{"id":521,"date":"2010-01-06T01:52:22","date_gmt":"2010-01-06T08:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/?p=521"},"modified":"2010-06-16T12:14:29","modified_gmt":"2010-06-16T19:14:29","slug":"appreciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/2010\/01\/appreciation\/","title":{"rendered":"Appreciation"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Whoever is not grateful for blessings is asking for them to vanish.\u00a0 Whoever is grateful for them ties them up with their own tether.” ~ Ibn ‘Ata illah<\/em><\/p>\n

All to often life takes hold of us and runs us so ragged that we forget to appreciate our blessings.\u00a0 From our health to our homes to our friends each is such a blessing that words fail to adequately describe.\u00a0 I don’t know if we ever really understand or appreciate the significance of these blessings.\u00a0 I do know that I am guilty of forgetting and when confronted with the loss of a blessing, only then do I realize what a blessing it was.<\/p>\n

The great spiritual Guide of the 13th century Ibn ‘Ata Illah in his famous Aphorisms said “Whoever is not grateful for blessings is asking for them to vanish.\u00a0 Whoever is grateful for them ties them up with their own tether.”<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a02009 was a hard year for most of us.\u00a0 We have seen much good fortune vanish.\u00a0 Businesses\u00a0have disappeared, jobs lost, homes foreclosed on, people left\u00a0homeless and in some cases worse.\u00a0 I need not remind \u00a0anyone of all that as we are still in the midst of the fallout,\u00a0and we probably would all like to forget all that and move on to better times.<\/p>\n

The consensus among all those who have written commentaries on the\u00a0Aphorisms of Ibn ‘Ata illah is that we show ingratitude for our blessings when we misuse them.\u00a0 Blessings are a gift from the Divine for us to use to bring us closer to the Divine, to recognize the Divine, to give thanks to the Divine and to show appreciation for what we have.\u00a0 I think we could all understand how we would feel if we graciously gave someone a gift who then scoffed at, ridiculed and disregarded that gift.\u00a0 We would be hurt, regretful for giving it and possibly wish that we could take it back.\u00a0 It is chilling to think that being heedless of the good things\u00a0in our lives would result in those very things being snatched away from us, but it does happen.<\/p>\n

To tether our blessings we must appreciate them.\u00a0 We must use them properly and care for them.\u00a0 I am sure, like me, we all have more blessings than we can enumerate or even realize.\u00a0 Nevertheless I want to reflect on two.<\/p>\n

Photography is something that fell into my life that I never intended on.\u00a0 It was truly a gift as it has helped me realize how beautiful a world we live in, which is an amazing blessing in its own right.\u00a0 Every photo I make has significance to me and hopefully to others as well.\u00a0 One photograph that I made in the spring of 2003, ‘After The Rain’,\u00a0has risen head and shoulders above all the rest.<\/p>\n

\"After<\/a><\/p>\n

Photographed on the foundation of respecting another’s property while most were violating it, After The Rain, reached the 250th print sold late last month!\u00a0 Most photographers that I run into on the art show circuit\u00a0that offer limited edition photography limit their editions at 250, at such high number it is assumed the edition will really never be discontinued.\u00a0\u00a0 Reaching this number is a hallmark for me,\u00a0a mark\u00a0I never thought would occur but very grateful it was met and hopefully\u00a0it will continue to meet new marks.<\/p>\n

The caption that accompanies this photo eludes to showing gratitude for the rain – “As gentle rain falls from the sky it moistens the hard sun baked hills and the Earth drinks to its fill. Seeds, from a generation of grasses and flowers long gone, drink as well. And with that drink they start to come to life by the Mercy of the Merciful. In their gratitude for the Mercy of life they come out in blazing colors glorifying the One who sent them the Rain and the One who gave them Life. The Mercy of God, the Creator, follows the rain, as the Rain is God\u20ac\u2122s Mercy. For without it, all life would cease. Be grateful for the rain, the flowers are<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0our gratitude needs to encompass much more than the rain and we need to appreciate every moment we have, the sweet ones as well as the bitter ones, for without the bitter moments, the sweet ones would not be as sweet.\u00a0 At that level, we would find all of our blessings well tethered.<\/p>\n

\"Desert<\/a><\/p>\n

The second blessing that I want to reflect\u00a0on is the patron.\u00a0 As an artist in business the patron is absolutely crucial.\u00a0 In fact whether the business is art or the manufacturing of microwave energy wave guides for communication satellites, the end customer who seeks your product is king and needs to treated as such.\u00a0 Even if you are an employee you still have a manager that comes to you for your contribution to the end product, a manager who must be pleased with your contribution,\u00a0and then takes it and promotes it to the next level.\u00a0 Displease your pseudo-customer and you could find yourself …well let’s not go there.<\/p>\n

I have always known that customer service and satisfaction is key in business and I have always done my best to treat my patrons well.\u00a0 And even though I\u00a0was always grateful for a sale, a registration for instruction or any request for any of my many photographic services, I don’t think I was ever truly appreciative of their patronage until this past year.\u00a0 Patrons were definitely far and few in between in the economic desert of 2009.\u00a0 Much like the desert wildflower bloom of 2006, one of the meekest on record, as depicted in the photo ‘Desert Fare’ above, patrons were still there.\u00a0 That spring did not dazzle photographers nor the viewers of the photos captured, but we photographed it anyway.\u00a0 And like that, I still provided my services to those that still appeared from the barren economic wasteland we find ourselves in.\u00a0 However, now each patron was the most important patron I ever had, for without them my\u00a0ability to exist as a photographer\u00a0would be put in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

So I think that is all I have to say right now.\u00a0 I know I lost some pretty heavy-duty blessings this past year and so I will definitely be tethering what I have left, you included – you are appreciated more than you know.\u00a0 And hey if you think Organic Light is anything of a blessing in your life…well, I’ll let you put 2 and 2 together about how to tether it.<\/p>\n

Peace to you all, and a better 2010!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photography is something that fell into my life that I never intended on. It was truly a gift as it has helped me realize how beautiful a world we live in, which is an amazing blessing in its own right. Every photo I make has significance to me and hopefully to others as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[4,10],"tags":[28,233,234,235,49],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":687,"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions\/687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}