BOOK REVIEW: SHADOWS AND REFLECTIONS

BOOK REVIEW: SHADOWS AND REFLECTIONS

The End of an Era

Journal Entry: December 6th, 2009

I knew the moment I saw Napa Valley Grill had closed in Horton Plaza, that 'it' was done. This marking the beginning of the closing of doors (literally) that had opened in 2001 around this very time. A time of first experiences, like eating mussels. An evening of friendship that grew into love, the music of Janice Joplin, wine, thoughtful and thought provoking conversation AND the best mussels in town.

I had a feeling, perhaps more of a knowing that a 'she' had arrived. That was soon confirmed by an email. A gift. So much better than being blindsided in public. I have a gift for 'knowing' such things. Clairvoyant really, but only a fledgling. So now it is finally done. A sad blow felt in the stomach as it hit the floor. The end of an era, beginning anew.

'After the Fires'

2nd Edition of Shadows & Reflections is here!

My first coffee table book is in it's 2nd Edition with a brand new cover and look! Get your copy today by simpy clicking on the book link below. Great for you or as a gift. Share it with your friends and family. Thank you for taking an interest. - Lori

Here is an excerpt from the book...

..."In a shadow, whether belonging to person or object, distinctions disappear. They are ageless, genderless, and colorless. All outwardly characteristics erased, casting out discrimination caused by perception and judgement. The shadows altered only by the surfaces they grace. Imagine two figure shadows meet, no hair color, eye shape, eye color, or skin color to compare and contrast. The shadow, a great equalizer and a common bond created by 'one' source given indiscriminately to all."

        

Shadows & Refl...

A life philosophy ...

By Words & Images by ...

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Chocolate of Vanilla

He couldn't ever remember

chocolate or vanilla,

So he bought carrot cake instead,

At the time I couldn't see it,

But this was an act of love.

Living in Community

From Casa Hogar

On the return drive home from my recent visit to an orphanage in Tijuana, a thought struck me (of course far more than one, but I won't talk about the rest now) about living in community. It may be difficult to understand the relevance of my point that's coming, but I get it or I wouldn't be writing about it.

Driving in and out of this unasphalted part of the city, the scene was complete with skinny roaming dogs with their teets hanging low from their last litter, the smell of raw sewage and houses that look like the remnants of the latest natural disaster. It appears just as it had in the 60s when I would accompany my grandmother on her weekly treks to Tijuana as she performed her mindful acts of mercy. Over forty years of progress in the world and virtually no detectable change here. That is something to ponder in and of itself.

The hacienda, as they refer to the orphanage, was started by an angel of a woman and nun, Madre Virginia. As we entered the main dining hall we were greeted by her beaming face and her whispered words of "Bienvenidos, bienvenidos!" Madre Virginia inherited this property from her family and she took it upon herself to take in children who could not be cared for by their parent(s) or were taking refuge from acts of domestic violence.  As I understand the history she began with 10 children and today, to her surprise, there resides 97 children. Infants to teens, boys and girls and she provides refuge to women of domestic abuse and violence. These women are responsible for a certain number of children in addition to their duties of cooking and cleaning in payment for their residence here. I had a quiet conversation with one of the women who was busy making chile verde, my personal favorite, and it was incredible. I couldn't help but notice the deep scars embedded along the side of her head, right at the temple. Many scars, unlike these, from abuse however are not always visible.

The children at Casa Hogar are not adoptable as they legally belong to their parents, so they reside at the hacienda, in this community of safe harbor with many brothers and sisters, mothers, friends and teachers. They will live here until they can safely return home or come of age. And oddly, not to minimize how they got there, their resilience is obvious and they seem happy. They are cared for, well fed, they are safe and above all they are not alone, they are living in community.

As I wove through the sea of children with my camera it became instantly clear that they were no different than any other child. Little boys wrestling, creatively fashioning shoes out of potato chip bags, little girls playing with their baby dolls and the teen girls all posing like models. With the main meal about to be served, all 97 children gathered and were seated for the blessing of the food and served all at the same time. An amazing feat considering some people can't even handle just two children at meal time. Communal dining, a thing to behold. A ritual, albeit on a grander scale, that I for one truly miss. I am sincere when I say, I would much rather dine with all of these people within the spirit and intention of all that was there, in exchange for dinner for one in the comfort and silence of my lovely home. Our life in America, I believe has moved so far from the idea of community with many people brainwashed into believing that they are perfectly happy being alone. I think they are lying.

