I have lived here in the desert for about a month.  Not quite the 40 days and 40 nights of the scriptures and certainly not the trials that He experienced!

But the truth is, my time here has done more for my soul and the healing process than I could have ever imagined.  Ending an old life and starting a new one is much more than a practical exercise in logistics.  It is a physical, mental, emotional and quite spiritual process.  And moving to a full time creative avocation takes a whole new mindset.

This place has checked all the boxes.

I move to the mountains now.  Change of venue.  Change of environment and a new study in a different light.

I created a lot of photographs here, but not as many as you might think.  So many times I see an image, a moment to capture, a light that speaks to me.  But I didn’t shoot it.  I let it go and lived the moment myself.  Observed.  Let the moment pass without the process of the numbers: exposure, contrast, depth of field, dynamic range.  I let all of that go and just welcomed the gift of the light that was offered to me.

So I move to a higher elevation, feeling a little like a Himalayan monk moving to a higher plain.  My heart is healing, my mind is open, I am seeing light.

I am free.

I am seeing clearly: my “photographic vision” has a clarity that I haven’t experienced in many years.  Coming back home to this desert, where I first came to fall in love with light has been a cathartic experience.

And Now to the new home in the mountains.  Clearer air, cleaner light, trees, streams, more sound, more life.

And fewer gnats….