Special Forces

(R)ed (L)etter (R)esolve.

~ Seraphim Fire Photography ~ 1 Comment

It is the last days of January, and if you are one of the 40% of folks that made a resolution, I hope that you are working to keep it. You might instead, be more logical like my husband to be; seeing it more as superstition. Either way, there is history in retrospect and in setting goals for the year ahead.
New Year’s celebrations started as far back as Babylon, but were originally practiced in March. It was the Romans that chose January, and it was not without sound logic that the change was made. January is named after the god Janus; a two faced figure with one gaze directed to the past, while the second one faces forward, looking into the year ahead. This god is represented  by doorways, arches and passage ways; also as the beginning and the end. As I struggled to pin point my resolution for 2012, I learned that the word for this god is duality, which brings me to the start of my year, and the seven resolutions that resulted.


Resolution one: Stay full.              We spent the actual new year in Buffalo, Wyoming. I learned to ice skate for the second time. It had been nearly fifteen years and I admit that I was nervous, but it only took a few minutes and I was gliding along a large backyard pond, watching everyone around me smile in encouragement. In the four days that followed I watched the kids sled and squeal the entire length of a large hill, and the sunset looked different every evening.



We ate delicious home cooked meals every night, made cookies with molasses and I swear that I was full the entire time. Full of love and adventure; all the things that through out the year, we forget to savor. So I did, and I resolved to do so all year long.

Resolution two: Give thanks.              My sister Michele and her husband Billy have been expecting a little girl, and sure as the new year will always come, Julia made an appearance on the first day of 2012. If you read the blog you already know that one of my favorite subjects is the glow of growing families. Julia Mavis was no exception, and when held by her dad, her eyes bloomed like wildflowers. What a perfect reason to give thanks for blessings received.


         

Resolution three: Use visual cue’s
.      I do not care for pencils. I enjoy both the consistency of good ink, and the permanency of it. Pencils, despite leaving lovely silver stains on my fingers, are of no real use to me. But a few days ago, while waiting in line at the bank, I watched a man jotting things down in a small sheepskin notebook; those of which I could not read, but still I sat watching. What I noticed was that  he made a mistake in his notes, turned his pencil around, erased, and then started again. What he had written was not gone completely, the eraser could take only the surface. The ideas would remain etched into the paper, even after new things would cover them. For better or worse.
I found so much joy in that secret and quiet little moment, thought about the human brain and it’s similarities to this simple process. But then it was my turn in line, so I stepped up and forgot it.

When I got home that night though, I took out a box of pencils buried deep in our kitchen drawer, and stuck two of them into my purse.
 

Resolution four: (Wo)man vs. Machine.      It may come as a surprise when I admit that over the years I have teetered between a decadence for and complete rebellion against, new technology. I mightily tried avoiding the digital SLR, but in 2005 when I finally started using one, the world shone in technicolor. I swore against the laptop computer and I sit now, only a few years later, in front of my 27 inch iMac screen, and I love it. I may be the only living person left in America without an iPhone, and until recently I swore that it made me less neurotic. That was until Christmas Eve, when Drew & I were given the new iPad. I believe now, after so much exploration and education upon it, that in 2012 I resolve to treat fascinating movements in technology much like I do my diet. Everything in moderation. 
The truth is, these tools are much like doorways, and Janus would be proud I think, depending on how he looked at it.

Resolution five: Write more love letters.      A few days later while doing research for this blog I sat with my feet curled underneath me on our couch. I typically suffer a very lofty bout of writers block mid-month. It lingers like a cold until my deadline has slinked up the walkway and it is during this first week of it that I try to remember how consistently this happens, and that I am not a complete loser that has no writing ability. It was on this day, about an hour into my process, that I received some inspiration, just in the nick of time.

Aubrie Nettle has perfectly kept dark hair and striking Italian features. She wears her sense of humor like a style, and during one of my best and hardest years (and Drew’s second deployment) she cradled me with her kindness. It never occurred to me that, during that time, I was influencing her as well.

