A Moment of Stillness

Camera Shy

Very strong wind at Joshua Tree National Park while we were there camping last weekend. It was a trip to see and photo shoot the spring blooms in the high desert. Movement and close-ups don't do well together, and the windy condition means plenty of movement on the subject. Every time I have my camera primed for shooting, the wind would start. I got impatient, then exasperated and agitated, and then I noticed I was wishing the weather to be better, more ideal for my shooting. I couldn't help but laughed when I realized how ridiculous it is the idea of asking nature to change her behavior to suite me. Like when I was on the dive boat in Tonga photo shooting the whales and wishing the wind and the wave would stop so that the boat would stop swaying. Ridiculous yet that was what I was wishing for.
And that brought to mind my "boat rocking, life rocking" realization back then. The next thing I know, I was remembering Byron Katie and how she became the woman who made friend with the wind in her book "Loving What Is". Which led me to realize that when I wish for the nature to behave any way other than how nature behaves, I am resisting what is. And when I resist what is, I create unnecessary suffering for myself. It wasn't the wind or the ocean waves that cause my suffering, they are just doing what they always do, it is my wishing them to be different that caused my suffering!
Once I got that, I shifted, I asked instead for a moment of stillness between gust of wind. That became my focus for the rest of the trip. When I spot new blooms I wanted to shoot, I would go ahead, prime my camera, watch the bloom through my lens, ask for a moment of stillness, concentrate on my breath, inhale, exhale, taking slow, deep, full breath after breath. Then the bloom would stand still for a moment or two during the pause between one gust of wind and the next. And I took my shots.
I came home with an absolute abundant beautiful shots of desert blooms. It was a most fulfilling and rewarding photo shoot trip, in more ways than one.