Alive vs. Docile

“The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization.

It was greatest before there was any civilization.” 
Sigmund Freud

Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem (Thomas Jefferson)

Photography: Wow factor!

A wow image from my daughter-in-law, Kim Muncy, of the Columbia River early morning looking east up the river toward Mt. Hood. What a beautiful, untouched image of an Oregon sunrise.

Memories: Images etched in part…..

Images/photos, of life events, are obviously wonderful to gaze upon and attempt to recall the moments of life. The sounds, the feelings, the actions, the temperature, the sense of self can be recalled from an image.

I can look at the above photo from a few years ago and recall the time of day, the hatch, the rises, the misses, the take, the fight, the colors of the trout and the release. I see it all and it is a nice memory on a warm, calm, Summer morning…enhanced even more by the image before me.

Dream of the Fisherman by Ray Troll

But, on another level, etched into your memory, is the one (the fish in this instance) that got away (this could be a missed photo op too). The moment probably only lasted a short time, not even minutes, but seconds. There was a connection, a feel of something powerful, large, beautiful that you glimpsed and then it was gone. The thrash, splash, slash, flash and gone. I have several moments like that I have carried with me for years (Kilchis River, Crooked River, Deschutes River, Salmon L. (B.C.), East Lake (Oregon), …) I can see and hear and feel them as clearly as they were as much as twenty some years ago. 

Life is like that. Memories that are snippets and etched moments that move through our mind’s eye like a kaleidoscope of wonderful experiences. Photos obviously help, but the short, lost encounters are equally important even if no clear reminders are held in our hands. In that blur of recollections are visions that please and are enough.

“God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.” 
~J.M. Barrie~