Dearest Regan,
This is a love letter. To my friend. Who I miss terribly and love deeply. I have a theory about you. I used to think of you as a bird. Flying here and there, landing, floating. But no. You’re a tree. You don’t just move in and out of places and lives. A piece of you stays. You know that right? You have roots here. And in New York. And Texas. All these veins run back to you. Wherever you sit under your own canopy of shade.…Feel free to use part of this on your blog. I read it feverishly, looking for a glimmer of me. Not in a selfish way. But for reassurance that my impact on you mirrors yours on me.
Aubrie Nettle
2012

I didn’t end up writing that day, instead I sat in a little puddle of gratitude. I sat for a while, thinking about love letters and how special our friends are. It took another three days before I wrote a word, but each day I found a little more strength and when I couldn’t focus on the blog, I read Aubrie’s letter.

Resolution six: Don’t change a thing.
On that thirteenth day I was lucky enough to visit with my brother and his wife, Amy. We don’t see each other often, so when we do I hold tight to the conversations, even the silly one’s, and little bits of me feel comfort. I had been thinking about my new years resolutions, and how they were starting to pile up, but still they stayed undefined. I felt lazy, like one of the guilty one’s, that let their resolutions sit idle or abandoned them completely, with their gazes down. As if they didn’t notice their luggage sitting there behind them.
It was late in the evening, and we were all getting tired.

As we all sifted down a long hallway, Britton and I kept talking.
“You know what my resolution is this year?”
He smiled as he asked me so I would know what to expect from him. But what he said surprised and delighted me.

“I’m not going to change a damn thing.”

He hugged me goodnight and turned to go,
and I thought that I probably wouldn’t change a thing either.
I would keep striving to be just like him.

Resolution seven: Love, ferociously.        Since returning to Colorado, I have accepted contract positions with some local companies in order to meet local artists and get my name back out into the circuit. One such company is Yellow Paddle Photography, and last week I was lucky enough to shoot a beautiful couple that is planning their wedding for September.

On this afternoon, Whitney & Tyler shared their story with me, while my camera and I captured it, and I remembered just why I love what I do.

       

 

In honor of my resolutions, I am sharing some of my remarkable discoveries.
The following is a list of inspiring and artistic shares, all related to living, loving, and photography:

Resolution one: For delicious recipes visit http://www.smittenkitchen.com
This woman is amazing and so knowledgable with her recipes. She also makes home made baby food! The beautiful photography is simply the icing on the cake!
For creative games and projects for kids, visit http://pbskids.org

Resolution two: When I am looking to feel gratitude I visit
http://dearphotograph.com and look on all the memories that these people have worked to duplicate.
It is truly remarkable. Please take time to find inspiration in these projects, and say thanks for what you have.

Resolution three:
Please visit Dalton Ghetti Pencil art
Dalton is from Brazil, and his work is obviously striking, but when you consider the time and patience it takes to complete his pieces…. well, have a look for yourself.
http://oddstuffmagazine.com/extraordinary-art-on-pencil-tips-by-dalton-ghetti.html

Resolution Four:  Did you like that amazing door necklace in this last post?
You can get one of your very own from Ryan Talbot. He is a local artist and teacher in the Denver area.
Contact him at  rytalb@yahoo.com
And if you have time to kill on your iPad or iPhone, why not  visit http://www.stumbleupon.com instead of facebook or playing another game of Angry Birds?
It is time well spent.

Resolution Five:
Please contact me at info@seraphimfire.com if you are interested in seeing a PDF of The Love Letters, A collection of photographs and corresponding writings.

Resolution six:
Visit http://www.ramblecreek.com for information on Britton Beisenherz and his recording studio.
Looking for some new music? Monahans are Austin based recording artists. You can find them at  http://www.monahans.net

Resolution seven:
Please visit http://www.yellowpaddlephotography.com for more information on wedding photography in the Colorado area.
For more work by me, Regan Beisenherz, please visit http://www.seraphimfire.com
For wedding inspiration visit http://www.greenweddingshoes.com

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A Travel (B)log: Changing lanes…

~ Seraphim Fire Photography ~ 5 Comments

The apex of my circumstances these last few years have usually taken place behind the wheel of a car, or in the seat of an airplane; there is always and of course, the lens of my camera too.
It has been a period of transition, as they say. But luckily,  I believe that we grow the most when placed outside of our regular routine.
(It could be that I believe that because I can’t remember last having one.)
So, in both a blessings wake and what would feel at times like a dare, I traveled from one end of the country to the other; changing as I went, my entire life.

