Lucent by Bodhi Smith

Jan 24, 2020

"lucent" a new impression from bodhi smith...

i truly hope you enjoy this blog, with the selected accompanying musical tunes to go with my newest composition from death valley, california...

"there she was, up above me, she was pure and lucent. her glow, a soul bearing glow resuscitating my weary old body within her focused light, seeing love in all my wrinkles, and imperfections without judgement, bringing back my life through the darkness..." ― bodhinku, lucent

“sometimes in the shadows the view would light up, as if the contrast knob of creation had been messed with just enough to give everything an underglow, a lucent edge, and a promise that the night was about to turn epic somehow" ― thomas pynchon, inherent vice 

“she is the source of light in all lucent objects. she is beyond the darkness of matter and is unmanifested. she is knowledge, she is the object of knowledge, and she is the goal of knowledge. she is the luminous light situated in everyone's heart" ― anonymous, the bhagavad gita  

and here is a very lovely tune to listen to as you read my new blog...such a beautiful song in message, melody, and especially the lyrics..."glow" by elle henderson (just click on the song title, it is a link to the original video with its strong message about the meaning of life and love) 


“like a chest of hidden gold shimmers in the depths below, we are, we are, the treasures that they hide like the sun that saves the night bursting through a darkened sky, we are, we are, soldiers of the light and we will glow, oh, oh, oh...so let them build their righteous tower. our blazing hearts will burn it down...we are, we are, soliders of the light, and we will glow, oh, oh, oh...we are fire, we are fire and our love will burn, the flame will never die...we are brighter, we are brighter, let's show them how we light up tonight, and we will glow, oh, oh, oh we will glow...”― elle henderson, glow
 
"she's the moonlight
so lucent, so bright 
through darkness and night
her glow gives me sight
everything wrong becomes right" ― bodhinku, lucent light
 
“every morning we are lucent and in the evening we are lucent again.”” ― jalaluddin rumi, the music and silence of the heart
-------------------

MEANING
"when love takes you over, life is good...everything is luminous. life is glorious, lucent, alive. everything is glowing because you are glowing" ― bodhinku, when life is lucent
 
"lucent" is both a latin and english word defined as, "shining; glowing with or giving off light"...this new impression shows a scene in the desert where the moon is rising over the ridge to the east and the sun is setting below the mountain range to the west, as i stand in a basin in the middle of these two light forces, on a salt covered desert playa, -275 feet below sea level...this creates a unique glow from these two opposing light sources. the direct luminescence of the moon, and the diffused light-rays from the sun...and everything just is so very lucent, from the moon, to the clouds, to the desert floor, to the salt crystals...all is aglow in the light of the two battling forces in the sky...

"the lucent, cratered moon began its rise, casting a prism of light across the land, splitting itself into a thousand different parts, each more beautiful than the last. at exactly the same moment, the sun was meeting the horizon in the opposite direction, turning the sky red and orange and yellow, as if heaven above had suddenly opened its gates and let all its beauty escape its holy confines. the land turned golden silver as the shifting colors reflected off it, sparkling with the changing light, the vision glorious, almost like the beginning of time. the sun continued to lower itself, casting its glow as far as the eye could see, before finally, slowly, vanishing beneath the land's end. the moon continued its slow drift upward, shimmering as it turned a thousand different shades of yellow, each paler than the last, before finally becoming the color of the stars" ― nicholas sparks, a walk to remember

plus to add another level to the meaning...when love takes you over, life is good. life becomes lucent, everything around you seems to be glowing because you yourself are glowing...when i was standing here taking this picture, the light just overtook me, filling me with such a deep and profound love of nature, warming me and brightening me all at the same time, making me glow, making me lucent like the ground below my feet and the moon and sky above me...beautiful, so beautiful...
 
"the mental seduction of love and a boundless illusion, inflamed by a profound uprising emotion, can change any ordinary incident into a radiant, lucent voyage” ― erik pevernagie
 
"see me as lucent moonlight
in your sky, i'm your satellite
orbiting through our night" ― bodhinku, satellite
 
“put your thoughts to sleep, do not let them cast a shadow over the moon of your heart...let go of thinking.” ― jalaluddin rumi, the soul of rumi
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STORY BEHIND THE PICTURE
"i had a dream of you last night, i was all alone in the desert, surrounded by darkness on a desolate playa, and then you came to me and gave me light, you were the moon...i knew it was you, for you were the brightest of all the heavenly bodies, and something of this sort of certainty come but once in a lifetime" ― bodhinku, i had a dream
 
taken on 11-10-2019 under a (nearly) full moon sky, pictured here is a scene from death valley in the mojave desert, very very far away from any people and civilization...this is a remote wilderness area of the park and is only accessible via dirt roads and 4wd...an unforgiving and desolate area far below sea level where there is no internet, no cell phone coverage, no technology, no traffic, no other vehicles...
 
i loved being here, being disconnected from the world again for a spell, and yet so reconnected to nature, seeing a part of the wild world untouched by man, as it has been for millions of years here...not another soul for miles and miles, only myself and my good friend, and my aussie sheppard, my pup, besos...the "lowest souls" in the western hemisphere all weekend (at times we were close to -300ft below sea level!)
 
