Suzy the Sheltie: Eye of the Soul

Yesterday I went to Meijer Gardens to see the annual, "Butterfllies Are Blooming" exhibit. Every year, in March and April, hundreds of butterflies are imported from Costa Rica. For two months they flit about in a large, temperature-controlled conservatory. On display for thousands of visitors, they dive and delight until they die--which is about every 12 days in the life cycle of a butterfly.

So, they don't have long to bring joy and are on display for only a short time. Every year I enthusiastically look forward to going see them. However, the 2-hour drive each way is cumbersome for me to do alone. So, every year, I start asking anyone and everyone I know if they'd go along on a fun outing and share driving. I start asking in January, knowing full-well I have only 2 months before butterfly season.

This year I could find no one. None of my friends either wanted to go or understood my plight--as in dilemma, not flight. Still, no one had the empathy, compassion or maybe just extra time to accompany me to this idyllic garden 2-hours from home. So, I had no other choice than to take a deep breath, get some books-on-tape and put pedal-to-the metal myself. Which is exactly what I did.

Now, here's the "ah-ha" moment. I felt fine driving up, wasn't particularly tired or fatigued, even. The place was jammed with school buses and noisy kids whose little fists managed to interrupt more than one nicely composed photo. Still, I was enjoying myself---or so I thought.

But when I came home and edited all the photos, I could find but one shot that I considered acceptable. I mean in terms of technical clarity, compositon and beauty. First time, too. For whenever I've gone in the past I had at least a dozen excellent shots. Clear, colorful, crisp and creatively composed. Not so yesterday.

Why? I think it was because my "can-do" Self told my "real Self" that it didn't matter that I couldn't find anyone to go with me. It was fine, I'd bite the bullet, go by myself and, dag-nab-it, would have a good time, too!

But that smaller, inner, more psychically-grounded Self was not happy. The little voice that always tells us what's right or wrong, good or bad, happy or sad. The voice we sometimes try to squash, squelch, ignore or beat down. The voice that really loves us but the same one we sometimes betray. It was that voice that was in charge yesterday--of my feelings which, then, translated into my pictures. For, nary a photo turned out well. And this was out of dozens of carefully composed shots that zapped into focus with my high-end camera. This is one of the reasons photographers invest so much money into their gear, so their photos will come through for them with sharpness, even lighting and, hopefully, artistic merit. And they usually do for me, too.

Not so this time. My feelings won out, and all I came away with was one halfway decent butterfly shot that I have posted above.

However at the zoo, later that day, my heart won out, and I managed to salvage a few meaningful shots. Unfortunately, they were of the truth of sadness and boredom in the eyes of bears, monkeys and an ocelot. My true feelings, once again, surfaced through my camera lens but, this time, they were not of delight but despair.