This is a body of work which explores sacredness, not in a particular place, but as a way of perceiving the phenomenal world. I have come to this way of perceiving from almost 30 years of Buddhist practice, and an equal amount of time as an artist and photographer. Tsal, (Tibetan), the “manifest radiance of apparent phenomena”, recognizes both the form of mundane appearances as well as the luminosity and emptiness from which they arise. For the past few years I have been attempting to photograph this elemental quality of phenomena, pointing to the invisible energies (earth, water, fire, wind) which animate the visible world by aiming my camera at ordinary forms of landscape and space. Like patterns of a kaleidoscope which both fall into place and change with every turn, the phenomenal world can reveal its wisdom in the rush of wind flipping leaves over on the branches of a tree, simultaneously emptying your heart, or the crested wave of a ferry boat wake, provoking longing and joy. Everyone has inklings of this sacredness, from minute glimpses of awareness to profound breakthroughs of revelation. Often these moments are simply assimilated into our daily lives without remark. My photographs are a way of noticing and remarking. Nonetheless, there are known places where sacredness is palpable in the landscape, and no particular training in perception is required to recognize it. The phrase, “it takes your breath away” is the colloquial version of the transforming power of these particular places. It is felt as a physical sensation of the mind stopping and the body being emptied of all preoccupation. This kind of vivid direct perception can penetrate one’s body and inform the mind below the surface of consciousness. It is almost as if, by going beyond personal interpretation, vastness enters our bodies and minds through the medium of perception. In June of 2001 I had the opportunity to be an artist-in-residence at Crater Lake National Park, a place of such power that the Native American shamans kept it secret from ordinary people or European explorers until 1853. During the two weeks I was there, I photographed, but also used the time to do Buddhist sadhana practice which cultivates the recognition of space as vivid and alive. As the time went on, the photographs were less about the awe-inspiring monumentality of the lake, and more about the state of mind the lake created in me: openness, emptiness, a lack of boundary between myself and phenomena. Photographing in a place where the elements are so undiluted combined with practices which open one’s eyes and mind to their manifestation was extremely potent. The work I did there inspired me to want to do more. When I returned home, what I noticed about the work from Crater Lake was that it seemed to draw down the power and vastness of that place into single perceptions. My photographs, although often fairly abstract, are landscape photographs where the elements merge, where water seems to be air or earth, or earth to be fire. And surprisingly, although the physical forms of a volcanic landscape are very different from rural Massachusetts, for instance, these photographs are of a piece with the photographs of ordinary places I had taken during the course of the previous year or so. And that is where, I think, the importance of what I want to do resides. This elemental quality of perception and phenomena is not limited to the grandeur of the national park system. It is just more obvious there. Within the world we experience, there is always the subtle aspect of luminosity, when we can open to it. ----Mary Lang |