My grandmother used to say when I was quite young "You are born alone and you die alone." Even at the ripe old age of 8, those words cut through me like a knife. It bothered me then and it bothers me even more now. As technology expands and with self-help modalities at an all time high, there seems to be more and more of a "Me first, me only, I must love myself first - mantra" at play. Protection of "my time, my space", the fear of committing, fear of loving, fear of being a social being. And by social I don't mean...by phone, by text, or by internet!

"Hi my name is Lori and I am a social being who loves sharing time, space, food, thoughts and words with others, in person!" The room responds, "Hi Lori!" A new 12-step program in the making. Learning how to return to our natural state of being. I loved living my life in community, with my parents, as a married woman, with my children and even a brief time with a man I thought I would have as a life partner. Am I alone here? Pun intended. There are entirely too many people I know that, I believe have convinced themselves that they love living along, being alone, eating alone, thinking alone, watching a sunset alone. I believe there is a lie being told here and it is breeding alarming rates of discontent and separation on this planet. A protection mechanism shutting off the natural energetic flow from one human being to another. Seriously, if you need some space, and I'm not saying I haven't needed it from time to time, but that's what places like bathrooms are for. I miss those days when I would hear the little voices on the other side of the locked bathroom door after a long day at work calling, "Mommy, mommy." Quickly fading to the drone of running bath water as their dad would whisk them away. Creating private space is not hard to find, but apparently finding someone to share space/life with is. The further we go into cyber space, the less opportunity we have to share physical space with others and the more it seems people are finding some comfort in hiding behind the computer.

I have done my time living alone, convincing myself that I too must ignore my natural way of being. I want to share my life, a home and the ten-thousand words left over at the end of the day. No apologies. I fear that our community of human beings has been convinced that this is the new norm, that a dog or two cats is the way to go and the growing fear of love and intimacy will continue to keep us apart. Sounds like a grand scheme of divide and conquer. I like who I am, how I think, what I stand for and I want to share it, all of it. Keeping it all to ourselves is just selfish. There are many sayings that express and support my thoughts and feelings about this. Here are just a few I thought I would share:

"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." - the Buddha

"There is no delight in owning anything unshared." - 1st Century Roman Emperor

"The magnificent colors in a sunset are profoundly magnified when seen and shared in the presence of another." - Lori Brookes

I would trade a lifetime of meals with the children in Tijuana who are 'living in community', for the sometimes seemingly endless and all too quiet dinners and conversations alone, haunting my days.

Walking Through a Rainbow

I brought enormous proportions of meaning to the recent turn of a a new year and decade. I wasn't alone - go figure. New Years' Eve was filled with burning rituals, saging, vision boarding, and journaling away events good and bad over the last ten years. It felt good. Change is on the way. Of course it is, change is always on the way. To my surprise, January 1st turned out to be a bit of a sobering let down. Chalk up another moment of expectations gone awry. In retrospect the first day of the new year, the new decade was just the gap between the decades. Another moment of 24 hours (some moments can be longer than others) to reflect, mourn the losses, the loves, offer forgiveness, love and breathe. I forget that anytime I invade my own psyche with any kind of introspection it causes a disruption in my ordinarily positive cadence and I am always surprised.

24 hours later I am back in full swing, camera in tow, off to my first photographic assignment of the year - a wedding. Love is in the air. A long time friend (within the last decade) has met her life partner and I have been given the honor of documenting their wonderful union. This is a bittersweet occasion as I am reminded of my own journey toward a new love of my own. 2010 marks the 10th year of being a single woman. At times I feel like I am no where, but more than not, very peaceful where I am in the moment knowing that everything can change in a day, in an hour, in a swift moment - a blink of an eye.

As the month progresses, economic pursestrings that were held so tightly in the final quarter of 2009 begin to loosen and work starts to flow and it feels good. The sun is shining and although the air is brisk, the horizon is clear and the collective buzz is ringing nothing but positive. Then rumors ripple through our county that our blessed Southern California weather is about to take a turn. Get out your umbrellas, galoshes, raincoats and quite possibly we may even need to call on Noah's Arc! And here comes the rain. They say the worst in 10 years. There is that number again.

The first day brings flooding as the rain comes down, disproportionate to the rate our drains and plains can handle. This became very evident as 'Casa Milagro' (my home) is now surrounded by what looks like a castle mote and for now I have renamed her 'Isla Milagro'. I always said I wanted to live on an island but this was not what I had in mind. My studio/garage, which was of some concern for possible flooding, had passed the last rain test and so with that my expectation (there it is again) was that I had nothing to worry about. That Monday night, which will now be recorded in history I'm sure as an epoch downpour, is also Dress Up & Show Up night for a band of woman friends. The weather of the day had deterred all but two of us from our outing and now just one hour from meet-up time I have donned quasi rain gear of Ugg boots, Michael Kor raincoat (not really) and baseball cap over my just blown dry straight hair to check on the studio/garage. The water was coming in on three sides of the building and down one wall. It is times like these...I'm just saying. I make two calls, one to cancel my attendance at Dress Up & Show Up and the other to my local heros. Hero#1 leaves the warmth of his cozy house complete with burning fireplace to climb up on the roof to unclog the drain. That is just one of the problems. Meanwhile I am now drenched, my hair has returned to it's natural state of long strands of ringlets and with shovel in hand small trenches are being dug to divert the water away from the studio. Here we go - another test of 'How will she handle it?" I have to say, with a pat on the back, this event was met with calmness and doing whatever had to be done including asking for help, which sometimes is a hard one for me.

