On Self Love

There comes a time when you finally understand what it means to be yourself, and that to do so requires above all else a love of self. Perhaps until then you had thought it a struggle; grappling to define or find your self amid the expectations of others, social roles, and norms - the ever elusive you. All the while there you'd been, and all that was ever needed was for you to remain still enough to recognize and appreciate yourself. There you had been, where there was never anything to strive for to begin with. There, chasing approbation, status, and wealth. It's like pursuing a phantom, expecting to seize what does not exist in the hope that you will some day be handsomely rewarded with fulfillment in any or all of its imagined forms. But, true fulfillment, if such a thing even exists, might only by realized through self-understanding because it is only with such an understanding that we can engage honestly and meaningfully with life.

I occasionally compare myself to others despite knowing better. I have embellished things for shame of my shortcomings both perceived and real. Awash in self-loathing and tormented by a fear of rejection my life has been a cycle of happiness for people & their accomplishments, covetousness and disappointment.

Now I realize that covetousness is a reflection of a lack of self-acceptance. My covetousness is based on the desire to be happy and mistaking happiness for being that when I am this. Sometimes, when I hear people speak happily about their interests & preoccupations I am unnerved  because I am reminded of my baseless dissatisfactions. Such times are best addressed by exercising gratitude, that is, being mindful of (and perhaps acknowledging aloud) the good in ones life.

Poetry: 'Sediment & Sepulcher'

Let us burn our dead in furnaces for fuel
Like the carbon-rich corpses
of the plankton lost at sea
that drift downward deft & steadily
From their epipelagic throne
- deposed, entomed in sweet repose -
'til Earthen throws or We obtain
by dint of drain we'll reign
In warmth the plankton thrive,
but for their insatiability
None to check their rampant bloom
Their very lives and those they fed
await in dead and fix them room;
a sedimentary tomb; 
a carbon coffer womb

The carbon age upon us
The carbon cage surrounds
A prison which adorns those
found bound by such compounds
A warmth that we've enjoyed
Soon a heat to scald the skin
We bathe in oil; this perfect foil
Much to man's chagrin
a carbon tale is told us
The earth prognosticates
With nothing to restrain mankind
from razing at their pace

While what we're here to service
lay dead beneath our feet
When all that we rely upon
is gone or very scarce
Like dead decaying plankton
which sink and settle down
This ship: Exceptionalism
will also run aground

We, as oil & shale, may live to tell the tale
In coming times when future kind
unearths us in their wells
Mayhap they'll blaze our children's graves,
ignoring precedent,
to reap the warmth of ancient sunlight
trapped in sediment.

