Nature Photography Archives - Page 101 of 114 -

I Choose Love

By Simone Lipscomb | September 15, 2013

The past week’s meditations have been about connecting with animals…wildlife and domesticated. It has been challenging. Once we determine to be aware of what is happening in our world, we can never go back and forget. I discovered this while documenting the oil spill in 2010.

simonelipscomb (1) — Necropsy of young dolphin whose tail had been entangled in fishing line.

Ignoring news was my way to deal with the multitude of sins humanity commits against the planet. But when the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill occurred, I felt called to action. Ignoring was no longer an option. But it came with a cost. My life was changed and not in a good way. Once the blinders are off, there’s no going back into forgetfulness. No returning to blissful ignorance.

Fishing line discarded with hook...now embedded in sea gull's mouth/throat — Fishing line discarded with hook…now embedded in sea gull’s mouth/throat

So this week of meditating on animals has only served to remind me (as IF I needed reminding) of how humans perpetuate such darkness by our actions. Lack of compassion when killing for food, using fishing practices that harm sea turtles and marine mammals, not recognizing the spark of Spirit within all life….how can we do this and think it’s okay?

Northern Gannet being cleaned of oil in 2010. BP Deepwater Horizon spill.

There are excuses for all behaviors we practice. Haven’t we heard them all? Sacrifice the land to drill for oil with fracking procedures. Pollute the rivers because it’s cheaper. Deafen dolphins, whales and other sea creatures just to test sonar. Is anyone else just fed up? The grief I carry within is so vast, so deep I truly feel paralyzed at times by it. I look in the mirror and am ashamed that I am human…part of a species bent on destruction and selfish greed…profit at any cost.

Joanna Macy teaches us to stay with our grief for it will fuel us to make positive changes. Right now…and for the past several months….grief has simply clobbered me. And I’m not writing to generate sympathy for myself…not at all. But it is time to simply be totally truthful about what it feels like to be a human engaged in the planetary process…at least from my heart and mind.

I’m tired of pretending it will all be okay or things will magically get better. I am weary of humans ignoring responsibilities we have to clean up our messes and to stop doing destructive practices to our planet, each other…wildlife…domestic life.

I am crying out for an end to our closed hearts and an opening to love…to spiritual love that binds us to each other and all life. Living like we have been living is fast becoming an obsolete option. We have seen what living with closed hearts does to each other and the planet…ALL life on the planet. I refuse to live like that any longer. At the risk of standing alone I choose love. I choose an open heart!

I choose love. No matter the consequences. I choose love.

Transformation

By Simone Lipscomb | September 14, 2013

I watched a movie on Netflix called, The Chosen One. It was about a man who was struggling with his life….with alcoholism, a wife who left him for a yoga instructor, and his father’s suicide that happened years ago. Three shamen from a far-away, little-known tribe came to him and told him he was chosen to help save their tribe.

He thought they were crazy but he kept having strange things happen. One was a recurring hawk dream. Even through his resistance he saw changes in his life from their presence in it. Houseplants began to flourish, all alcohol evaporated from bottles and old behaviors began to be questioned and transformed as he began to open to change.

One of the key components of him stepping into his greatness to help this tribe was self-forgiveness. You see he was drunk when he came home and found his father hanging in his garage and for years had blamed himself for his father’s death. The shamen kept purifying him with sage and rattles and prayers. He slipped into old behaviors and fell backwards…briefly…but he finally put it all together and realized what his moment of greatness entailed and he took the risk to do it. In the process of helping a hawk in real life, his past was healed.

During his act of bravery to help the hawk, the scene flashed to him finding his father in the garage and taking him down from the rope. He was able to rewrite history, in a way. He held his father in a loving, tearful embrace and his father transformed into a hawk.

What a powerful moment in life when we can, with the utmost love and respect, open our arms and allow freedom to rule.We forgive our mistakes and the mistakes of others and stand with open hearts. With no need to grasp on to the past or future, we stand in the present moment.

Self-portrait in Bonaire, N.A. "One with the Elements." — Self-portrait in Bonaire, N.A. “One with the Elements.”

Perhaps we can begin by setting ourselves free, forgiving ourselves. Then, as the shamen taught, we are free to heal the world. Healing the past can open doors of great love in the present, the future. Who knows what miracles can occur when we choose to heal our lives? It can only create more room for love. Inner change can be scary as we are moving into unchartered inner territory. The key? Simply being open to transformation.

Wildlife….Two Sides of a Story

By Simone Lipscomb | September 14, 2013

Photo taken by Laguna Key Team member today of raided and consumed soon-to-be hatchlings

Today I received a text from my friend and sea turtle team leader than one of our nests had been raided and consumed by a fox. 105 eggs of nearly hatched loggerhead sea turtles became the meal of one of our beach foxes.

Sadness enveloped me. Not just for this precious, threatened species of ocean-living reptiles but for the skinny, malnourished red foxes who eek out a living in the dunes of the beaches. We have had problems with foxes this year. They have approached us very closely as we sit near the nests at night.

One night I was sitting at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico, avoiding the interaction and chatting among visitors at the nest. I wanted to connect with the tranquility of the evening. I felt something close-by and turned around to see a fox curled up maybe ten feet from me. I suspect humans have been feeding them and she was awaiting a morsel, a tid-bit of something to help stop her hunger.

So now, tourist season is over and easy handouts are no longer coming from well-meaning guests of our beaches. Even the garbage that might have fed them has all but disappeared. So what is left are hungry foxes.

These foxes are so skinny they look like slim cylinders of red fur with four stick legs. The extra food sources during our busy season causes them to have more babies; however, when the food source is gone, starving foxes will go to great lengths to obtain nourishment.

Our sea turtle nests have predator grates staked on them but let’s face it, if you or I were hungry we would work hard for food and persist in obtaining it.

I can’t be angry at the foxes or vilify them. They are wild animals trying their best to survive. I know there are lessons for us in this tale but it doesn’t take away the feeling of loss, of sadness.

Part of our team after processing a newly-laid nest earlier this summer.

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In the Flow

By Simone Lipscomb | September 9, 2013

My last morning on photography retreat was spent in my favorite place to work with water in the Smokies. It was so early, in fact, that I hardly saw anyone else…except a bear that scurried off as I drove by him. Standing beside or in flowing water made it difficult for me to hear snapping twigs if a big critter like a bear approached so I did a bit of singing hoping they would hear me and choose to wander elsewhere.Aside from that slight tingle of bear awareness it was the perfect ending to four days of connecting with nature through photography. Blissful quiet, hardly another human in sight and verdant beauty that seemed to reach into forever made me glad I had awakened before dawn and made the hour’s drive before the weekend crowd became active.

At one point I was braced against a large, gray rock with both feet wedged in between smaller rocks in the cold water while balancing with my tripod and camera taking long exposures. I checked the exposure on the screen and felt so grateful to be capturing such lush and endless beauty. My heart and mind merged with the flow of clear water and I felt a sense of purpose and direction that had eluded me for months.

Self-portrait...goofing off with my really dusty and happy car. — Self-portrait…goofing off with my really dusty and happy car.

Focused intention, open heart and profound love and appreciation for nature became interwoven elements that made for an excellent photography retreat. Being present with what I love doing in a place that I love kept me in the flow.

It’s the Little Things….

By Simone Lipscomb | September 7, 2013

I wasn’t really sure why the idea of a retreat to the Smoky Mountains came to me. I had been in a pretty weird place the past few months with no ability to focus on work. It felt as if I was lost in a big ocean with no rudder, wind or navigation aids. Frustration was building so I decided to take the month of August to do anything I wanted to do, even if it was doing nothing at all.

Doing is my trademark, it’s how people know me. Volunteering for one of several causes, preparing environmental education programs…always, always staying busy. But I had reached a point where I didn’t really know where to apply my energies. Nothing felt right except stillness, quiet….silence–not doing.

It was not easy untangling myself from the habit of busyness. I didn’t realize how much I used activity to distract myself. So at first…and honestly, the entire month….I really felt lost. Having removed the need to stay busy I struggled.

About the same time I took off a month from pushing myself to do something…to keep my mind busy…I began working out and putting my body into an intense series of classes, Pure Barre. The physical workouts were instrumental in shifting the stuck energy and the result was a clearer focus.

A little over a week ago I finally felt it was time to move forward and a short retreat in the Smoky Mountains was the idea that surfaced. I’m usually more of a planner but I wanted to be open to the flow. I packed my camera gear and clothes I’d need for woods and water and made reservations in a hotel in Townsend…the quiet side of the Smokies…far away from the chaos of Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg…and very close to Cades Cove, one of a few of my most favorite places on the planet.

Somewhere in the few days of simply following my intuition and opening to the experience of not knowing or planning, some really amazing experiences occurred. And sometime Friday morning, along a narrow road while covered in dew and kissed by fog-filtered sunlight, I had a breakthrough that opened me. But it didn’t come from any prescribed path or formula…it came from simply being present with whatever presented itself and letting go of everything else. I lost myself in beauty…surrendered to it.

I was feeling glorious about the sunrise Friday morning and fog and light and flowers but it was hundreds of small spider webs that blanketed the grass and glowed with dew illuminated like diamonds that pulled me free. I stopped and gazed into endless sparkling works of spiders and started weeping. Life felt so full and so precious. Everything felt intensely sacred and holy. It seems like such a small thing to create such a huge inner shift.

The past few months have felt like my life was going through a shake-down. The real stuff was being separated from the husks and now I have some really beautiful little seeds to nurture. And a lot of my busy work I’ll be letting go of…including some volunteer efforts and work I thought I “should” do.

I suppose anything can help us open if we are ready. For me, though, it always seems to be the little things that push me over the edge into complete surrender, complete trust and therefore utter peace and contentment. With gratitude I complete this retreat and return to my everyday life with a vision.