Archive for the 'Mind Like Water' Category

Are you one of the thousand who will support water development fine art?

Neil April 18th, 2011

I am Seeking 1000 supporters willing to give $6 for water development issues around the world!

Mind As Water – is an ancient saying passed from teacher to student in far eastern cultures for generations to show the lessons illustrated in nature.

I had heard of such instruction – but never practiced it. Until I was confronted with the exit of my lover and the mother of my children from my life, in an unwanted divorce after 11 years of relationship. I felt more pain than I knew was possible. Pain that stopped me from functioning, burned down my personality, and stole my will to live. So I had to find a way out, and that way was a way in — a practice that allowed me to experience the pain. In opening up to that experience, I could allow healing to flow in like warm water. The separation from my children, and life change from a stay at home dad whose life was filled by caring for his children — to single father was an unnatural pain that left a raw, gaping hole. As soon as I was willing to stare the pain in the face, God was there to fill and heal my heart with the warmth and gentleness of water.

Naturally, I tried to make pictures about ‘it’…

…here we are over a year later, and I have shared this experience with over 100 subjects.

I believe that warmth and gentleness instilled in me, is changing the world around me though this project – and I wish to focus that change. Your support of my project will kick-start my imagery for showing in a large scale exhibit. The gallery event is designed as a fundraiser event for water awareness and development organizations to use to further their cause by engaging the public in a face to face experience with water. Right now I have over 33,000 images of humans experiencing water. My imagery has been created across the US with as many cultural groups and age groups as I have been able to gain access. I will continue producing imagery until I get a solid cross section of the global population, however I think the time is right to make the show available for events. (will you support water development now with $6?)

The goal in presentation of the show is to display a COMPOSITE PORTRAIT. To achieve this visual effect on the gallery walls I wish to mount the show prints edge to edge. My choice of presentation method contrasts to the gallery standard of framing images individually. The wall will become the image from floor to ceiling, and show the individual images in a comparative sense as they tie individual experiences into the whole. For this reason, there are a lot of prints to be made. Each print costs $32 from the lab, and I estimate the average gallery space will need between 160-220prints. I am seeking 1000 people to invest $6 raising $6,000 to print, mount and package the show so that I can begin to offer it as a fine art event to water development organizations. (will you support water development now with $6?)

Mind As Water shows my personal commitment to pouring out my own healing into positive change in the world. To date I have not taken a cent for the images or sessions while I have personally invested $2000 into the Ugandan economy on behalf of water development. I will treat your dollars with the same high regard for the sacrifice you have made to obtain them. I believe your dollars will see a generous return as your kick-start inspires others to give to water development in the future. Please donate a minimum of $6 and receive my mailings to stay up to date on my project. If you are not able to donate $6, please suggest my project to someone you know who would be impacted by this imagery and intent. Please become a subject! Young or old (especially old) contact me to schedule your shoot when I am in your city. I am especially looking to connect with aged subjects, 60+ years old. If you know of an agency, editor or other creatives working in Uganda or with water topics, interested in a book project – please make an introduction for me – as I am seeking a creative partner/editor for possible. (will you support water development now with $6?)

Kickstarter Project for water development through fine art

Mind as Water Journals: individualized inspirational journals

Neil February 2nd, 2011

The Mind as Water Creative Journal kit

A 6×8 organic fair trade handmade book from Nepal
Customized painted and mounted Mind As Water images in acrylic with ink
Your own Mind As Water Portraits if you have been a subject!
16gb digital memory stick for storage of video journals or digital files
$100 of your purchase is invested in the Ugandan economy for water development
Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance by Julia Cameron = textbook for guidance

Order Now HERE

For Creative Retreat teachers and organizers

If you are teaching creativity, artistic direction, meditation, yoga or awareness consider using the Mind as Water experience for your students to have an immediate experience and container for reflection. Neil will photograph each of your participants mindfulness in water and present them with a custom, hand made journal with their own images before your event concludes. This reverential, thought provoking and challenging experience resonates with lasting change in the heart which is guided into lasting change in the world’s ecological balance. Contact Neil directly to check on timing and group package rates.

