Yesterday, I made a fast foray into the jungle of the front yard. It was a typical July day in South Carolina–hot and humid, though the humidity had not yet reached the level of “air you can wear”. Still, if I had walked all the way around all seven ponds and through the “back forty,” I would have been hot and sticky when I came in. I took out my older Canon EOS 7D with the Lensbaby Velvet 56 lens to make some images. I am out of practice with fully manual modes of photographing. I kept forgetting to check the exposure before pressing the shutter button. I had to make numerous post-processing corrections in Lightroom.

During our Kinship “An Elemental Year” practice circle discussion, we were given the question: what does summer feel like right now? Besides the usual responses of hot, humid, buggy, stormy, I threw in the word “upheaval.” This has been a summer of upheaval, especially regarding the status of my church. The question of disaffiliation and dissolution has caused a rift among the members (and families) that I’m not sure time will even heal or repair. My heart has gone beyond “broken” to “wounded.” The question I had after the practice circle is one of how I can capture those emotions in photography.

A subject that has caught my eye in the last several walks through the yard is the common thistle plant growing at the edge of the woods in the front yard. I have photographed it when it was in full bloom with lovely purple flowers and now when it is the fluffy seed head stage. Those seeds are ready to spread themselves in the wind. The yellow black-eyed Susans (or are they coneflowers?) are also in bloom now. I even catch the yellow jackets or honey bees or whatever insect they are on them. The bees belong on those flowers. The seeds are ready to leave the plant.

Belonging and upheaval. Stasis and movement. Longing and contentment.

It has been a summer of inversions and contradictions. It will take some time for me to sort everything out and find a sense of peace again. But I will continue to walk as often as I can with and without my camera. I will still look for the beauty in the world in the extraordinary and the mundane. It is cliche that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Yet it is true. There is beauty. I just have to look for it, even if it is the upheaval.