Photos from the Unwind in Nature Facilitated Walk on 06.05.2013.
Facilitated Walk 06.05.2013
meditation
Peonies Obsession 2013 !
Every year, I seem to get completely seduced by peonies and their scent. Getting lost in their many layers of petals, with a complexity of the folds that leaves me bewildered, is an annual ritual. I often will meditate on the scent as though that alone is enough to make me journey into another world. So far, my artistic response this year has been with my camera. Perhaps I will do some works on paper also, picking up on the fingerprint-based series Scent of Peonies from a couple of years ago.
Facilitated Walk 05.29.2013
Photos from the Unwind in Nature Facilitated Walk on 05.29.2013.
Starting with some open blue sky above us, we ended with spellbinding light as the sun began to set off to the West.
Cloud meditation in 30 second intervals
A simple set of images based on the discipline of holding my visual attention on a single cloud while also taking photographs in approximately 30-second intervals for five minutes. Watching the transformation of a single cloud is a great simple meditation practice.
Dramatic Landscape Transformation in Hadley 05.15.2013
A nine image photo set showing the transformation of the landscape over a one hour period while on a facilitated walk in Hadley May 15, 2013, 5:30–6:45PM.
Unwind After Work In Nature!
Wednesdays After Work
Ongoing Series (Drop-ins welcome if room available)
May 15–June 19
Wednesdays from 5:50–6:30 PM
Free Introduction May 8
Enhance your connection to nature and your authentic self. Join me for a 6-week series of facilitated walks on “Wednesdays After Work.” Feel your tension and stress melt away as you experience nature’s healing presence through a facilitated mindful walk.
Different from a regular walk, I will guide you in easy-to-follow ways that significantly enhance your relaxation and sense of peace. It’s quite powerful, even for people who have struggled with other relaxation methods. Learn to use the power of your senses combined with mindful awareness to feel refreshed and energetically alive after your work day.
We will walk out in the open space of Hadley, where the feeling of big sky is present. Each week will focus on a slightly different aspect of experiencing nature, often dependent on what the weather presents. There will be an emphasis on experiencing the openness, luminosity, and visual diversity of the sky, but we will have opportunities to connect deeply with all aspects of the landscape, including spending time along the Connecticut River. This is primarily a meditative practice and we will always be walking on well-worn paths. There is room for about ten participants, and if there is sufficient interest I will set up another group for a different day of the week.
Call Chris Page at 413-237-3466 to sign up
Breaking the Bonds of Culture
Breaking the bonds of culture,
I can barely handle the beauty of the sunset.
What shade of turquoise have I seen!
Intentional Seeing–Openning the Eye-Mind Connection
The act of consciously using your visual focus for increasing awareness in nature is one of my core practices. There is great power in training the mind to both choose what one looks at, and how to use what one seees. For example if I choose to keep my focus on the sky without breaking my attention I have a experience that is informed by the continuous unbroken and constant fluidity of the clouds or perhps the vast unbroken field of blue if a cloudless day. I can then choose how I want to relate to this visual experience. If the sky is a very complex cloudscape I might choose to look at the complexity in a very detailed fashion, focusing on the dynamic variations found within the cloud field. Following the edge of one cloud and how it flows seemlessly into what feels like another cloud, slowly getting lost in the layerd billowing flow. This type of looking often leads to a sense of awe and wonder at the profound creativilty expressed in the formation of clouds.
If the sky was an cloudless blue sky I might choose to relax my attention and let my eye-mind rest in the open empty field. The later encourages very soft open mind that is excelllent for releasing the hyper focus tension filled mind many of us operate out of for many hours a day.
Both methods can lead to very profound mind state and are supportive of self-discovery and opening the creative channels.
Learning to control one’s visual attention is one way to train the mind as a type of meditation. Similar to focusing on the breath, you can always return to focusing the mind on a particular visual point of attention.
Sky Mirroring in Hadley 12.13.2012
Midday along the Connecticut River.
The deep translucent blue of the sky reflected in the river offered a great opportunity to meditate and experience clear light throughout my body. Also meditated on the way the sky above is also the water below. Confounding the natural logic of earth below and sky above is always a mental treat.
Dropping Deep in the Hadley Fog 12.10.2012
Discovered that the rain held off much of the day and revealed some wonderful surprises in the luminescent fog, from colors to the quality of light over the farm fields.
The brilliance of the yellow-brown grasses let me know that this was a special day for getting outside.
I was stunned by the mirror-like calm of the water. Reminding me of the mirror-like nature of my soul to reflect beauty.
Letting my energy yield into the earth, the depth of connection showed no sign of an end, only the invitation to listen to the deep vibration as primal communion.
The land dropped away as I felt an opening into the embodied light of the foggy sky.
Chris Page 