September:  Olympia, Anacortes & the San Juan Islands

If W. Clement Stone was correct , and we are a product of our environment, then I am the product of a small green suitcase with one broken latch. In both the state of our living and all the states that we still have to travel through, I have realized what few items are my desert island five, and how to strategically fit them into the suitcase with one broken latch. It is a shame I think, that I can not sift the salty sea air of Washington and some how steal it away in these last days of September; as summer drags her fingertips across the Sound just one more time.


We have been living in one long narrow room for five weeks. The tenants of a local Olympia hotel while Drew will finish what the military calls his ‘ETS’. It stands for ‘estimated time of separation’, one of the many acronyms that I have learned in the last two years. So to break out of the monotony of working and waiting, Drew & I filled the car with our two dogs, his pack and my little green suitcase and headed almost four hours north to ‘Deception Pass”.

(Named by Captain George Vancouver in 1792… “Feeling that he had been deceived by the nature of the inner waterway… he wrote on his chart ‘Deception Pass’.” )

To cross this amazing channel means that you have finally arrived in Whidbey Island, just the first in a long and beautiful string of Islands in the very north corner of Washington. The plan was to spend the weekend on the shore with family, coaxing mother nature into kind temperatures….


She listened so well that we didn’t leave Anacortes for almost three weeks. Instead we combed the beach and made boats, played pirates and always stayed “just one more day.” One of those rare times in life when we followed only our bliss, while we let the rest sit waiting.


October: ‘Our last gasp’, the I-90 stretch and an early Thanksgiving in Mexico.


We finally left Washington in the early weeks of October with two walkie talkies and a dog in each car to keep us company. It took three days on I-90, which meant time to enjoy the way that the color of the sky changed as we passed through Idaho in the early morning, the moon rise in Montana, and
the density of the dry Wyoming air. For me, it was a welcomed change. Like Colorado was waving hello, and I knew it wouldn’t be long.



We only had two days in Colorado before we hopped a plane to Mexico for an impromptu Thanksgiving with my family. (On October 12th!)
It was just enough time to find an apartment and lock it behind us.

 

What a blessing that we should once again find a reprieve from all the change; with only the shadow of love to fall underneath. It was one early morning on this trip that I stole away to simply sit and give thanks.

 


A few days later the reality of my  ‘best laid plans’ surfaced. Seraphim Fire had a wedding booked at the end of the month, which meant that I had four days to get the sand out of my  suitcase and pack for the next flight.

  

Sasha Gil, a beautiful and long ago friend from my days in New York, works in fashion and now lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Her fiance Wallace is from Greenville, South Carolina. For a chance to capture their southern wedding day, I would head East.

           
           

It was my first time visiting one of the Carolina’s, and turned into one of those magical trips that made me want to (despite all odds!) pick up and move again.
I suppose that is the curse of being malleable. Each place I have been, I have left a small but imaginative piece. One that can exist right there, and maybe never go any other place.


November: Coming home.

On the plane ride home, I imagined clicking my heels together slowly.

Like Dorothy would have.

I immediately pictured myself in Drew’s arms, and I thought of the dogs taking up my side of the bed.
I always thought of myself as a gypsy. Someone who flowered along the roadside. I realize now, that  my home is not defined  by which state line I land within, and it isn’t ‘my next big adventure’ either.

Now, when I picture the future, it always has just those few simple things.

And of course, my camera.

I wish you all the happiest of holiday’s, and I remind those that find themselves absent from my photographs to give me a call.
Because I celebrate life through the lens, you (come one, come all!) are always welcomed.

Please visit http://www.seraphimfire.com for contact information,
and if you enjoyed this blog post, please pass it on…

“Let’s stay together.”

~ Seraphim Fire Photography ~ 2 Comments

There truly is no telling when inspiration will strike. For me, as July just started creeping in, it was on board a 220 heading back to Seattle. I can officially call it a trend now. Whenever I am flying, all those dormant thoughts and considerations are pulled to the top; demanding proper notice. And it is not conversation that I want. I long for clean lines on a page, or the familiar click of my keyboard. (Secretly, I wish it was more the clank and clutter of my typewriter. But TSA would have a field day with that.)

