I spend a lot of time in the forests and mountain valleys of Vancouver Island, prospecting for gems and minerals, and hunting for at least one excellent wilderness photograph for every day I’m afield. Both of these – rock hunting and wilderness photography, require a lot of patience. This comes as good news, because most of the best shots I’ve ever taken, came only after much patient waiting, mindful observation and, in some cases, tracking my quarry. However, sometimes my quarry comes to me. My residence on Vancouver Island, in Nanoose Bay, British Columbia, provides ample opportunity for wilderness photography as well.

Over time, with all the watching and waiting, I’ve seen some spectacular things – foremost among them, in my mind, is that I’ve witnessed, beyond doubt, that the quality and calibre of sentience and communication among many animal species is far more impressive than we’ve generally given the animals credit for.

“While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.”
― Dorothea Lange

The consciousness that infuses these animals is not unlike that which we humans possess, albeit on a sliding scale of some kind, or so it seems. The basic architecture of mind and ability to communicate complex ideas, and even emotions, seems apparent in the way many animals, insects and birds relate to one another. All the same, these are not beyond our ability to hear, feel, perceive and understand, according to the level we have observed and developed our own minds. 

As one of the most capable and interactive creatures on the planet we have a responsibility. We are the eyes, the ears and the agency of nature: the culmination of hundreds of millions of years of evolution on earth. We need to put that sensibility to good use.

I have, seen with discerning eyes, that consciousness is indeed a force that infuses all that is. There are no exceptions. It is very much alive and present and wise beyond measure, and in all things. Life and consciousness in its infinitesimal forms and potentials are the physical manifestations of frequency and resonance , also on a sliding scale. We are all fine points of light: fragments of a grand brilliance that itself is unknowable in all its fullness. 

Our days of usury – of using the planet, of brutalizing our fellow creatures, and plowing through the earth, with no mind to sustainability, or environmental longevity and health, are over. We have created this situation by the ways, methods, techniques, and strategies we’ve employed, to help the means meet the ends. We have created it by decisions made and systems built, to support and sustain Money, and those who covet it above all else.

Solutions will come from a return to the old ways of seeing, hearing and believing, and faith, to re-capture some of what we’ve surely known from early in our development – what it is to be conclusively connected to the earth and to others; that we have had our eyes closed for so long we are blinded by our ignorance and by notions of our own grandeur.

“All the technique in the world doesn’t compensate for the inability to notice.”
― Elliott Erwitt

“To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.”
― Henri Cartier-Bresson