Interlude of Images: Come a Little Closer
Dear Friends and Family,
Winter is a study in nakedness. Every bare tree limb and leafless stalk is a living image of standing nude before the world, saying I am. Imagine standing so. Not covering up. Just am.
Imagine all of humanity standing bare, emptied of artifice, every arm outstretched to say, Come a little closer. Could we bear to be so bold? It is one thing to stand naked. It is another to do so with arms outstretched, refusing to hide, dancing with the night in the white light of day.
. . .
On daily walks, I wander neighborhoods and streets I’ve never seen before, never knew existed in all my years here. I have come home a stranger in a same land. I know where I am, and I get lost. I heard a siren in the night, and it sounded like a song. Every street sign is a question, every empty limb an endless possibility. Who knew such a world could be so revealed by the simple act of coming home?
The images that come are a study in seeing stripped of knowing, of the contrast between lines drawn and lines defied when light and limbs dance. They are a study in the striking difference between the distant wilds that called just months ago and human-constructed habitats of home where wildness, nevertheless, insists everywhere.
On a meta-level, these images are a meditation on what falls away when we take a breath and come a little closer. . . .
It is my pleasure to share these intimacies and abstractions with you.
Ever in gratitude and with love,
Renée
I adore these Renee, not least because it means I get to take a walk with you in your neighbourhood. I am reminded that recently I have been exposed like never before. As the layers have been shed, I have nothing left to hide behind and it feels vulnerable. Until now when I am reminded through your images that there are seasons in our life when we must stand still and be seen without the masks of beauty, of adornment, of baggage. Here we stand and brace ourselves against the cold until we bloom again, in the most natural of ways. With love Louise x
"It is one thing to stand naked. It is another to do so with arms outstretched, refusing to hide, dancing with the night in the white light of day." I was thinking about this quote from you Renée and I mentioned it to Mary and she said; "Just like St. Francis in that movie". Yes, it is a scene in this beautiful movie about his early life and transformation from a rich son of a businessman to a beggar full of love and light from God. He's standing in the center of a circle surrounded by the townspeople with his father wanting some kind of justice because Francis was giving all his father's expensive clothes away telling everyone that material things will never make you happy; instead turn to simplicity and humility. As he addresses the priest and the townspeople, he talks of his epiphany and urges everyone to be free of all that we are enslaved to; and as he is talking, he is disrobing, until he is totally naked in front of everyone. With a blissful look on his face, his arms outstretched, he proceeds to walk out of the town naked to become a beggar, "like Jesus". It is a powerful scene that always gives me chills. To be that courageous and with such conviction. It's really quite beautiful and inspiring to witness. Of course, we're all capable of getting to that place, aren't we? A place of true freedom; of surrender to God's will; of shedding all the needs of the ego, and truly living from our true self. I have become more in love with trees as I've aged, and more in awe of how incredibly tall they can be and yet so firmly rooted. I love them in the summer full of leaves, and I love them in the winter, empty of leaves, but still standing so tall. As you said, "Every bare tree limb and leafless stalk is a living image of standing nude before the world, saying I am." As Mary Oliver says: "...and they call again. (the trees) "It's simple", they say, "and you too have come here to do this. To go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine."