! Patterns intrigue me. Abstracts intrigue me. Some are more permanent, like bark or stone. Most are impermanent though, as nature is always changing. If it’s not tides, it’s rain. Or wind. Or growth, aging, birth. And I am not the same today as yesterday. And tomorrow I will be different. Perhaps not as obvious as this sand however. But I do know One who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. And he gives the grace to handle change.
Change. When the winds of change come we can be flexible, like the willow tree branches, or inflexible like a concrete wall. These willow tree branches are blowing in the wind, freely, likely to get the catkin pollen into the air to another willow tree. Change is in the air. Time does not stand still. I was reminded of the Jim Croce song, Time in a Bottle • “If I could save time in a bottle • The first thing that I’d like to do • Is to save every day till eternity passes away • Just to spend them with you •
