Sometimes it just feels really good to get close. Really close. Up close and personal. Hard to do with a human being if there isn’t collaboration. Even harder with an animal who instinctively needs space for freedom. This is what I am thinking as I move into the color of the flower in front of me with my lens. There is no recoiling or moving away. I think, this color is calling me, does it want to know me too? Such intimacy to be this close and still feel safe….

With an overwhelming desire to honor this presence, I move in and out from, and around this color, viewing from many angles, seeing the context it lives in, getting to know its friends too. Getting to know the essence from the inside out. Isn’t this the reverse of what we are taught? Take in all the outward signs first, trust that you know what these signs actually mean?

But love doesn’t work that way I think. I think love is feeling the full expression of the color first, and then giving yourself room to adjust, to integrate the effect of this force. It could take just a moment or it could take a lifetime. There is no predicting how much time and space is necessary before one can live fully and contentedly in the force of such color.