joy

I bought a tent and sleeping bag prior to my trip to Nova Scotia. I had originally booked a motel room for four nights and then I realized I could buy the tent and sleeping bag for less then the cost of the hotel room and I would have it for future camping trips. We had switched to a small camper trailer a number of years ago but I am finding that I just wanted the ability to go off on my own when I wanted to.

This was perfect for the trip to Nova Scotia and I had done an overnight canoe trip a few weeks prior to that.

The other day I camped one night on Lake Superior, good to go now before the weather gets too inclement.

On Lake Superior I spent the afternoon on a beach that is approximately half a kilometer long and I never saw another person.

That afternoon was the most enjoyable time that I can remember ever having, I was happy and joyful. I danced often on the sand or rocks, I had an irresistible urge to move and be happy.

I needed nothing outside of myself to feel these feelings. I had nothing grand to eat or drink, I didn’t look at anything on a device. I had the water and the rocks and the sand and the sky and the wind and my body. I provided any music I wanted by my voice. I did have a camera and took a lot of photographs. I reconnected in taking self-portraits, which I used to do quite a number of years ago. It was something I was quite interested in and had a desire to do. Along the way that desire disappeared for a lot of reason, I guess, one being the rise of the ‘selfie’, a word and practice I do not like much. A self-portrait is not of placing myself somewhere to document that or to show other people where I am; it is a desire to create a photograph that communicates something about the landscape and the human body. If I had a model that may work as well, though I find myself the best model as I am totally unselfconscious in the process and I can do whatever I want.

I was on the beach and decided I wanted my tripod so I could get myself in the image and walked back to the truck to get it. On the way I realized I had forgotten the tripod camera clip at home. I kept walking and thought about what was in the truck that I could use to connect the two. I remembered I had some electrical tape, which did work quite well. I put the first layer of tape sticky side up so the camera didn’t get sticky stuff on it. The next layer I twisted and put sticky side down. I had to cover up some functions on the camera with the tape. The tape partially covered up the screen on the back so I couldn’t look to see how the images were turning out. I didn’t mind this as it reminded me of using film in the past where one never knew how the image turned out until it was processed.

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In reflecting on why I was so happy I would say that it has been the result of what I have been doing over the past year, really, of trying to feel all of my feelings. Sometimes this process didn’t feel very good at the time as I was feeling fear and regret and sadness and my feelings of inadequacy, along with some anger. I am getting used to this however and I know that these feelings don’t last that long. I feel them and they feel like they will go on forever and then they are gone. It was in my life of denying these feelings and burying them somewhere that they never really went away, they lay in constant wait for another day. I think this is why I started connecting to feelings I had from when I was younger that led me to the self-portraits. I hadn’t planned that at all but it was so joyous and fun to do.

Also my recent journey to Nova Scotia to the Divine Truth Seminar allowed me to connect and commit deeper with the process I am going through. I have a faith that this process will just keep getting better. There is nothing that I have experienced over the past year that I feel bad about experiencing. For so long I thought that feeling these feelings would be a negative thing in my life. This proved to be untrue. For example with my feelings of inadequacy, in the past I thought that I didn’t want to feel them because I thought the feelings were the truth. Now I realize the feelings are feelings and not the truth.

I may feel inadequate but I know I am not. I am a child of God just like everyone else.