Random Ramble: #1

For *#@%’s sake...I’m so #$@ damned tired. My right knee feels out-of-sorts. I think I have been posting up on it far too often. My hips are tight. It feels excellent sitting with my legs stretched out in front of me, especially when I press my heels away from me and splay my toes up and back towards me. It feels even better pointing my toes by clenching my arches. I can feel a deep stretch in the top of my feet. My hamstrings are short, taut, and bundled. I try bending forward at my waist, seated with my legs stretched before me and parallel to one another. I contract, hard, somewhere below my belly button and above my ding-a-ling. My hamstrings thank me. I realize I am holding on. There is resistance, tightness behind the knees, definitely in my calves, my buttocks—the old rusty dusty. I’m a bloody mess. My groin is groaning in agony. My neck feels exhausted. My shoulders are definitely slumped...hunched. My lower back hates me. My daughter is cackling annoyingly in the hallway. I want to drop my classes. I enjoy Bio. I’m sucking the fun out of it by obsessing over these grades. Attend to your studies as though grades don’t matter. I will try, futilely so. I have something to prove. What? I don’t know. Statistics, on the other hand, excites me, but only when I understand it. Otherwise, it is a miserable situation. “Maybe, I should wash dishes,” I think. I stand. I head out on the patio. I sit on the dusty cushion seat of the barstool, staring at the Jimbo’s...Naturally! off in the distance. It would be much easier if I were a humble man, a man who didn’t just romanticize simplicity, but truly valued it. Alas, I am vain. I am tethered to appearances. I am lured to the idea of becoming... My DNA is tainted with exceptionalism. There is that part of me that knows just enough (yet not enough) to understand that I’d be wasting my potential scrubbing filthy containers and dishes. Perhaps I should invite this lot in life as an opportunity to hone simplicity, I rationalize. I imagine myself walking ten minutes from home to the grocer. Each day washing the dishes, eating their organic food, and then reading books during my scheduled breaks. There's a dream. Damned books. I need to stop comparing myself to people I admire. That is, the authors. I am a covetous person, particularly when it comes to knowledge. I want to know what he, she, they, and you know. The difficulty is that there is far too much to know. I want to know it all. I can’t settle on just one thing to investigate. I am obsessed with the ubiquity of themes—ideas that recur in or pervade the whole of humanity. I’m in pursuit of truth, goddamnit! A bibliophilic hunter, tracking human reckoning throughout the Serengeti of literature. So I bounce from here to there. I read this, which leads to that, and that which leads to this. I observe the beings and becomers, studying the people who study. I suppose it would be better if I would just settle on one subject and make it my life’s work. That’d be simpler but complicated still! Mastery is no mean feat! It takes a consistent effort to achieve the mastery of something or to realize a goal. Some part of me rails in defiance of discipline; useless Przewalski's (shuh-VAL-skee) horse of an attitude. I feel guilty for not being able to control myself–ashamed, irresponsible, and immature. I am confused. I am irascible and broke. And, lost. Oh, my shoulders, slouching shoulders. It’s time to lie back down—to not judge. Stop thinking! Stop talking! Damn these voices in my head and their incessant quibbling. There is always a caucus causing a ruckus. They can’t agree on anything: “He should [be/do] this! No, THAT! There is no he without we! So, we should... He is here to serve the needs of we. Well, who the hell are we?! Exactly! And what are our needs?! More importantly, what is our purpose?!? Without a purposeful we, there can be no he! Let us define our purpose! But we are too many!” Quibble, quibble, quibble. These voices exhaust me. I am weak right now; a dwarf miniature horse.

On Human Connectedness

'How Facebook Makes Us Unhappy'
The New Yorker (Maria Konnikova)

The link in the caption to the left explores the phenomenon of how human attention becomes increasingly forgetful of "the path to proper, fulfilling engagement" (e.g. self-entertainment or more intimate human connectedness), as a result of certain types of social networking behavior, and the phenomenon's potential psychological effects on an increasingly hyper-stimulated and socially networked populace. Where boredom accounts for unhappiness bored people seek to actively engage their attention so to achieve the precipitated state of happiness.

I imagine the behavior is rewarded in the pleasure center of the brain, leading to the release of the "pleasure chemicals" responsible for the ensuing sense or state of "happiness" that can be derived from (and is hence chemically associated with) actively engaging on social networking media. However, in time, people will seek more avenues through which to engage said attention as the threshold for pleasure elicited from each instance of engaged attention is raised (as in the case of an addiction or tolerance). The ever-increasing need for engagement may reflect an accompanying heightened sensitivity to boredom, and is in itself a form of escapism.

A Gentle Reset: 'The Arctic Light' by Terje Sørgjerd

"This was filmed between 29th April and 10th May 2011 in the Arctic, on the archipelago Lofoten in Norway.

My favorite natural phenomenon is one I do not even know the name of, even after talking to meteorologists and astrophysicists I am none the wiser.What I am talking about I have decided to call The Arctic Light and it is a natural phenomenon occurring 2-4 weeks before you can see the Midnight Sun.

The Sunset and Sunrise are connected in one magnificent show of color and light lasting from 8 to 12 hours. The sun is barely going below the horizon before coming up again. This is the most colorful light that I know, and the main reason I have been going up there for the last 4 years, at the exact same time of year, to photograph. Based on previous experience, I knew this was going to be a very difficult trip. Having lost a couple of cameras and some other equipment up there before, it was crucial to bring an extra set of everything. I also made sure I had plenty of time in case something went wrong. If you can imagine roping down mountain cliffs, or jumping around on slippery rocks covered in seaweed with 2 tripods, a rail, a controller, camera, lenses, filters and rigging for 4-5 hour long sequences at a time, and then having to calculate the rise and fall of the tides in order to capture the essence - it all proved bit of a challenge.

And almost as if planned, the trip would turn out to become very difficult indeed. I had numerous setbacks including: airline lost my luggage, struggling to swim ashore after falling into the Arctic sea: twice, breaking lenses, filters, tripod, computer, losing the whole dolly rig and controller into the sea, and even falling off a rather tall rock and ending up in the hospital. As much as I wanted to give up, the best way Out is always “Through”. I am glad I stuck it through though because there were some amazing sunrises waiting. At 1:06 you see a single scene from day to night to day which is from 9pm to 7am. Think about that for a minute.. 10 hours with light like that.

I asked the very talented Marika Takeuchi to specifically compose and perform a song for this movie, and what she came up with is absolutely remarkable. Thank you very much Marika!" - Terje Sørgjerd

Available in Digital Cinema 4k.

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Press/licensing/projects contact: tsophotography@gmail.com

Music: "The Arctic Light" by Marika Takeuchi (marika-takeuchi.com)

Please support the artist here: Marika Takeuchi

Environmental Photography

"Since 2004 I've been researching, working with biologists, and traveling the world to photograph continuously living organisms 2,000 years old and older: The Oldest Living Things in the World.

My practice is contextualized by the multidisciplinary inquiries of Matthew Ritchie and the new conceptualism of Taryn Simon and Trevor Paglen, who likewise gain physical access to restricted subjects and illustrate complex concepts with photographs supported by text. The work spans disciplines, continents, and millennia: it’s part art and part science, has an innate environmentalism, and is underscored by an existential incursion into Deep Time. I begin at ‘year zero,’ and look back from there, exploring the living past in the fleeting present. This original index of millennia-old organisms has never before been created in the arts or sciences.

I approach my subjects as individuals of whom I’m making portraits in order to facilitate an anthropomorphic connection to a deep timescale otherwise too physiologically challenging for our brain to internalize. It’s difficult to stay in Deep Time – we are constantly drawn back to the surface. This vast timescale is held in tension with the shallow time inherent to photography. What does it mean to capture a multi-millennial lifespan in 1/60th of a second? Or for that matter, to be an organism in my 30s bearing witness to organisms that precede human history and will hopefully survive us well into future generations?" - Rachel Sussman

"Nature transformed through industry is a predominant theme in my work. I set course to intersect with a contemporary view of the great ages of man; from stone, to minerals, oil, transportation, silicon, and so on. To make these ideas visible I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning. Recycling yards, mine tailings, quarries and refineries are all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis.

These images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence; they search for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear. We are drawn by desire - a chance at good living, yet we are consciously or unconsciously aware that the world is suffering for our success. Our dependence on nature to provide the materials for our consumption and our concern for the health of our planet sets us into an uneasy contradiction. For me, these images function as reflecting pools of our times."  - Edward Burtynsky

Poetry: Untitled

Amidst the Stygian sky
I see a silhouette of a branch; one of several gnarled fingers
extending furthest into the inky opaque - upward.
An ambitious appendage.
Two feet beneath its niggardly fingertip
is the southernmost point within which a leaf cluster is bound.
The leaves,
you can tell their tops from bottoms;
it is as if they are illuminated from beneath.
Their belly's are pale and infrequent,
amidst the several that are cloaked and entwined.
Here, two feet from the top,
and just beneath the cluster,
there is a bright shape that seems the size of a leaf;
it looks like a leaf.
When the branch from which all others in the cluster stem
is steadiest;
When the wind rests;
I am almost convinced that the shape is in fact a leaf
affixed to a branch;
Enlightening the few.
It is radiant and particular.
It must be a flower!
Upon further inspection
there is an X atop it, perhaps beneath.
Like a fine felt tip marker of similar brilliance
drew this X - coalesce - not atop or beneath, but as spokes.
Four points
Furthest from center
Diffusing in to the night sky
like the raised arms and spread legs of the Vitruvian man.
It is a flower!
The wind picks up;
The branch moves
The fingers twitch
The shape is steady, but not affixed.
It is not a leaf,
but still a flower. It rules the night sky.
Deep is the hour.