Heading west from Chicago Midway, I sat there in an aisle seat thinking about age and memory. I think that ageing is miraculous because it makes us all collectors of people and things that, thanks to our amazing cognitive skill, link themselves to memory. When I catch a glimpse of my tattoos (a moon and baker’s dozen of stars across my upper back) I always recall how I felt the day that I got them.  I felt brave and independent, but I had support all around me.
Like all the stars in the sky.

Most of you can relate to this, but if you still need proof, think of your senses. Your mother’s cooking, your grandfather’s aftershave, or the combination of the outdoors and a specific bottle of wine. The sight of the label makes you smile all alone in the grocery store, and even though the memories sometimes hurt, the power that we have as humans to transport ourselves back in time…
In that way, we are never really separated from anyone.
It is the greatest trick that I have ever learned.

As most of you know, I have been in the home stretch of a deployment with my soldier. Since very early March we have each learned the survival skills necessary to make it through months of rare and scattered conversations over very dodgy phone lines. The time difference is a fascinating 11.5 hours between here and Afghanistan, and obviously there were weeks that we could not match our schedules.

So, to survive the time and reconnect with myself, I planned a trip for the last half of the month of May. I had work waiting for me in Denver, and then I would continue east to Chicago and for the first time really take a look around. I have driven through the windy city twice before, but this would be my first official visit. While there, I would also have the pleasure of  watching a very dear friend of mine graduate from Rosalind Franklin Medical school of Chicago.
 

Lindsey Ann Long is a stunning woman of extreme intelligence. She has also been my best friend since 8th grade. Although small in frame, her warmth is consuming. And if you could weigh her heart it would read in quadruple digits. I love her more than chocolate. But mostly, I love the way that she can always some how help me see myself in a new way.
A kind and more forgiving way.

And then, while sitting in the Civic Opera house with ‘Pomp & Circumstance’ playing all around me, I allowed myself to pull apart the dense damn that had been blocking some very pushy emotions; holding them back for fear of drowning. I remembered the day that we met, (I wandered into the wrong gym class. A new girl in a new school, a couple hundred miles away from Texas.) The day we separated after high school because we had been accepted to separate colleges (to me it felt like the severing of skin), and now here we were all these years later and not a beat had been skipped. It got me thinking though. What is it about me that attaches so deeply? That feels so passionately locked into a moment? Inevitably, in this fast world, is it a weakness or a gift?

A few years ago I read a quote by Tom Robbins that said:
“I believe in nothing, everything is sacred. I believe in everything, nothing is sacred.”
I loved it. What a very clear call for balance.
(The funny part is, I had always remembered it as being “I love nothing, everything is sacred, I love everything, nothing is sacred.”)
See that’s the thing with memory. It is subjective and personal, and usually… wrong.

There are certain parts of ourselves however, that we simply cannot change. We cannot change our family or our skin. We cannot force ourselves to see farther than we do at one time, and we cannot against all effort, stop being who we are. We can say for a time that we are not that. We can even lie for so long that we believe it to be true, but in my opinion we share just as much nature as we do nurture. The key, I think, is to respect the fundamentals.
I am a lover. I love the earth and all it’s simple textiles.
I love music and travel, and when I am driving long distances I sometime imagine myself a tour bus.

I see now that my passion gives me power.
It lets me show a child what their parents looked like at their age. I have seen them, in that moment, transform. He see’s a completely new person in his father and in my imagination that change creates new pathways for the child. Hopefully, they will be courage’s enough to keep exploring. Because the truth is, our parent’s growth is tandem to our own and the lead is always changing. There is never a moment when they are not capable of surprising you.

A few days before my departure I sat with a girlfriend at the breakfast table, our plates nearly cleaned. I said that I loved getting older because no matter what, it meant improvement.
“Improvement for me means joy, and the word choice is important. Joy is different from happiness, which is actually pretty easy to achieve. If you have a good attitude and a little perspective, happiness is always there. It can lay low, of course, but if you just look around you’ll see it is blended into the scenery. Birds fly around with it, the sky sometimes let’s it fall, joy however is a little more difficult to spot. It is usually a gift, given when you didn’t know you needed some, and it has this familiar but far away smell. Like childhood. Joy is stronger and lasts for a shorter time.“
She laughed when I said all this, and gave me an adoring smile.
“Oh Rea, I just love you.”
And right there, joy joined us at the breakfast table.

