Luminous-ground

A Soul Place

What’s a soul place?

Larry Richardson, a wonderful Vermont photographer graciously gave Our Luminous Ground permission to publish this photo called “A Soul Place.”  He and the poet Charles Butterfield recently published a new book called  Another Light.

“Light is the theme of this collection. The photographs are products of light, many of the poems employ images of light, and we are reaching you through the miracle of the eye. But it is another light we celebrate here, that light by which we all can imagine the world.”
(from their website)

Soul places, then, according to these artists, are places where the miracle of our eyes and the wonder of light enable us to imagine the world.

Resurgence

When Kevin, from "The Office" announced to all that someone had stolen his surge protector, his voice broke. It was the worst day of his career. Poor Kevin puddled into deeper incompetence than usual.

I was thinking of Kevin when I wandered onto the British magazine , Resurgence, the other day. It's a magazine that acts a bit like a surge protector for our planet. The March/April, 2009 issue of what may be the longest running ecological magazine in the UK is all about the Economics of Place. The focus is on our current economic woes and offers workable, sustainable and eqitable solutions.
 
"We cannot save the planet and destroy the place," says Satish Kumar who has been the editor of the magazine since 1973.

Kumar, a former Jain wandering brother, once walked an 8,000 mile peace pilgrimage from India to America. He knows and loves places on our planet from first hand, close up experience.

When he turned 50 he walked (again with no money as is the Ghandian custom) 2,000 miles around Britain visiting many holy places: Glastonbury, Canterbury, Lindesfarne, Iona. Kumar continues to teach and write about reverential ecology, holistic education and voluntary simplicity.

Of special interest to Our Lumious Ground readers would be a section of the magazine called "A Sense of Place" where writers are invited to describe the places they love most.

There are harmful surges taking place and poised to take place around our globe and each of us, as Kumar has shown, is responsible for protecting the places we love.

Places That Hum

 After my son and I visited the Naxian Terrace of the Lions on the Greek island of Delos, we gratefully sat down to rest in the amphitheater. 

"Did you realize this whole island is a sanctuary to Apollo?"

Leto, pregnant by Zeus, had to escape from Zeus' wrathful wife Hera so she came to this low rocky outcropping floating at the center of the Cyclades to give birth to twins.

"Notice how Artemis, (the moon) sort of got lost in this whole Apollo thing?" I murmured. "She, like her Roman counterpart, Diana, was not just a huntress, but a nurturer and child-bearing advocate. But she was usurped by her sun-brother Apollo who claimed this whole island for himself. The guidebook says he actually banned pregnant women from coming to Delos. I guess he wanted to make sure people remembered only he was born here."

  We rested against the stone steps, the only two   people in the entire gigantic amphitheater. Squinting against the blazing sun, rimmed by a backdrop of the most improbable blue sea, we thought we could see masked actors gracefully moving across the stage. The whole theater hummed. Some  places do.