“I AM NOT AMUSED,” Deacon seems to say, his pupils mere slits. Before my intrusion, the cat slept in the sun. Now, I hover, zooming in with my camera. I struggle with whether to continue, feeling guilty.
While I can’t be confident of Deacon’s thoughts, by turning his head away and repositioning his legs, he seems to signal, “No, human.” I concede it is not a moment that needs to be documented for eternity.
Backing away, I remember a photograph taken decades ago, a sepia print of my family in an American frontier saloon, suggesting gold rushes and bandits, “beasts” to be tamed and “savages” to be civilized. Pictured is the Wild Wild West, romanticized by a 1980s theme park vendor in the urbanized Great Plains, now called Kansas City.
My six-year-old sister sits center in a corset and feathered boa, amusingly placed on my father’s lap. She is quite obviously dressed as a “soiled dove” (i.e., a town prostitute). Nearby, my mother stands displeased in a high-necked dress. Between them, I appear unwillingly, my face formed in a scowl. My interior thoughts are clear to any viewer. I do not want to be photographed.
First, notice why you photograph.
Contemplate for a moment the last animal photograph you took. Who is pictured? Why did you snap it?
I’ve come to believe my own impulse is driven by a desire to document, a drive to impress, or a response to an internal emotion. Or a combination of these.
This story is from the July/August 2023 edition of Spirituality & Health.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the July/August 2023 edition of Spirituality & Health.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
ONE WORD TO BEAT WINTER BLUES: BIOMIMICRY
CREATURELY REFLECTIONS
THINKING ABOUT RESTITUTION
THE HEART OF HAPPINESS
WAITING IN LINE
OUR WALK IN THE WORLD
ENTER THE SAUNA
Journalist Emily O’Kelly shares some uplifting research on the benefits of sweat bathing, a global healing practice not just limited to Northern climes.
the trail of ATONEMENT
One Ashkenazi Jewish family escaped pogroms in Russia and then flourished in South Dakota, but the “free land” of their new homestead had been unfairly taken from the Lakota by the United States. Generations later, a celebrated investigative journalist set out to tell the truth of the Lakota and her family, calculate The Cost of Free Land—and pay it back.
STALKING YOUR Mind
Stalking the Mind is part of an ancient Indigenous American Medicine Way to tame your guilt, fears, and shame. What we’re “stalking” are our thought patterns and beliefs that seem to create the opposite of happiness and wellbeing. It’s a powerful psychotherapeutic journey of healing without the diagnosis or labels.
LEAVING MESA VERDE
After 21 years of service at Mesa Verde National Park, RANGER DAVID FRANKS recently guided his last tour of the pueblos and cliff dwellings. He says he was fortunate to assist the archeologists with a variety of work and never lost his amazement with their ability to figure out how and when things happened. The question he still wrestles with is much deeper: Why they left?
BECOMING YOUR OWN LEAD RESEARCHER IN HEALTHCARE
PEGGY LA CERRA, PHD, downloaded a health app to aggregate her medical records and was stunned to see the phrase \"aortic atherosclerosis.\" What she did next is a helpful model for all of us.
ARCHETYPAL ASTROLOGY
\"Is astrology true?\" is the wrong question, writes RABBI RAMI SHAPIRO. He suggests that the truth is out there, but out there is really in here.
WELLNESS IN THE WILD
Spa aficionado MARY BEMIS takes the [cold] plunge at Mohonk Mountain House.