Regardless of our age, we are all getting older, everyday. You can argue that as our bodies and minds are developing, that we are gaining, but we are losing too. Along with dexterity (and ah! elasticity) we are losing the ability to love openly.
We feel silly, or embarrassed by strong emotion. We just grow out of falling. I wonder if it is because we are so much further up?
   Boudoir
 

People usually confuse this tragedy with maturing. So we make fun of people who are uninhibited, and we think we know better about the way some one else should be living.  And the sort of lame thing about it is that some of us are right. Some people are frustratingly careless about their choices, and some strangers are rude for no reason. Some children do need more discipline and the younger generations will always be out of touch. Even though if you really stop and look, nothing ever really changes. (Good one big guy, good one…)
 

The problem is that our focus on those things only personifies them, and then the only thing getting drowned out is the light.  With out light (and love is that if nothing else) we are incapable of seeing where we are headed. It is a substance that can be directed anywhere you want it to go, allowing it to enhance things already present. When you really love someone you allow them the pleasure of being just what they are, and forgiving the naturally dark parts. You do this because you remember that you yourself have them. You  also know their story, their particular struggles and weaknesses, and with patience and understanding you just love them through it. Because you know that really is the only thing.

That’s what the Beatles meant, that is what God is made of (regardless of which one you believe in), and that is what I’m selling here.
Because there are not many living things out there that ever flourished in environments of darkness & containment.

I am setting up the camera now…
Everyone get together.

I am also happy to announce that my sweet heart finally made it home. I want to thank all our friends and family for their support during the deployment. We are blessed.

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…and now for something completely personal.

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I took my first dance class in ten years on Monday. It was marvelous, and terrifying. Even with everyone’s, “it’s like riding a bike…”, running through my head.
When you choose to try at something, especially something that you have not done in a long time, there is always a moment that you wonder if you will be able to again.
The scary part consists more in the quiet little consideration, “What if I can’t?”
Most of us do not realize that this last thought is even there. but it is, in the form of anxiety; a little monster awoken by the chance of failure.

I am proud to share that  in this instance, I could and I did. And I put that little monster in its place.
I shared later in an email to my soldier how good it felt. And took note of something pretty special.
When I first made the decision to try dancing again, all the focus was on how much I remembered enjoying it.
But then I had to actually do it. What if my memory was wrong? Or perhaps I had changed? “Maybe I should just leave it to memory?” I said later, to a friend on the phone.
But when Monday rolled around, I went. And as I was standing in first position, my arms aching as I held them above me, I thought, “yea, the memory was good, but the reality is better.
I don’t think, until that moment, I had ever realized the difference. In the battle of was vs. is, is should always win.
That night I stayed up, imagining myself in an empty theater, dancing.

During these last few months, I have stubbornly sat on my intentions. All the while they’re wiggling underneath me.
I wanted so badly to finish the ‘mission statement’ in a third installment, and on January 8th I sat down to write it.
But all that came out was prayer.

It was about five days after I ran out of fortune cookies that Drew left for Ft. Bliss Texas. He would be there for the month of January, and it was then that I remembered the looming deployment.
The facts seemed simple enough, we would enjoy the month of February together and he would ship off in early March. But late at night, when I considered this while laying in bed, the facts they expanded in long endless ripples. That little monster started waking up.
For most of us there are those things that we just have to do. We have to get out of bed in the morning, go to our jobs, wash our faces, remember where we put the car keys. (Why is that last one so difficult?)
For me, the hardest one of these things would be saying goodbye to Drew.
But I know that I am one of  oh, 500,000 army families that have to go through this. So for those three weeks I prayed. For strength, for patience, for perspective.

And I admit it, that little monster ransacked the place.
The prayer helped though, so I just kept on… and I considered all of the challenges that went on around me, separate from me.

I prayed for a particular friend of mine, pregnant with her second child, tired and more sick than before. But each time that we talk she is so strong, and I can feel it shine all the way across the four states that separate us.
I prayed for my sister and her daughter; that they would continue to need each other as much as they do now. There are few things more beautiful and challenging then that bond between parent & child.
And for my aunt, that she would find some peace within a new chapter of her life, and welcome its freedoms with another birthday approaching.
I prayed that the people that I love would always know it, and I asked God to include himself in that. I even said that last part out loud.

But of course, the prayer always came back to Drew.