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Creativity , Inspiration , learning , Mind Like Water , Self Assignment , Workshop

Become Like Children

Neil November 26th, 2010

‘The Way to Love’ by Anthony de Mello

If you allow yourself to really feel the pains of this hell on earth, the utter emptiness it brings, you might experience within you a revolt,

a disgust so powerful that it will shatter the chains of dependence

and the deceit that have been forged around your soul and you will break loose into the kingdom of innocence where mystics and children dwell.

(that is why I say ‘hear the shadows’)

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Hear the Shadows , Mind Like Water , Quotes , spirituality

The Core Synergistics workout::discipline is the primary discipline

Neil October 12th, 2010

“In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.”
— Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers)

I just wrapped up my P90X Core Synergistics workout.

And heavy breathing aside.

It brings me to thoughts of discipline, as the core workout for the creative indivisual.

How’d I make that big leap? I dunno, I think it’s my creative intuition telling me so, maybe I’ll be able to explain it after a shower.

The P90X graduates are all people who took control of their lives for 90 days straight and said, “I am going to do this. I will not back down, and I will not give up. I will stay focused on my goal of making it to day 90, and I will not allow myself to be distracted in any way from reaching my goal.”
Hmmm…that sounds a bit like the recipe for success in any endeavor, doesn’t it? The P90X grads, however, have an edge that most people don’t: They know that the system works.
They know that by staying disciplined and on track, that the results will be there. It isn’t hearsay to them, it isn’t a rumor, it isn’t some vague bit of personal development advice – it is a fact.

Someone today after looking at my website said “How do you get such amazing colors?”

And I’m afraid the answer is in my current life situation. I am traveling on a commercial photo assignment photographing a new hotel each day. For 7 days straight. I’ll take a few days off and do it again. I compose, light and make a final image for 7-12 rooms a day. ”Neil, how to do you get so good at lighting?”

discipline

Such amazing color and tonality is the pinnacle of composition, then lighting, then processing.

This just popped up in my twitter stream:

imagination is to reality what a root is to a tree.

Discipline is the pattern of the roots in the soil and branches in the air.

“Once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”
— Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers)

“In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.”
— Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers)

“Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing that makes you good.”
— Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers)

Want to be better at lighting? Then stop reading this…and shoot a 10 rooms a day until you get to 10,000 hours.

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Creativity , How To: , Motivation , Quotes , Technical

Fast water

Neil September 19th, 2010

Fast water

Mind

Neil August 25th, 2010

The Way bears sensation,
Sensation bears memory,
Sensation and memory bear abstraction,
And abstraction bears all the world;
Each thing in the world bears feeling and doing,
And, imbued with mind, harmony with the Way.

As others have taught, so do I teach,
“Who loses harmony opposes nature”;
This is the root of my teaching.

Tao Te Ching.org – #42

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Mind Like Water , Philosophy , Quotes , spirituality , Tao

Training Your Focus – Enhance Your Reality

Neil April 22nd, 2010

Training Your Focus – Enhance Your Reality

How is your focus? Do you find it easy to concentrate for longer chunks of time or are you easily distracted? Do you enjoy doing the same thing at the same focus level over and over again, or are you easily bored?

I used to think that focus is a function of pleasure: I can concentrate on this because I like it. I do some stuff better than other because I like it. While loving what you do can keep your concentration high, at least in the beginning, maintaining a constant, high focus is not a function of pleasure at all. It’s a function of will.

Focus can be trained. It can be enhanced, it can be shaped the way you want. It can serve you well, if you treat it well. In today’s post I’ll share some of my observations regarding focus and how one can work this tool the same way you work your muscles in your daily workout.

Read the rest to enhance Your Reality