beach zen
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~Indira Gandhi
This image came to be not long after the cousin pandemonium shot of yesterday. The beach was surprisingly crowded and I was having a difficult time in getting shots that didn’t also include random passersby. I’d been working on a separate family grouping when I noticed their five year old cousin prancing towards the water, her head thrown back breathing in the salty air and arms outstretched wide. Without warning I quickly darted away from the family at hand to follow her to the shoreline, not so gracefully dodging beach walkers and shell collectors, and leaving the group I was photographing wondering what the heck I was doing.
She’d spontaneously assumed this meditative position and I arrived just in time to release the shutter, fully aware that I had in fact walked away from the “money shots” to snap a few frames that most likely wouldn’t sell. (And they didn’t.) But I knew I needed to see this image……had to be with her in this moment, if for no other reason than to continue on with the rather frenzied shoot feeling more peaceful as a result.
I recite the above quote to myself often. I could teach classes on how to be vibrantly alive in repose–that’s my specialty. But learning to be still in the midst of activity doesn’t come easily to me, so it’s a constant practice. I don’t care for crowds and being ultra sensory sensitive can be overwhelming to me in busy settings. I need lots of reminding on how to achieve inner stillness despite the noise and distractions of the outer world. So naturally I had to follow this little teacher when I observed her.
The earth may possibly tumble off its axis with my sharing a color image here, and I lingered long on whether or not to show this. But then I figured it’s my personal photo-journal and surely I can do as I wish. I thought that the soothing and muted colors on this evening added to the beach zen state. We’ll see if warning buzzers sound once I hit the publish button.
~Cynthia