this is an eerie landscape formed in the heat and pressure that is very unique to desert surfaces which are markedly below sea level (-275 feet below sea level here)...and pictured here are natural shapes made by a thin layer of salt crystals (similar to ice) that are blanketing over the top of a very silty, slick, and dense mud layer beneath that holds moisture, but still dries out and cracks from the desert's extreme heat in places, and these dry cracks make edges that rise more than the middle parts (much like the edges of brownies or pan cookies) and create seams in the salt layer above it, creating the formations and shapes you see here...
 
what makes this image so starling beautiful is a combination of light sources surrounding me as i stood there transfixed and mesmerized by all i was seeing, truly a gift for my eyes, and such a lucent light holding me in pure admiration of mother nature...sharing in this moments with me was my new doggie at my feet, and my good friend a few feet away from me capturing this luminous display of light with his camera same as me...
 
the main light for this image obviously came from the moon, but what you do not see, is the remnant light behind me from already set sun, the blue hour as photographers call it, a beautiful afterglow of shorter wavelengths of red light that was mashing and mixing around me with the new light coming from the rising full moon, longer violet wave lengths of light coming over the mountains to the east before me, as i stood at -275ft below sea level, i was simply in awe of the lightshow i was seeing, a perfect lucent light...
 
i took only a few images (since my images are long exposures), and this particular one is one of the few that stood out and glowed better than any of the others for some reason i cannot explain, very noticeably more lucent on the back of my camera on this evening...
 
a side note...the strange salt crystals layer was like walking on thin ice, yet very spongy and cushiony, breaking through to the slick muddy layer underneath very often and then slipping with each step...very strange, and unnerving at times, like walking on slippery bed mattress for miles...
 
and yet another side note...i just returned to this spot on january 19, 2020 and this entire area of badwater basin in death valley is very delicate and susceptible to the weather elements, and with this being a basin, and with the extra rains from the winter, this entire area filled up with water in december 2019, which literally erased everything you see in this image, flattened and leveled it all out, smoothing out the entire area, removing all the nooks and crannies and rises and ridges in the mud layer under the salt crystals...another case of mother nature erasing her work, to start all over again with the summer heat and unforgiving temperatures to change this desert landscape back again into something infinitely different...
 
“the film of evening light made the red earth lucent, so that its dimensions were deepened, so that a stone, a post, a building had greater depth and more solidity than in the daytime light; and these objects were curiously more individual...the earth contributed a light to the evening” ― john steinbeck, the grapes of wrath  
 
“i want to be
in love with you
the same way
i am in
love with the moon
with the light
shining
out of its soul" ― sanober khan, a thousand flamingos
 
“be the rising moon in my dark nights.
i am thirsty for your light” ― jalaluddin rumi, poems of ecstasy and longing 
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MORE MEANINGFUL QUOTES
"i think the universe is on my side. heaven and earth have finally aligned. days are good and that's the way it should be. you sprinkle star dust on my pillow case, it's like a moonbeam brushed across my face. nights are good and that's the way it should be...did you see that shooting star tonight? were you dazzled by the same constellation? did you and jupiter conspire to get me? i think you and the moon and neptune got it right, because now i'm shining bright, so bright, bright, so bright...and i get lost in your eyes tonight" ― echosmith, bright
 
“how happy is the little stone
that rambles in the sand alone,
and doesn't care about careers,
and exigencies never fears;
whose coat of elemental brown
a passing universe put on;
and independent as the sun,
associates or glows alone,
fulfilling absolute decree
in casual simplicity"  ― emily dickenson  
 
“meditate. live purely. be quiet. do your work with mastery. like the moon, come out from behind the clouds! shine" ― siddhartha gautama buddha, sayings of buddha
 
“three things can not hide for long: the moon, the sun and the truth” ― siddhartha gautama buddha, sayings of buddha
 
"the self is constantly changing. be involved, be evolved, be revolutionized as lucent and fresh as the new wave hitting at the shore. become the sea of change. it starts from within" ― lao tzu
 
“never forget your real identity. you are lucent conscious stardust being forged in the crucible of cosmic fire”― deepak chopra

"a storm howls in my soul
a wild torrent of madness
feral, dark and raw
echoing my longing
through the ancient dunes

the desert bears witness
to the spell that forms upon my lips
a ritual woven of hope and aching desire
whispered to the swaying sage brush
witnessed by a blanket of starlight

there i stand in the darkness
digging my toes deep into the sands below
anchored in the solace of the earth
awaiting the rebirth that comes
with in the illumination of the moon

i am the altar
upon which the winds of change do blow
here i wait in silent worship
surrendering at the edge of the unknown
opening to all that lies beyond

at long last she rises
a jewel shining on the horizon
calling to the depths of my spirit
a feast of nightsong to sooth away the noise
her great strength granted to my outstretched fingertips

here my spirit is born
here in this nightlight
here my eyes finally see
here where all things
are eternally free" ― c. ara campbell (modified by bodhinku), the storm in my soul
 