On Interior Space (Sanctuary)

Words hurt, however, only as much as we allow them to. If someone says something critical or hurtful to you, ask yourself if what they are saying is true. If it is, acknowledge, reflect further on, or address what was said. If not, pay them no mind. In both instances, you will grow.

Sometimes we obsess over what has been said to us, whether it is true or not. When someone cuts us with words, we might think: "How can they say such things? They haven't the right to do so! How disrespectful of them! They are a [this] or [that]! They'll get what's coming to them." In this instance, we amplify the effect of their hurtful words.

When we engage in such mind chatter and stew in the negative emotions that arise from falsehoods, it makes matters worse. We occupy our minds with unnecessary thoughts that generate crippling feelings—the cut deepens, and the wound festers. If we recognize the absurdity or untruthfulness of what is said, we can disregard it

Short Story: 'The Lovely Langolier'

I’d grown irritated – perhaps jealous even – by how everyone would always compliment her on her open-mindedness. I asked her, "How can these people think you’re open-minded when you refuse to consider the possibility of any of their ideations being the only true road to their Gods, Goddesses, Sacred, or Source? To this possibility you've clearly remained closed."

She paused, as if to gather her thoughts, and replied, "I have listened to and watched them. I have lived with and learned from them. I've asked and was allowed to do so, and they asked for nothing in return. My openness was welcomed by their openness, and we all benefited from the experience of this openness."

She continued, “As different as people's thoughts and practices might be - as divided as their labels, names, or boundaries might convince you of their being - their spirits are unmistakably adjoined. They love, they suffer, and they live. We all love, suffer, and live...together."

Poetry: 'Womban'

Two years and three months ago Life conspired in an unimaginable way, bringing me back together with my biological mother, five brothers & sisters, and ten nieces & nephews. I was adopted at just four days old. Yesterday was my Mother's birthday. Today I was inspired (by many things, to include RasLumbre Jeremy), and wrote the following. Love your Mother(s). Love each other.

To my wonderful Mother:
You are Womban. You are Queen.
You are a sacred vessel - 

A channel through which Life was made,
A consecrated trestle.
You were chosen, as were we.
You are temple within which
The Sacred, Truth, and God exist.
You are gift. You are Love. And, this...
without you, as we do, six lives would not persist.
God's favor rests upon you, all born-of-you: fortunate.
Life's fiat you did not ignore or selfishly resist.
You could have chosen differently.
You could have just declined.
Yet because of who you've been, here I write you to remind...
that had you not the heart & mind,
your offspring's lives, to include mine,
could have been yours to rescind;
potential scattered in the wind,
but instead here we stand, alive to realize...
that breath, not death, is what you've been.
A blessing in our eyes - A sun admist our skies!

I love you, Queen Lourdes. I acknowledge God's presence within you with each breath I take. My hope is that you will Love yourself as much as we Love You. Thank you for my Life (our Lives). Happy Birthday, Mother!

Your Robert G. Lumiano

On Caritas | Discover. Love. Anew.

What is the longest that you have devoted to piecing yourself apart and back together again? For the past two years I've reflected on different aspects of my life experience. A handful of those reflections were posted on a blog, others are found maniacally scattered within journals, in notebooks & page margins, or on loose leaf. And, others still were symbolically disposed of (i.e. burned) or just plain ripped to pieces in fits of lamentation or rage. I have an extremely patient and understanding companion, who puts others before herself. She has not only allowed me to lose myself in this experience, but has at times encouraged me to do so, and in having lost much of myself I have gained far more than either of us could have ever imagined possible. Not everyone, who is in a relationship, is so fortunate to have someone as open to this type of exploration as I am, so I take the opportunities I am afforded to deeply reflect on life as seriously as a person employed in some other manner of preoccupation - it is my vocation. However, I put no store by it.