joy of liberation: the yoke of obligation

091214 08:26
It is difficult to articulate the joy of liberation: the yoke of obligation. Oft times I say ‘retarded’ instead of retired and laugh at myself, since in gleeful joy do I no longer labor to witness and record all “sorts & conditions” of activities prized by some, but despised by me.
. . . narcoleptic with reprise.
So it follows that I must fearlessly assassinate my former providence having justifiably won a meager stipend of Social Security.
There is a man of comparable age, here retired, who once like me, labored for The New York Times, never on staff but merely freelance. Upon learning this I was very rude to him vocally. It was dark after our meeting at the Dona Anna Camera Club mutually attended, yet well I remember his unspoken offense at ‘knowing his parentage’ too well.
 . . . how can you call doing something you love above all activities ‘labor’?
Forgive, please, my offense. You see though White, I was bred, taught, trained, to be a Junk Yard Dog; no bark--all bite. And someone, or something, has loosed the barrier behind which I formerly snarled watchful.
I now capture images that stand alone for me delightful and care not who sees or says anything so confident of my voice am I.
Oddly I fell into a recent expulsion from another Blog site. If what I now do is “write” it is like my photography, contemporaneous response.
Additionally, an odd thought, a reprise the voice of Mother; “you will weep for sleep some day.” Yet I sleep when tired and eat only when hungry, and so I am a mangy coyote too well aware Navajo reverence for them, the coyote was metaphorically a prankster and God.
Astonished? No. I anticipated the bottom hurling upwards towards my plummeting conscious/conscience. No one commented, and I thought no one read, or attended anything save my photographs which were then counted by the hits.
Surprised. Yes. Since their censure was affirmation that at least one had read me well and knew me as whatever I am.
Beloved friend, spiritual adviser and retired Catholic Priest; Father Denis Tejada occasionally replies; “I’ll remember you in my curses!” And I, of course, am convulsed with laughter.
Point taken and celebrated.
I do nothing now for profit, or prophecy, since my love is terrible and the cost is beyond measure for me, or my “audience” --what audience? Love is meaningless without community.
    Attribution --Father Denis, now my brother.
How to end what is endless process?
To serve is to first attend and accept/love yourself enough to know being precious, unique, explicitly created and trained for survival in the face of all crisis.
. . . i’ve never laughed, nor cried, so hard in all the silence preceding this moment. Why me? Why not? What for? For you to be the best You/you were created, and trained to be.
period . . . it is impossible to be anonymous save to yourself and i am so very tired of immolating myself to see the next step alone in the desert night
God Bless you all, you are you know, already from beginning to end; endless present from the Parent of everything . . . kill me now, please, otherwise the hot air blowing through like a McDonald’s red plastic straw will melt meaninglessly

‘Winters of discontent.’

091214 07:18
I’ve had many ‘Winters of discontent.’
And within those long nights, longed never to wake up.
Without reference to my daily expanding journal of quotations; I do transliterate them, now, accepting a newly discovered sense of great and humble thoughts as seeds attempting to leach the rain from my darkest frozen night, rain/snow clouds.
The torrent of my tears, resulting, is blest best in solitude since they do alarm even me. Happily they, being my tears, will drown no one except myself in joy, become bliss, then pacific, humble, gratitude; serenity.
. . . or acceptance, the foundation of love.
I’ve no idea why, or for what, this has been bestowed upon me. Accustomed to hard-scrabble subsistence farming daily reality. Yet in reflection upon all of what was then, and is now, my life I am discovered wandering unfamiliar pathless deserts lead by a distant, yet to loom light; a star? A new day? Or as I spoke, and thus stunned myself, yesterday; “Today is the first and last day of eternity”?
Did I say that?
What does it mean; “Be Here Now”?
I’ve said, and seen, the slogan so often it remained a pebble in my mouth become a bolder. Metaphorically, i once was a lemming now become a dragon, overleaping the cliffs of life and soaring amongst the stars within my heart.
It is not for self-pleasure that I write but for my love of humanity with all its warts, wattles and wrinkles seen when I briefly shave in mirrors should I be so constrained, or obligated, to leave my crib. Let us not speak of, or praise ‘Morning Dragon Mouth’ -- ‘Bad Hair Day ’ Please. Least I slay myself with exhaust.
Of Doves & Seeds--“they neither reap nor sow” and from whom &/or why am I fed like the birds i feed daily? In and of myself I am now voluntarily impelled to be servant as those or he who in servitude saved me from myself loathing.
I love women inordinately yet would never enslave another to my imposition again. How do I know this? Mother was taught to despise being a woman and I, the worst evidence.

Now go in peace rejoicing tranquility past all comprehension, apprehending fear never more. . . .Awaiting the near day celebration of the eve all new creation.

Photoshop vs. Sagelight 48-bit Image Editor

by http://www.flickr.com/photos/jack4spratt/

I write to humiliate myself. regarding how stupid I feel, for several aspects of my non-relationship, apprehension, incomprehension and applications impossible with Photoshop anything. Worse I’ve wasted $3,000.00 over several computer platforms, et cetera, for Adobe period.

Sagelight 48-bit Image Editor: to the rescue! There is a free version but be quick!
http://www.sagelighteditor.com/ you will want the $30 something version soon afterwards.

Were I Thomas Knoll, I’d either kill myself, or kill Rob Nelson, author of Sagelight. Tom, of course, is the genius behind Adobe, and Rob is stealing hubcaps & dumpster diving to survive. One is a genius in service of avarice and the other a servant to this poor old, once-upon-a-time, whatever that was, that stopped suddenly at age 65--43 years freelance for The New York Times; to name my first/last client; one amongst hundreds of other publications.

Sagelight taught me, and does, everything I need. With a single press of a radio button I can turn on or off Ron’s {text . . . maybe he can give us a voice-over?} insights telling me what to do and why. Otherwise I’d still be stumbling about in the darkness of chemical photography totally obsolescent.

Photoshop is a fetish like all the Hundreds of Thousands I wasted on equipment to “MAKE ME A GENIUS PHOTOGRAPHER!” Really, sincerely, it didn’t work, and can not do what takes years to grow. Of course I am more furious with myself now realizing the folly of my greed for being memorable to others, while ignoring my fear of being too stupid to live, or be loved; or even remotely memorable. Apparently Thomas Knoll, and the legions of other people getting rich attempting to teach my peers, of whom not one knows how to use, fully, or even partially, Photoshop.

I write with rancor since at my, nearly terminal, age in life, I cherish my years as teacher, critic and author of a column on photography. Consider it “dues” being paid, never required, for the loving attention of The Greats; Paul Caponigro, Aaron Siskind, Minor White, Harry Callahan, Gene Smith and Robert Frank. The latter not well known, personally, save for my being a photographer at all.

Of the two software engineers, I sing their praises, for their love of photography; from personal experience of their acquaintance. Both love photography as much, possibly more so than I? A teacher loves their students more than themselves; and are willing to be taught by them as well. For Ron Nelson I’d walk through Hell. For Thomas Knoll I’ll go nowhere ever again for him. Not one Lincoln penny, no more.