TOMALO
I M A G E S
The Flicker of the Flame
About TOMALO Images
Can you live in the here and now? We are normally kinetic in time, mentally bouncing from past, to now, to future. Only humans do this. Water and sky and rocks and trees and animals don't live in the past and future. How can one live in the moment? We need to remember how to do it. We come from the water and sky and trees and animals, ourselves. We can find this lost art, and make it a practice. It is always in a single moment, and only in the moment, that we are fully being (for we cannot really be in the past or future), and capture with our senses the beauty of the natural world, our friends, our family, and ourselves. What could be a more real state?
Or is it real? Maybe, as some philosophies hold, it’s all an illusion. Certainly we know that all things must pass, including, quickly, every single moment. But does that make those moments illusions?
We are real, like a flame that flickers only for a brief moment.
It could not burn a moment ago or a moment hence,
but it can right now.”
-- R. Holster
Sight is one of the greatest of senses that allow for visual examination of our world. The visual arts allow for capture of those moments. And I have a camera to capture those moments and go back to verify that they were real, and to reawaken emotions that thrilled me into pushing the shutter button. In that moment my finger accessed the natural world and `captured the flame’ with my camera shutter. So simple an act, yet catching that pristine moment today thrills me in the same degree it thrilled me catching a lightning bug in a mason jar as a child. It is the thrill of life and the thrill of a lifetime.
It is perfect in its moment. Or is it imperfect in that it is now a reawakened illusion of that nonillionth of a second I connected with nature? Either you are connected with life or you are not. It is through the lens that I find some of those moments of joy that celebrate the divinity and spirituality of the natural world, of which I am a part. In these works, I am the observer, yet fully engaged, and in love, with the observed. They are further proof to me that in that moment of time I was connected in a most beautiful way to all things, from the past, to the here and now. In this way we share our connection to our place in the universe, and while the reason we are here may be unknown, can I challenge you to live in the moment by becoming the engaged observer? Please come back from time to time to see what my future connections can offer as I attempt to capture the `flicker of the flames.'