There were other challenges that night and I'm not even sure challenge is the right word. Perhaps surprises, something totally unexpected that knocked me off my rail. Challenged me to question and think about who I think I am - who I think I have become. It set me back a few steps...I am getting to the rainbow.

Taking a few days to process all that was going on, I found myself sitting at my newly carved out space for writing (stealing the idea from Carrie in Sex in The City) facing east and overlooking my patio. The rain droned on, raindrops spatting and tapping on the window, then suddenly with a break in the weather a rainbow appeared. Fantastic! I ran for the camera under lock and key, fumbling to capture one of nature's most beautiful renderings that we just can't get enough of. It's timely appearance felt like the winning of a grand prize after such a challenging and emotional week. But it wasn't until the next day as I was driving north on I-805 where I encountered another rainbow. This time a pair of them, arcing over the freeway - what luck! It was then that I had one of those clear moments of thought where everything lined up perfectly, like the seven colors in the rainbow. What flashed in my mind was the living significance of those seven colors. From red to violet, symbolic of how we move from the densest part of ourselves as infants to a more open state as older adults, moving closer and closer to our inevitable transition back to pure energy matter. And more relevant to our, or should I say my, earthly experiences of constant transition, change or growth to some level of personal enlightenment. Red to orange, to yellow, to green, to blue, to indigo, to violet.

And just when I think I have arrived, another rainbow appears for me to walk through.

Is a Picture Worth...?

Entering my 3rd year in the professional photography arena I continue to be blessed with opportunities beyond my own imagination. What I thought would be a medium in which to express my passion for art and creativity has turned quite surprisingly into so much more than that.

While exploring this medium I was intrigued by the idea of photojournalism, combining my travel bug, yearning to help people and storytelling. While this sounds great in theory I had my first introduction into how I was just not cut out for all that photojournalism can bring.

In 2008, I was asked by a local wedding photographer to assist as the second camera for a wedding in Anaheim. The wedding couple originally from Puebla, Mexico were now living in the U.S. with all of their cultural customs, foods, rituals and nuances. So here was my first opportunity to document - albeit a wedding - a cultural ritual, check. Traveling, yes! All the way to Anaheim. The yearning to help people, well that is a bit of a stretch but stick with me here. It was a beautiful Catholic church ceremony with an unfamiliar cadence in my experience, but it wasn't until the reception when I would experience a huge ah hah moment regarding...photojournalism.

The lead photographer kept me apprised of what was coming next since, oh by the way, everything was being communicated in Spanish and while I am semi-biligual, not at that speed! So he says to me "Next comes the turkey dance." And I respond with one of my classic scrunched up face looks and a questioning "Okay?" This is followed by his explanation that this is a ceremony to bring abundance to the newly wed couple. One of the sponsors of the wedding will come out dancing with a white turkey. "Seriously?" He wasn't kidding. Out comes the couple holding one wing each swinging this poor turkey back and forth to the music. Feathers are flying while the turkey is struggling to get loose. With camera ready I have no idea what I will be experiencing during the inordinately long dance. More people join in on the dance and as they pass the turkey to the next couple, and the next couple, until it finally reaches the bride and groom. Now exhausted the turkey stops struggling...thank God! My job...to photograph this culturally imbedded ritual. My inclination...to run and save the damn turkey!

It was in that moment that I knew I was not destined to travel the world capturing images that tell a story of the plight of anything. Most certainly not if there was any chance I could physically help. I imagined my well invested camera equipment dropping to the ground in a muddy rut and left in total disrepair for the salvation of something bigger than myself. If I couldn't stomach the turkey dance it was not likely that I would take this anywhere soon.

I thought of this today as I combed through the AP photos of the recent devastation in Haiti. The images, like many before this, are haunting and from my personal perspective difficult to look at and even more difficult to imagine taking them. It is a fine line for me and at the same time, I understand that without the documentation from these brave professionals - in more ways than one, people like the Haitians may not get the help and response that is immensely needed.

Praise for those that can as I know that I cannot.