"a series of especially violent thunderstorms preceded this photo. suddenly, it seemed to be over, & this cloud formed as if by some sort of divine intervention. many cities have houses of worship, but for me, nothing compares to witnessing something awe-inspiring in the natural world, that is beyond understanding. i named this photo god descending**for that reason."--joseph corrado.
vast valley: salisbury, england rae burke.
breakthrough over stonehenge rae burke.
burning sky, not river: cleveland, ohio rae burke.
"i am transfixed when i encounter an intimate setting like this. it is a portrait of those who are long gone & yet, still, very present. as i poke around the fading edges of a once-lived existence, it feels almost wrong, like a violation of privacy..like going through someone's belongings. there's a real edge to this kind of intimacy. &, yet, i have profound respect for them, & i feel perfectly comfortable doing this, even as every sense tingles. it ineluctably makes one all the more aware of how transitory our lives are. this is us tomorrow. live now. love now."--peter ralston
tumblehome peter ralston.
stonehenge rae burke.
ghost town #1 rae burke.
ghost town #2 rae burke.
ghost town #3 rae burke.
ghost town #4 rae burke.
--rae.
**note: there is a copyright issue w/joseph corrado's photos (that's why i added my photos that i felt visually explained what he/& ralston are saying). please, click on the link to his website to see his photography, & god descending which is the photo that originally goes w/the text. also, both photographers are featured @ the naples museum of art in naples, florida.
"but i am not a sad person, i am a happy person w/many friends. it's just, sometimes, i wish i had someone to share things w/. for example, i saw all of parisfrom a skyscraper. i wanted to say to someone, 'isn't that beautiful?!'..but there was no one there."--je t'aime paris.
notre dame & the seine river.
notre dame.
a crowd praying outside of notre dame.
louvre.
louvre.
inside looking out//louvre.
inside looking out//louvre.
eiffel tower.
roue de paris//transportable ferris wheel.
arc de triomphe.
metro.
rouen cathedral by claude monet//one of my favorite paintings.
ode to the eiffel tower.
little boy chasing pigeons under the eiffel tower.
& i think i'll want to be alone so please understand if i don't answer the phone i'll just sit & stare @ my deep blue walls until i can see nothing @ all only particles, some fast some slow all my eyes can see is all i know.
the arc de triomphe de l'etoile from the champs-elysees.
the arc de triomphe.
the arc de triomphe.
my friend matt (who equally admired the arc) & me.
it is amazingly huge & intimidating. we went @ night & you have to cross this roundabout thing, & it's really dangerous cause cars go speeding around this thing & there's never a lull in traffic. i guess the champs-elysees is the busiest street in paris. so you're supposed to go under the street, but it was closed off cause you're not supposed to go over there @ night. so we ended up almost killing ourselves running across the street to get over there. but it was sooo worth it. walking through the arc to the other side was this street that was all lit up & the eiffel tower was @ the end of this street & all lit up. it was beautiful. i was suddenly overcome by emotion & i began to cry. my life felt like it finally made sense. & i felt like..if you've ever thought about your life & like the different paths you can take, & how every single decision in your life dictates the path you go..i always wondered if i was on the right path & if i was doing what i was supposed to be doing, & if the decisions i've made were right & fateful. & when i was standing under that huge arc i felt like @ that moment, i was exactly where i was supposed to be & w/who i was supposed to be w/& so every little thing i've done up to that moment was meant to be. cause if it led me up to that moment under the arc, it was right. my epiphany was quickly interrupted by two french police who began yelling @ us in french. although my breakthrough was brief, it was the most significant & moving moment in my life. i don't know if that makes sense or not..
--rae.
to see history on the arc, its inspiration & construction, please see my art blog @ i spy w/my little eye.
lately, i've been thinking a lot. about me/my decisions/who i choose to surround myself w//the things i do to take up (or pass) time/all the 'could've, should've, would've' moments in my life/what would ever possess me to take an 'emo-myspace-y' picture.. anyway, my thoughts in writing.
i feel like i just might be delusional. lost my sense of reality
especially,
when my mind's eye gets a little hazy from the ways that i abuse my sanity.
i can't even discuss it,
every time i think i got it right,
i plummet.
falling faster every time
to my demise.
somebody pinch me,
the cement's coming @ 50
miles per hour.
left a taste in my mouth so sour.
i shouldn't have gave in but then again, i'm a follower.