I prayed for the obvious things, his safety and sanity, But that goes without saying. That he be made strong and feel supported by all of the people that love him, (And the number is substantial)
for comradery between his team members and comfort where so little comfort is available.
I prayed hardest though that Drew see the change that he has made in my life. That he consider the strength that he has given me just in leading by example, and that he know how loved I feel.
He is the strongest person that I have ever met, and unbelievably humble. Genuinely kind & visibly fearless.
But with me, when all the doors have closed behind us, he is the person I have the most fun with.
I let it ache a little when I realize that the memory will have to be enough for now.

But in the battle of  is vs. was,
love wins.

“The Big Parade (1925) is director/producer King Vidors most famous, precedent-setting war film from the silent era. It was the first realistic war drama and has served ever since as an archetypal model for all other war films.”



“There is a link between color & light and memory & feeling. And all instances are captured in one of them, or all of them, and those images stay forever engrained in the fabric of our days.

That photo that hangs on every refrigerator, in every house that you have lived in since college; its faded colors are no less vivid to you.
In your mind, there are no corners missing, and the yellow sweater that she was wearing hangs now in your own closet.
(Only you never wear it, because ironically, you don’t like to think of how much you miss her.)
Now that particular color yellow always makes you grin. And even though you never realize it, your lover does.
He watches with intense pride as the icing on your birthday cake (that same bright yellow) creaks across your face in a thin smile.
One of a million different smiles that you have, and no one realizes except him that it was for much more than just the wish you made.”

-Regan L. Beisenherz-

 


The connection between love and lightning bolts….

~ Seraphim Fire Photography ~ 1 Comment

It takes a lifetime to discover the delicate nature of things….
We each find, at different times, that our parents are just regular people. That magical quality of theirs, although very real, is mostly the light of unconditional love.  
That is their gift.

We find that friendships are not obligations, but contracts. Entered into freely, we may participate as long as we like. The weight of those relationships however will grow as the number of connections begin to lessen, and the value of seeing someone change over time becomes a tiny and visible miracle caught in so many album pages.
We all, at some point, get to say: “I use to know them when…”

We see that as people age they protect themselves more & more, and maybe that’s the reason that we hesitate in letting go of old bonds. It’s not the adding up of years, but the lost days between us that become so important. A laundry list of imaginary numbers.

We learn that anger and resentment are toxins, the kind that bear down on us, and eventually end our lives; whether we actually die or not. With experience (and some common sense) shedding the bad feelings is learned, and they are replaced with the wisdom of forgiveness.              
To me, that is real freedom.
Freedom from feeling badly over the things that we can not control; a difficult task to master.

My favorite lesson (so far) has been realizing that my happiness is in my own control. It is this lesson that has given me the chance to stop dancing around certain difficult issues and just sit down with them.
I spent years trying, like a little steam engine, to look  into the eyes of the people that I would meet, and really understand  them. I did this so fervently that over the years I created a sort of super power. There was not a person in my path that I could not admire, in everyone there was something to love.
There were the stubborn ones that could not listen, but oh what resolve! I had to respect their design. There were the ever so smart ones that, although sometimes arrogant, always had something to teach me. There were the elegant and beautiful ones that did not use their voices and they struggled to connect in substantial ways. But I loved to admire them, and because they craved that admiration, I was able to give something back.
Then, there were the terribly naughty ones that had nothing to give, but would thrive on the negative energy created by their attitudes. But I eventually loved what they gave me… perspective.  

The hardest of these universal lessons is the one of patience, and the long standing joke is that we never actually learn it. We go on trying to wait patiently for the waiting to seem less taxing. Much like the long lists of ‘Honey Do’s’ always on the kitchen counter, there is also always something to wait on. I thought that I understood this lesson, even thought that in admitting my disability on the subject of patience, the Gods would some how smile down on me; spare me, in a manner of speaking.

And then I fell in love with a soldier.  

Gone away nearly six months, we have found new ways to connect,
and it has been during this time that I have seen the connection between love and lightning bolts.

Lightning is caused (very simply) by the difference in energy between the air, in the sky and on the ground. Most people struck by it can survive, however none are ever the same. Sometimes in the form of explosions in the sky or as warm Texas rain, the goal of the bolt is to strike ground; regardless of what it must go through to get there.
It can be relentless, but it will light everything around it;

making things much clearer, even in the darkness.