Global Sojourns Photography
Photography & Philosophy
The Melancholy of a Czech Spring
Posted on May 30, 2022
Spring inspires. Her enthusiasm reflects the warmth of sunshine and I cannot take my eyes off her. A flash of her wry smile and I’m slowly lured in…
For me, the season of spring is the innocent version of Eris, the Greek goddess of strife. When the weather turns warm and life becomes comfortable, she arrives with one goal: to weave a web of discord. It’s my home for the season. Her laughter, the wind. Her tears, the rain. Her thunder, to be avoided at all cost.
An unperceptive shift in mood and the tranquillity of the day explodes… her warm breeze shifts into high gear and my well laid plans scatter throughout the Czech countryside. All is lost and the dance begins. The electricity of her breath fires every neuron and it’s no longer possible to quiet my desires.
This Czech spring demands my attention.
Her unpredictability is her essence.
Around the world, spring has always inspired reflection, growth, a bit of the human spirit spurring us back into life.
Personally, I enjoy the havoc of spring as long as it’s from a distance. This year, however, she has drawn me out. She has shaken me ~ a Czech country girl making my uncommitted soul rethink its allegiance.
Weighed down by the world, she breathes life back into me. She’s my lifelong crush and we’ve developed this springtime ritual: a ridiculous dream sequence destined to end in disappointment. Heartache with such gravity nothing can escape, and to be honest I don’t want to leave.
Sigh, she holds a seductive spark of the unknown. Something I’ve always been intimidated by yet at the same time drawn towards. A moth to a flame, so the story goes.
Cannot deny her spirit, after all the ability to bring the dormant back to life, to revive a soul wasting away under a blanket of snow. She does the impossible.
Watching her wash over the world, I always wish to be at my best and with this she inspires. I want to be good. I want to be better. I want to speak her language.
There is never a time where she doesn’t have me soaring in ecstasy or drowning in agony. There is no other season which holds so terribly an awesome power.
She leads me along the razor’s edge, between the bliss of renewal and the crackling energy of the unknown. Laughing as she pushes me one way and then the other. This mythical place she calls home, where life begins to tingle. The edge of hope, edge of fear, edge of something spectacular.
Bliss of a comfortable life or the thrill of an adventure. There is no choice, I feel her tickling my heart…
I run in the rain. Run up a mountain. Run the stairs at work. Why? Simple. She inspires. To be something more, every day a little more.
A memory of a Seattle spring long ago: a billy goat standing on top of the world. The youthful me bounding up alongside the mountain as well ~ sharing in something peaceful and perfect.
“Ignore the inevitable heartache and continue the climb, take the miracles as they come.” I can hear the younger me shouting at the current me collapsed somewhere below on the trail.
She is passion built upon an undercurrent of melancholy, a paradox of love and rejection dancing as one. Never knowing where one begins and the other ends. While it is foolish to take such risks, it would be more foolish not to revel in this spark of glory while it exists.
Sacrifice? Just continue to walk the razor’s edge between agony and ecstasy. Spring is the wildness we all need.
The melancholy of spring is not easy to become addicted to, but of course I find a way. While she brings in the new, I hold onto the past: the hope to revive the flicker of lost love. An ancient myth.
She offers to sweep away this paralysis, to lead me from the darkness of winter and into the blinding light of a new world. It’s long overdue to slip on my Ray-Ban’s and get moving.
Her brilliance is in the turbulence she creates. There is no better motivator than dealing with strife and moving forward. New joys, new pains, a new way of thinking.
Writing about this ridiculousness loosens the vice wrapped around my heart. I wonder if hidden in our DNA is a small desire for self-destruction?
Dipping a foot in this pool of chaos cannot help but sweep a soul along this torrent of reality. Bruising us with the emotions of a real, eventful life. A variety of life from those living the American Dream to those battling for the Ukrainian Dream… and of course all of us in-between. We take risks to build a life we believe in. With support and love, our greatest destiny is obtainable.
This spring is one I haven’t felt in a long time: a little hope, passion, and the anticipation of the crushing melancholy when it ends. It is life on Earth. It is quite magical.
A mistral wind blows, whispering the possibility of love. Spring smiles knowing the nothingness I hold inside will melt away ~ her words igniting the spirit, igniting the soul.
She sends my mind and heart racing. I feel as if I am 15 years old again, and I grimace remembering those dreaded teenage years…
She’ll break my heart, yet here I am as if floating on clouds, not sure if I’ve ever felt better. How can this be explained? She is a fantasy… and in this world, fantasies can come true.
Not following through with the hope spring provides would be tragic. Not just because such opportunities are rare, but because we owe it to ourselves to evolve, to grow. As we grow, those around us grow.
There is a time to be selfish, to want to make our world better and more to the point, make my world better. She’ll understand.
Spring avoids souls who fear death, and my guess, she wishes death for those who fear life.
She is like a cold breath in winter you try to capture in your hands… a reflection on the water or a cloud in the sky, she is simply unobtainable.
Who am I to explain the infinite complexities of Mother Nature, or (based on my track record) try to comprehend the mind of a woman. What am I doing? Her intelligence is beyond my capabilities.