Considering my "newbie" status @ this blogging thing, & definitely lacking some direction here, I have decided that I am going to write about whatever my little heart desires. And today that topic is music simply because welll: music makes everything better. Opinion and fact. Driving, cleaning, working out, kissing, studying - I want it all the time. I’ll find a song for any purpose and to fit any vibe. Like most people, I don’t want to go a day without music. More than that however, I have realized that there have been days where I felt I absolutely could not carry on without my favorite songs. On these days, music seemed essential for survival from one moment to the next. Music can endure us during the darkest of minutes, hours, days, months. It can serve as a glimmer of hope when we are at our lowest. It may very well be the only thing we let reach us when we are buried away inside of ourselves.
I can clearly remember a few songs that carried me through some particularly heavy times that seemed endless during my senior year of college. In the winter of that year, my whole world seemed to crumble at once. My boyfriend of years and I split up. That loss spread through me like a flu that I could just not shake. And although it was I that put the final nail in the coffin of the doomed relationship, for many months I felt regretful, lonely, guilty, lost; in a word: MISERABLE. At about the very same time, my parents stopped speaking to one another completely and instead started speaking to me a lot about a possible divorce. I felt stuck in the middle and unbelievably angry. In the midst of all this, I came to the overwhelming realization that with graduation only a few courses away, I still had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I felt like college had been a marathon with no finish line and I was still running full speed in the dark. I just could not see any hint of the light at the end of the tunnel. Naturally, I slipped into a very gloomy winter depression.
During this time, I remember blasting Wolf Parade’s “I’ll Believe in Anything” on the Apologies to the Queen Mary album as I marched solemnly around campus from class to class. I was absolutely stuckon this song. It opens with the lines: “Give me your eyes. I need sunshine.” These words struck me as hopeful, but in a violent way, as if Spencer Krug was singing: “I’m effin depressed and you need to help me or I’m just going to rip that help out of you”. I took the chorus: “I’ll believe in anything and you’ll believe in anything” as something like: “I’ve given up on everything in this life, so give me something, anything that I can live for again.” Of course, I am doubtful that this is what the lyrics mean to the songwriter. But then again: who really cares? Isn’t it the ability to be ambiguous and therefore personalized the really great thing about lyrics and poetry? I, as a listener felt reached by the words of the song because the words became my own, with my own meaning (however depressing and insane that meaning might have been). The desperation in Krug’s voice also appealed to me. He screeched and squealed. His delivery had crazy energy, as if someone had a gun pointed to his head demanding that he give more and more. In a strange way, I related to this energy because I felt that I was demanding it of myself that I keep moving, keep getting out of bed: keep on keeping on until I was past all the BS. I probably listened to this track hundreds of times that winter. I loved and it certainly was the fuel for my soul. Would I have survived those bad times without this sweet little piece of music? Of course. (I had my wonderful friends.) But I am so very thankful I had this epic, somber, crazy, desperate song to keep me company during my depression that was all of these things and more.<3 ang.
Music fuels my soul during happier times too. Here are the tracks I’m stuck on these days:
Bon Iver- "Skinny Love":: Bon Iver’s (really just one, talented man: Justin Vernon) solo debut album For Emma, Forever Ago came out a few years ago, but I just recently stumbled upon this subtle and beautiful piece of work. And I couldn’t be happier about the discovery. I think it might just be the perfect album for autumn weather.
The Drums- "The Future":: The Drums self-titled debut album came out earlier this year and I find it strangely addictive while walking a fine line of being perfectly upbeat and overbearingly enthusiastic. The 80s pop vibe of this track feels just right.
Avi Buffalo- "What’s It in For?":: What the hell is this song about? Why do I like it? Couldn’t tell ya. But I can tell you with much certainty that I can’t get this little gem from their 2010 self-titled debut album out of my damn head. And I’m ok with that. : )
Erykah Badu- "The Healer":: I have recently become a huge fan of this woman and discovered her music only after stumbling upon some amazing youtube videos of her performing her poetry on Def Jam. This song was released on 2008’s New Amerykah Part One. Part Two just came out this year and they are both lovely and funky. I find “The Healer” crazy but smooth, even a little haunting, and I love the use of the triangle.
Earlier this summer, I had the amazing opportunity to spend a week with my family exploring the gorgeous Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks in Wyoming. “Blown away” is an understatement for the feelings that consumed me during this incredible adventure. I looked out the window of our rental car on the first day driving into Yellowstone and every bit of scenery seemed to belong on a postcard. These drives in and out of the parks proved particularly time consuming as I often could not help but ask that we pull over so that I could get out of the car and take in what I was seeing (and try to capture it in a photograph.) The sky was so blue, fields shaded like a watercolor painting, mountains so ominous, forests so vast, yet inviting. I was witnessing on the grandest scale I had ever experienced, nature in its true and perfect form. I felt close to God (whoever or whatever that may be) and really, really happy during the days we spent hiking and exploring the parks. My excitement and enjoyment honestly surprised me. I had never felt those emotions simply from spending time outdoors. Sure, I have always loved a day at the beach or a picnic in the park, but to be truly eager just to see what I would discover around the bend of a trail, that was certainly new to me.
