"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular? But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right."

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sacred Walking

"...A kind of Hippocratic Oath exists among nature photographers: First, do no harm. Although I try to be careful and respectful when making photographs, I am always uneasy about the impact of being on a hillside with my equipment, especially following wet weather. Making photographs of this kind, especially macro shots, causes soil movement and that can lead to erosion: setting an undesirable chain of events in motion. One must be very thoughtful and attentive to what one does in the field. If the act of preserving an image of a beautiful flower causes its demise, it is not worth doing.

One of the most attractive things about natural history and nature photography is not only having the privilege of photographing beautiful objects and landscapes, but it provides one the opportunity to be alone in sacred places with them. It allows one to feel connected with them, and a sense of belonging stems from that association. Not only are we one human family; we are one biological family sharing space and time with all beings. Some Indian tribes endemic to North America—Turtle Island—used to refer to this as walking in a sacred manner. That is what I try to do, but I am not always successful, despite the best of intentions.

Belonging to a family entails responsibility, just as belonging to a community involves accountability to it. Knowledge about interdependence and connectivity requires that one share that knowledge and act responsibly upon it. It would be considered irresponsible and immoral to exploit one’s own family for private gain. Everything that we do circles back to us, and that is what is understood by the phrase, “we reap as we sow”. That poorly paraphrased biblical gem is also an ecological truth: all things are connected and interdependent. What goes around comes around, without exception.

Everything we do reverberates through the entire system because it is closed and interconnected; it is a world of finite dimensions. Even the cosmos, vast and unfathomable as it is, is also finite—as far as anyone knows. Another way of phrasing it is cause and effect. Global warming and over population are examples of this phenomenon. All impacts are cumulative. While individual impacts may seem small and insignificant; combined, they are great and global. Thus, it needs to be understood that impact does not remain local. Everything moves through the ecological system. Local effects do not remain localized for long; they reverberate throughout the entire ecology, and with widespread consequences. That is why we must be thoughtful and ethical in all that we do..."


Ecological Seeing:
Walking In A Sacred Manner

By Charles Sullivan

The more we care for the happinnes of others,
the greater our own sense of well-being becomes,
Cultivating a close, warm-hearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease.
This helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us
the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter.
It is the ultimate source of success of life
- Anonymous.

Sin...

"...there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft...when you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness."
-Khaled Hosseini, in 'The Kite Runner'.

Discoveries...and hope!

Its that age when you start realizing the 'behind-the-scenes' of the world that you live in. Overwhelming, frightening, and exhilarating, it can be the best thing, or the worst, that one experiences.
As i trudge through this age that i refer to above, i believe that i have discovered a set of 'behind-the-scenes' very different from what many of my peers have discovered for themselves. And what I’ve discovered scares me. An acquaintance was spot on when he said "Welcome to hell!” Ok, I’m not a pessimist..not even close...but I really don’t see our world heading for a brighter future, not the way things stand now. The world is run by a gang of wholly rotten people, whose every action is dictated by greed, power and self-aggrandizement. What scares me is not that I think that there are no good people left in this world. Hell, there are loads of them around. Unfortunately, most of them carry on with their comfy lives rather than step forward and dare to make a difference; to challenge that which is wrong; to confront those who seek to destroy or assume that which belongs to us, and generations to follow.
But there are those brave few who do step forward. And when things seem at their worst and all seems lost, they dont give up, but instead, they up the ante.
The reason they do so is- hope. Hope- that a brighter future is possible. When the rest of us dismiss these brave ones as unrealistic idealists, or just plain crazy, and those in power have the upper hand, it is hope that drives them to fight for the near impossible, Hope is a powerful thing.
So powerful, that it often lacks a description- except in a dictionary. I shall not go into that now, I lack the 'wisdom' to do so.
But, there is one question that swims around in my head. In what form is hope most potent? And when?
As i see it, hope evolves from a certain desire. During our daily lives, this hope lays dormant within us, but is never forgotten. It may surface from time to time, as we go about our routines, as mere reminders of those desires, and at times to give our current endeavours some direction. This dormant hope transforms into its more powerful form at times when the desire, from which it is derived, seems compromised in some way, or when the desire's achievability is in serious doubt. The maximum potency of hope is at that phase when it seems almost tangible; a secret weapon that has been suddenly discovered. It is when hope takes an 'earth-like' form; something we can relate to, or get attached to. It is the freedom fighter's anthem, the flag at a country at war, the song of summer sung during the depths of winter. These symbols of hope seem to arouse in us our greatest defenses, and our most powerful forces. It was once said that being a strong person is not about avoiding the blows that life throws at you, but being able to take those blows and then getting up again. Hope, at its most potent, makes you bounce back up.
To all those who have a fight - whether for justice, equality, human rights, the environment, or anything for a better world for all - i say: Keep the hope alive! Live it and spread it around! Use the hope to take the fight to the next level!

Polar Bears

Rock-Climbing at Badami...