“I think you’ve become a bit like Linda McCartney in the way you can be in a group with your camera and unobtrusively capture the spirit of the place and time and personality. None of your subjects seem posed or unnatural. Your lens is the eye of your generation and nation.”
“I’m very pleased that you’re to have a son, and SURPRISED. But why? Good question. Well, I guess that all along I’d imagined you raising a Mini-me-Sev2 because your photographic world is very feminine centric in terms of the subjects you choose: Grandma, sister, niece, cousin, mom (to a lesser extent) and even female musicians. The only man that you’ve shot regularly was your man, and that’s relatively recent. In past years, your father’s influence was felt primarily in his absence and the resentment you felt. So perhaps now your life is returning to a balance of yin and yang.”
Decision-making is hard, not so much because of the options we face,
but because we have to deal with our own mind. We’re confused by
indecision. That agitation comes from opposing thoughts. We are
uncertain about what to do, and we are thrown off balance. Which
thought should we follow? Which line of reasoning is best?
The whole point of anything that is really, truly valuable to your soul, and
to your own growth, is not to attach to a teacher, but rather to find out
what the real deal is in the world itself. You become your own guide. The
teachings can help you, but really, we’re all here with the opportunity to
experience the reality of hereness. We all have that. I trust that.
Willingness to observe
our cocoon
of habitual fear
and defense mechanisms.
But the real core instruction is, whenever you’re feeling uncomfortable,
don’t believe what you’re saying to yourself. Right then is the time to not
believe what you’re saying to yourself.
And what we’re saying to ourselves at those times are really old habits.
We’re reinforcing really old habits. That’s what we do when we’re
uncomfortable. We don’t leave it with just hooked or triggered.
We seek to get the bubble back together— or whatever language you
want to use— by talking to ourselves, in a way that really strengthens
old habits. And they’re usually very self-destructive habits.
***
“I could feel that it made me sick
I said to myself
Why are you doing this?
Will you feel better? No.
So why are you doing this?”
Seductive pull to keep doing…
not in sync with what makes you happy.
The urge to do the same thing that you’ve already done.
IT IS SO HARD TO STOP but when you understand
that you’re doing it, that’s when you can start working with it.
Reach the positive bottom and things begin to open up to you.
Soften what is rigid in your heart, work on yourself.
Notice what you’re saying to yourself to escalate things.
Later - Look back at who you used to be.
The neuroris you carried for so many years
- otherwise you’ll lose your contact with other people who suffer.
I like the wild ones. Probabaly because I’ve invested so much in being a
good child and have always gotten great feedback from it. But my friends
and teachers have always been the wild ones and I love them. I’m bored with
the good ones. Not exactly bored, but they don’t stop my mind. I’m the
kind of person who only learns when they get thrown overboard and
the sharks are coming after me.
Things are not certain and they do not last and you do not know what is
going to happen. My teachers have always pushed me over the cliff, and that
is what has awakened my compassion for what human beings are up against.
I am afraid that because of where we come from as Westerners, with our
Judeo-Christian heritage, that if you get too focused on doctrine, on
codifying, or ethics as a major emphasis, it just turns into harsh judgment.
And then there is no genuine compassion.
Genuine compassion comes from the fact that
you see your own limitations: you wish to be
kind and you find that you aren’t kind.
All situations are workable.
That’s the nature of reality - it’s workable.
The very thing that causes us to harden and our suffering to intensify
can soften us and make us more decent and kinder people.
That takes a lot of courage. This is a teaching for people
who are willing to cultivate their courage.
What’s wonderful about it is that
you have plenty of material to work with.
I remember the day I really got it that we’re not
connected as human beings because of our
perfection, but because of our flaws.
That was such a relief.
No matter how simplified or complicated life gets,
it can make us miserable or it can wake us up.
“I was so pleased to find your books in my mailbox today.
Thank you for working so hard to get them here,
and also thank you for signing each book and the slip box.
The interview at the conclusion of “Suspended” was strong. I’ve read so much of your writing, but I still learned something new about you. Your spirit in the interview is much more bold, confident, and fearless. I copied the quote, Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind into a list of things that I read every day to help me remember who I want to become. They are good words to live by.
The preface to “Emotions” by Bodil Malmsten was perfect because it framed my mind for the photos that followed. Well done. You’d explained some of that to me before, but Malmsten summarized it nicely. Your juxtaposition of your family generations in the context of Jamtland is powerful, and you’ve created a sense of place inhabited by such distinct and intriguing personalities.
Your Granny comes through as both alive and used up by age, a spirit that’s free to eat out of a saucepan and play with cats, and that at other times feels alone, forlorn, and breathing fire. And then your cousin and granny come together, playing with lip gloss, and the contrast is magic.
I hope you will take it as a compliment when I say that not only are the photos in the books wonderful, but your more recent work since publication eclipses all that came before. I hope you know that’s true. I look forward to collecting your work for a long time. Intentionally or not, you’ve chosen a life of extremes - the suckiness of building your own business, and the abundant brilliance that will surely come.
The important thing is that you’ve done it on your own terms and in your own way.
You’ve taken a camera and, where others saw only their normal lives and surroundings, you’ve made something memorable that reaches across continents. It’s your gift, and it’s powerful.
Winter is newly arrived in the Rocky Mountains, and the snows this week are the first to stick and frost the tree branches. (Skiing…soon!) My cat is bothering me for something mysterious and I know it’s not food because she has plenty. Maybe she wants me to brush her, but I don’t want to right now. I’m eating toast with butter and Sylt Lingon from Ikea and enjoying your books and thinking about how far you’ve come and how dark and hopeless it seemed at times.
That’s inspiring to me because things have been a bit gloomy here for the past six months, and I need hope the same way you once did. I need the strong spirit that got you through your long Jamtland winters and agoraphobia, and then out into the open, onto busses and airplanes and across oceans into the sun of Italy and Africa, and then finally into the arms of your wonderful man.
It’s a good story but it’s only just begun for you.
We achieve inner health only through forgiveness
- the forgiveness not only of others but also of ourselves
I don’t know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what
I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very
important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because
if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable.
But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself
and say, ‘well, if I’d known better I’d have done better,’ that’s all. So
you say to people who you think you may have injured, ‘I’m sorry,’
and then you say to yourself, ‘I’m sorry.’ If we all hold on to the
mistake, we can’t see our own glory in the mirror because we have
the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can’t see what
we’re capable of being.
You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real
forgiveness is in one’s own self. I think that young men and women
are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you.
When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too
black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or
too asexual, that’s rough. But you can overcome that.
The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.
Being hooked on faults with yourself.
It’s addiction.
How you want to hold on, how you want to get in bed and put the covers
over your head. Seeing all of that just increases your compassion for the
human situation. We’re all up against not finding ourselves perfect, and still
wanting to be open and be there for others.
My friends and teachers have always been the wild ones and I love them.
I’m bored with the good ones. Not exactly bored, but they don’t stop my mind.
All situations are workable.
That’s the nature of reality - it’s workable.
The very thing that causes us to harden and our suffering to intensify
can soften us and make us more decent and kinder people.
I remember the day I really got it that we’re not
connected as human beings because of our
perfection, but because of our flaws.