On the second day of our trip, my family hiked a trail in the Jenny Lake region of Grand Teton national park called Moose Ponds. It was a loop trail of tall grass, beautiful birch trees, small streams of water, and many various wild flowers. These flowers had colors and textures that seemed to form a bouquet more perfect than any florist could fashion. Within this setting, I felt intensely lucky and wonderful to be a part and parcel of the planet Earth. My life and my being: my worries, regrets, bridges burned, successes & failures, seemed insignificant. I felt very small. But I also felt undeniably connected to the oneness of all living things; I was a part of the world just as they were. My role was quite different from that of a wild flower, but we were both alive in this strange, mysterious and colorful place. During these moments on the trail, I found myself effortlessly able to concentrate most of my energy and focus on the beauty that surrounded me and be very present. This notion of being completely present at during a moment keeps popping up in what I have been reading recently. This past summer I read Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Wolfe tells the true tale of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters as they set out across the country in the early 1960s to inform America’s youth about the benefits that they believed LSD could have to “open” one’s brain to perceive the world in a more enlightened way. It seems that it eventually became clear to these acid diehards that what they were really striving for through their drug trips was the feeling that they were completely one with their Earth and surroundings for a moment in time. A moment of being completely present seemed to be often just out of reach for most, however. Ken Kesey reflected: “Live in the moment. Lots of good heads said it. I tried. I devoted much time and much energy. To find that those good heads had been tricked-that simple trick of I was right about living in the moment but we can never get in the moment!” Another work that I read this summer, Self-Reliance written in 1841 by the wonderful philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, strangely has many of the same notions of striving for those moments of complete presentness. Emerson writes, “But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to see the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present above time”.
Sometimes we catch ourselves in a moment where very briefly, we are completely happy and satisfied. This happiness radiates from our core and we are not thinking, just feeling. We just are. These rare moments are often so strange and uncommon to us that we can remember them for a long time after they are over. During these fleeting moments, are we are as Emerson suggests “present above time” or as William Blake suggests holding “infinity” in our hands- time does not exist outside of ourselves?Maybe so.Or perhaps it is as Ken Kesey suggests, that we can never really be totally one with a moment-our complete presentness is always just slightly out of reach. Maybe it doesn’t matter- because maybe the point is that we should at least strive to slow down sometimes and be content with what life has given us right now,at this very moment.
This past December and January I was lucky enough to travel abroad to London, England & Paris, France for class. These photos were taken from the plane on my way back to the states. I wrote this excerpt on the six hour flight, reflecting on my time spent overseas. These photos definitely do not do the scene justice, nor do my words, but I thought it was worth sharing.
As soon as I felt the plane was off the runway, a sadness took over me. I was not in London anymore, nor would I be for a long time. I felt as though my life was over. As the plane ascended over England, I fought back tears. Something had changed in me. A something I couldn't quite put my finger on. But I knew it was an important something. Something I never knew was in me. I wasn't too sure what had awakened this something; the places I had been, or the people I had been there with. Or maybe it was a little of both. I guess I'll never be sure, but I am sure of one thing--my life was changed.
The higher the plane got, the more I thought about it, and the bigger the lump became in the back of my throat. As I replayed my life the past two weeks, two people stood out. The connection I naturally had and expanded with these two people added to this something I never knew I had. It's funny how certain things, moments, people, can have such an effect on your life and the path you take.
The plane broke through the clouds and I don't think I'll be able to explain what I saw and felt next. The plane seemed to be floating atop a massive blanket of clouds--they spread to the horizon line where the grey fluffly mass met the setting sun. The lump in my throat began to diminish as I gazed at the swirling, vibrant colors of greys and oranges. It was truly beautiful. It was at this moment, half way into Ireland, that I realized my life wasn't ending, but it was only just beginning. We were racing the sun. I was flying through a day ending, but visible in the distant horizon was a day beginning. This is the path my life was now taking. Overwhelmed and mesmerized, I watched as the grey sky slowly swallowed the fire orange hue emitting from the setting sun. The sun had a good lead, but not for long. Maybe not today, but one day, I will reach the sun. Then again, I already felt like I had...maybe I was the one in the lead. Until I know for sure, I'm just going to keep my eye on the horizon.
--rae.
