tread softly on me

I found this quote

"I have spread my dreams under your feet: tread softly because you tread on my dreams"

~W.B. Yates

on islandgirlsj's Flickr photostream and it nearly brought me to tears. How intimately vulnerable a statement, and oh so beautiful. I find the courage to be honest and vulnerable with another human being to be one of the most intimate, generous, and profoundly real things a person can do. (For example: To say that you gladly give your heart, your love, your dreams and future to another, without knowing what you might face in reply, is, from my perspective, the work of saints.) I also find it the most challenging thing for me to do.

I'm working on it though. I'm working on feeling the real things in life instead of placing a tourniquet around my heart and heading {no pun intended} for my intellect. I'm working on not being afraid of people really seeing me, or speaking of me, of knowing me better than the myopic, stunted, ancient vision I have of myself. I'm working on recognizing the image in the mirror and attaching affection to it. I'm working on being open, undeterred by preconceived notions, and willing to face rejection without it setting me back ten paces. Mostly I'm working on, beyond all distractions, just being.

The photography helps. I once heard someone say that making art is in itself all about being in the present. Isn't that so true? When I'm in that place where I can receptive to the muse, to the coalescence of beauty in space and time, I'm never more present than then. To frame a shot, to see with aesthetics in mind, to be connected to the subtle unconscious workings of mind and spirit that know where to turn, what to notice, when it is that decisive moment.... it's all about being in the here and now. When I'm not there, I'm fooling myself, playing at this thing called being an artist. And so, maybe, not being in the here and now in life is also fooling myself and playing at being alive, instead of really living.