It was the spring of 1995. Flowers came into bloom all over the Stanford campus. Synergy (Cooksey) House on the hill was no exception. Springtime came to Synergy too. The afternoon sun streamed into my room that faced the back of the house, overlooking the manicured lawn and the trees and shrubs that lined the lawn. There were flowers everywhere. But there was one tree in particular that stood at the edge of the lawn and shrubs. It was not that I chose to look at it. Rather, the tree pulled my awareness towards itself. It grabbed my awareness. I looked at it with a heightened sense of wonder. There was a multitude of white flowers on its boughs and a large number of flowers strewn on the lawn below. There it stood in the afternoon sun, as though out of a storybook. It seemed to radiate a presence. I felt as though I were a poet, ready to break into verse. As picture perfect as everything seemed, I thought that to see birds around the tree would complete the experience. As if someone had read my mind, two swallows raced across the top of the tree and flew straight up to the sky. My heart leapt. My spirit soared.

I walked out into the lawn towards the tree to take a photograph, with the intention and hope of capturing on film what I had witnessed with my eyes. But under the tree and leaning against it were planks of wood. A spider’s web had formed between the bark of the tree and the planks of wood. I wanted to reach forward and remove the planks, but stopped myself. I began to question myself.

Who am I as a photographer to disturb the natural occurrence of what I saw? Why remove the planks of wood and disturb the spider’s web and the arrangement of flowers strewn all over.

The experience happened in 1995, and although it left an indelible impression on my mind, I didn’t quite realise the deeper meaning to it. It is only recently that I realised for myself that everything that appeared before me was perfect. In nature, everything is perfect. It is we humans that disturb the consciousness of nature with our egotistical glasses. We coat over and want to change the status quo to suit our likes and dislikes and our own individual egotistical filters.

So did I take the photograph? No! True, that the inspiration of having seen Ansel Adams’ work and that of the art scene in San Francisco made my juices flow, but had I moved the wood to view the entire tree, I would have become party to my own egotistical filters. I felt it best to leave the entire scene alone. In a sense, it reminds me of the enlightened ones who exist in spirit for many centuries. We as a modern world have lost touch with ourselves.

In my opinion, a photograph could not have caught the moment of capturing one’s awareness and the flight of the swallows that had sent my spirit soaring. It would be impossible to do so. Nature prevailed that afternoon.

Image Credit: UnSplash.com