Maybe I’m forever to roam the world, listening for the song of the Sirens so I can pick up my guitar and strum along… if only I had a guitar, and even more embarrassing, if only I knew how to play.
As to the inevitable aftermath of Spring? I’ll leave no more a mark on her soul than a stone thrown into a raging river. This is the sadness.
This morning, with a mug of French-pressed coffee in hand, I find myself looking around wondering where I am… I’d ask how I got here, but frightened by what the answer could be. But damn, I am happy. A “floating on clouds” happy.
The goddess of chaos. My plans ripped to shreds, scattered across the Czech countryside where the warm winds of summer will soon carry them away.
Possibilities of peace? Possibilities of love? Dreams of living with both, reality of living with none?
I’ve been doing that for a long, long time 🙂
May peace and love be with everyone during these final days of spring ~ and follow your spirit, follow your spring, to wherever the path leads.
The Art of Devotion
Posted on April 16, 2014
Devotion inspires one of the purest sets of emotions, capturing love, loyalty and deep feelings of excitement that I do not think can ever be understood beyond our own personal experiences. In the world around us, so much devotion towards deities, lovers, children and nature, all linked to our desire to better understand. 
Devotion in its pure form is absolutely awe inspiring to witness. I may not share or understand the experience of the devotee, but often cannot help but feel some attachment with their act of devotion. 
To many, devotion is a scary word. Devotion requires commitment, and the fear of commitment alone can send people running for the door. Contrarily, the only emotion equal to the feeling of devotion is the feeling of freedom. Freedom to live, to pursue and to reach the potential hidden within, for this is what life’s about. This is the strange paradox between devotion and freedom. 
The integrity of people devoted to philanthropy has been inspirational since the dawn of time. The world admires such people for the dignity and strength of their devotion. However, in today’s world with an overwhelming number of options with little time to spare, I wonder if such pure devotion is possible without restricting freedom? 
On the surface, devotion appears restrictive due to intense focus and drive, especially in what is now a sound-bite/tech based society where nanoseconds steal away cognate thought. Is it possible to have true devotion and not have every fiber of your being focused on this nirvana?
Perhaps the greatest window into the art of devotion comes from religions around the world, stunning in their emotional beauty. We see people opening their hearts and soul, trusting in devotion. The beautiful fury of devotion. With the lesson that such beauty is tempered when priestly powers from above, and I mean those men who sit in rooms and pontificate, creating rules based on outdated policies with one goal: to control. 
It does not take an academic to recognize centuries of petty political ideologies sprung from ivory towers, exposing the self-righteous nature of man. To control and manipulate devotion for purposes other than its pure source and nature is to extinguish the flame that made it so.
There is a simple, beautiful thread that is the backbone of devotion and it is the mysterious concept of love. Once rules, regulations and intolerance are allowed into this mystic sanctuary, devotion becomes less than what its true destiny requires. It becomes a misguided passion that takes us away from the immense potential. 
Ceasing to ask questions and instead listen to rules created by others taints the purity of devotion. It is pure devotion that makes it easier to find this oft spoken iron rod to lead us forward in life. Faith does not mean to stop seeking answers or submit to blind faith, but rather to take responsibility. 
Questioning faith along the way is an integral part of human nature. It helps redefine who we are and what we can become. It allows for our devotion to evolve over time, granting flexibility and freedom in life to make the right decisions. Pure devotion is a journey to open up new ideas and see through destructive intolerances. Like all good things, the greatest potential can only be reach when given the freedom to pursue. 
Watching someone from the opposite side of the world practice the religion of their culture, I see how beautiful Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism are because they all share the same threads of belief. It creates a sense of devotion within. All things are born from devotion: the rhythm of science, spirit of musicians, harmonies of mathematics and the devotion of a mother to her child. The foundation of devotion is the seed for growth. 
Belief in a power we do not understand, yet surrender ourselves completely takes courage. Behind this courage is love, the common thread that unites everything and everyone in the world. You cannot love without the pureness of devotion leading the way. Take away all of the politics, the insensitive rhetoric of intolerance and there lies the beauty of real devotion. 
In a world where we are always chasing something, lost in the false devotions shoveled to us daily by “society”, it is easy to miss what is at the heart of devotion and love. Forgiveness. 
Forgiveness is a sacrifice, to grasp the simple significance of quality: quality of this short time on Earth and the quality of tomorrow. Forgiveness can bring the freedom to move on with a clear heart, and through it strengthen devotion. It seems strange to think of forgiving others as a sacrifice, but I’ve seen pride and perceived slights crush love and devotion, every passing second creating a scar that could have been prevented with an act of forgiveness. 
The coming Easter holiday is perhaps the epitome of sacrifice. Within this holiday are the select attributes that make devotion such a powerful state to experience. Forgiveness and sacrifice. Two concepts I never before considered to be at the core of true devotion towards the things that I love. To be devoted to life, heart open and tolerant of all that is different guarantees a journey through life like no other; it will take the spirit places never before imagined. 
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