Category: Celebrate

Keep Looking For Moments Like These To Celebrate & Appreciate

10/15/2019

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Photo of Toda Lake water lilies and Florida Everglades at the Florida Nature Culture Center, Weston, Florida by Jenny Leigh Hodgins. YourCreativeChord Photo Essay. Nurturing Creativity and Inspiration

Photo of Toda Lake at the Florida Nature Culture Center, Weston, Florida by Jenny Leigh Hodgins

Photo Essay Series
By Jenny Leigh Hodgins

This is the second of my photo essay series featuring images from my newly designed 2020 nature photo calendars. The calendars include monthly self-care themes highlighting strategies for nurturing your creativity and inspiration.

These lily pads on a quiet lake provided the backdrop for personal reflection as I took this photo while at an arts-related conference. Being at the spiritual retreat geared toward empowering artists to fulfill our potential was itself an explosion of encouragement. Taking a moment of solitude to think about the impact of artistry on humanity and vice versa, filled my heart with gratitude and the determination to do my best as an artist for peace.

The quiet scene reminded me of the calmness and beauty of the Water Lily oil painting series by the French impressionist artist, Claude Monet. I’ve always been drawn to the water. Monet’s art in particular, evokes for me, the therapeutic comfort of the water’s ebb and flow.

The rich, deep hue of Toda Lake, with puffy white clouds in a pale blue sky reflected in the pond’s gentle movement, and the brightness of shiny green, floating leaves seemed to burst forth with joyful appreciation. Yet, the serene view was relaxing. It expressed a light cheeriness, and life’s depth and complexity all at once.

From my viewpoint, I saw multiple layers of texture; the sparkling lily pads in the forefront, expanding into the lake’s deep blue, mild ripples, and the lush greenery of the Florida Everglades in the distance. This layered vantage point reminded me how our lives are an intricate, overlapping, dramatic and poetic mesh of stories. The paths we take, how they intertwine with the paths of others, how sometimes our road leads back home, while other routes take us to foreign places; All these interconnect to build our community and link our lives.

This photo captures a moment of time for reflection, to appreciate the drama of each chapter of life. It speaks to me of how we must each pause to take care of our inner life, with silence, absorbing nature’s beauty that’s always surrounding us.

When I look at this photo, I let my mind empty. I let my imagination take me to the quietness of this peaceful place. I inhale its joy, with magnificent color and light, allowing the sensation to fill my heart in spiritual therapy. I envision the emotion from this gorgeous, soft moment nurturing my soul. I let my thoughts float away, and allow the profound beauty of this setting to open my life. Then, I exhale, with gratitude, that at any moment of the day, I have the capacity to experience this.

It’s about taking any small window of the day or night, to look for and discover something worthy of attention. Finding that sliver of time, or tiny space within the heart, to celebrate something seemingly ordinary. Yet, within the everyday, there is something exquisite, something that can surprise and inspire with its authentic beauty. Let’s keep looking for moments like these.

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Belief In Your Own Creative Vision

10/8/2019

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Sunset Photo at Siesta Key Beach, Sarasota by Jenny Leigh Hodgins

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Photo Essay Series
By Jenny Leigh Hodgins

This is the first of my photo essay series featuring images from my newly designed 2020 nature photo calendars. The calendars include monthly self-care themes highlighting strategies for nurturing your creativity and inspiration.

I enjoy taking nature photos because each captured image represents my excitement, joy and appreciation for the wondrous beauty available within an ordinary moment. My pictures are symbolic of my personal dreams and inner prayers for experiencing life to its maximum potential.

It helps that I live in beautiful Lexington, Kentucky, surrounded by agricultural and horse farms, near enough to the Kentucky Horse Park that I can ride my bike there. I also lived in sunny Florida for half my life, enjoying the gorgeous beaches of Venice, Fort Myers, Sarasota, Clearwater and Dunedin.

I snapped the photo above at Siesta Key Beach, Sarasota, during a sunset walk with a friend, determined to capture the serenity of the sun’s gentle departure beyond the horizon. This memory reminds me of my sincere friend, who graciously spent the weekend with me there to literally force me to enjoy some relaxation in between my whirlwind of events surrounding that time period.

The kindness of my friend’s compassionate gesture, the therapeutic nature of the deep, pulsing waves of the water, the setting of the sun as it sprayed its pastel wash of colors across the sky, and my deep love for Sarasota, as the place my Buddhist practice began (the starting point of hope in my life), exist within this momentary pause. Just as an entire lifetime of memories, personality, knowledge and emotion are represented within a person’s name, a single photo is full of kaleidoscopic meaning.

My photos are about slowing down enough to take one, solitary second out of a busy life to celebrate myself, my progress, this chapter, and the hope of the next one. It’s about letting my creative heart lead in my daily life, not my head.

I don’t compare my nature photography to other great photographers. Though I admire and deeply respect the works of others who’ve dedicated their lives to mastering technique and skill, that is not what inspires me.

I began taking photos because I was deeply moved by Daisaku Ikeda’s photography and underlying philosophy. He doesn’t claim to be a professional photographer. He began taking photos to commemorate experiences with others and leave something behind to encourage them.

I bring my photos to YourCreativeChord with a similar hope and intent; to inspire us to continually expand our lives by letting our true authenticity be the ultimate authority of our creative process. My photos are about seeing the world through the lens of my Greater Self (not my lesser self, ego).

I share my nature photography as a way of recognizing and celebrating our universal yet vulnerable point of human connection, and to experience the rejuvenating power of nature’s beauty within my images.

My photography is meant as an example of courageous creative exploration, as that is a prime point for me as a creator. I blog and podcast about the importance of allowing creative adventures, setting aside the theoretical mind, to allow one’s heart to express itself, unhindered by any limitation.

I’m a writer, poet and composer, but I venture into photography without my thinking hat. Instead, I bring childlike wonder and profound appreciation for nature’s astonishing allure.

I want to share this with you as a way of encouraging you to see your world as the artist within you knows it to be. When you see my photos, my hope is that it sparks your belief in your own creative vision. Enjoy the view.

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Keep Looking For Moments Like These To Celebrate & Appreciate

Belief In Your Own Creative Vision

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