As It Appears
Reflections on presence, perception, and intuition
December 16, 2025
All my walks are moving meditations. But sometimes I have an unspecified agenda. Sometimes it’s a quiet nagging thought, a stealthy idea, or a mental map — none fully planned. Today, I know I need more photographs for future paintings.
When I browse through my current photo catalog, I notice repetition. Specific skies. Familiar branches. The same curve of light returning again and again. What once felt rich now feels thin. I sense boredom, and with it a loss of motivation — despite my hands and my heart urging me to paint.
So photographs become the answer, or at least the strategy. I head out with determination, waiting for something spectacular, yet nameless. I tell myself I’m looking for something dramatic — a striking cloud formation, a particular quality of light — something that will give me a clear response.
As I walk, I keep checking the sky. I keep scanning. I’m attentive, but narrowly so. The walk is brisk, pushed along by wind and weather, by the quiet insistence of needing something from the day.
And then other things appear.
Squirrels dart across my path, quick and decisive. Dogs bark behind fences, unseen but unmistakably present. The wind presses against me, shaping the pace of my steps more than my intention does. The light keeps changing, not dramatically, but faithfully — subtle shifts, small offerings.
None of this is what I came out for.
And yet, this is what’s here.
I’m distracted, yet enchanted.
I notice the tension between wanting a result and simply being available. The way attention tightens when I’m searching, and softens when I let myself register what’s already moving around me. The walk changes when I stop insisting that it deliver something specific.
The sky never quite does what I hoped. No singular moment announces itself as the photograph. And still, something loosens. The boredom narrows. The urgency quiets. I’m no longer scanning for an image so much as inhabiting the walk itself.
Nature always responds.