“you have shown me a boundless love...a love that roams barefoot to feed its hunger through the desert...a love that strips off its clothes before running across the sand dunes...a love that would scale mountains just to howl to the heavens and see all the world shrink and tremble before it...a love that dreams through the day and comes alive through the night...a love keeping us alive...a love that knows no limits and never backs down from a fight...a love that burns and bleeds and laughs and cries, and shines like a lucent light with all the majesty of the moon and stars" ― beau taplin
 
“it can’t be helped. it’s you. and there’s nothing else. you are my eye’s only focus and my heart’s single truth. we could be standing on the surface of the moon beneath a blanket of stars, and still, i would see only you” 
 
 
 
"the moment i knew you were it? it was when i showed you the darkest parts of me, and, instead of running away, you rolled out a blanket, laid on your back, and pointed out the stars” ― beau taplin
 
“night air, good conversation, and a sky full of the moon and stars can heal almost anything" ― beau taplin

“poetry is the unheard cry of a flower, wilting.  it is a humble, lucent tear shed with meaning.  it is the lovely portrayal of ugliness and the bitter edge of sweet.  poetry speaks to the spirit by piercing understanding. it interprets all senseless truths―beauty, love, emotion―into sensible scrawl.  poetry is vague affirmation and bewildering clarification. a spiritual soothsayer, poetry is the closest thing to expression of feelings unutterable" ― richelle goodrich, making wishes

"no one else, love, will sleep in my dreams. you will go,
we will go together, over the waters of time.
no one else will travel through the shadows with me,
only you, ever believe, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon" ― pablo neruda
 
"may the fire of love grow in our hearts. may the fire of transformation glow in our movements. may the fire of purification burn away our sins. may the fire of justice guide our steps. may the fire of wisdom illuminate our paths. may this fire that spreads over the earth never be extinguished" ― paulo coelho, the alchemist
 
“it's a full moon here tonight, which makes me think of you. because, i know that no matter what i am doing, or where i am, this moon will always be the same size as yours, half a world away"― nicholas sparks, dear john
 
“and the greatest adventure is not going to the moon...the greatest adventure is going to your own innermost core" ― osho, the secret of secrets
 
"science is a day approach. in the full noon, everything is clear: distinct boundaries, and you can see the other well. logic is a night approach: groping in the dark only with the mind, without any experimental support, just thinking. poetry and religion are twilight approaches, just in the middle. the day is no longer there, the brightness of the noon has gone; things are not so distinct, clear. the night has not yet come; the darkness has not enveloped all. darkness and day meet, there is a soft grayness, neither white nor black, boundaries meeting and merging, everything indiscriminate, everything is everything else. this is the metaphorical approach. that’s why poetry talks in metaphors...and religion is the ultimate poetry; religion talks in metaphors. remember, those metaphors are not to be taken literally; otherwise you will miss the point. when i say the inner light, don’t think in terms of literal understanding, no. when i say, “the inner is like light,” it is a metaphor. something is indicated, but not demarked, not defined, something of the nature of light, not exactly light; it is a metaphor.” ― osho, tantra: the supreme understanding
 
“drink in the moon as though you might die of thirst” ― sanober khan, a thousand flamingos
 
“there’s a lambence, a soft, a lucent quality to the light, as though it came not from just today but from back in the old classic times. it might have fauns and satyrs and the gods from olympus in it somewhere. it lasts just a short while, then it’s gone" ― william faulkner, light in august
 
“she lives her life like a lucent flame; a dance of purposeful chaos...her enchanting light can guide you and quell your fears...she’s hot; warming those who respect her and burning those who don’t...she is a flame with an unforgettable glow…a weak man will try to dim her luminance...but her soul mate will take pleasure in fanning the blaze” ― steve maraboli
 
“elegance is a lucent inner peace. race is an ability to give as well as to receive and be thankful. mystery is a hidden laugh always ready to surface! glamour only radiates if there is a sublime courage & bravery within: glamour is like the moon; it only shines because the sun is there" ― c. joybell c.
 
"shine on me, sunshine rain on me, rain fall softly, dewdrops and cool my brow again. storm, blow me from here with your fiercest wind let me float across the sky until i can rest again. fall gently, snowflakes cover me with white cold icy kisses and let me rest tonight. sun, rain, curving sky mountain, oceans, leaf and stone, star shine, lucent moon glow you’re all that i can call my own" ― maya angelou, and still i rise
 
“i shot through my twenties like a lucent thread through a dark needle, blazing toward my destination: nowhere" ― carrie fisher, postcards from the edge
 
“lucent beings are we, not this crude matter" ― george lucas, the empire strikes back
 
“life is not a series of street lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a lucent halo, a semitransparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end" ― virginia wolfe
 
“are you the one with the blue eyes?...actually, my eyes are usually described as golden...and lucent” ― cassandra claire, city of bones
 
“for, in life, it is in the darkest places where one finds the brightest beauty and the most lucent wisdom" ― adam gidwitz, a tale dark and grimm 
 
“that lucent part of you that exists beyond personality–your soul, if you will–is as bright and shining as any that has ever been....clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly" ― george sanders
 
“for the earth itself is a blossom, on the star tree, pale with lucent ocean leaves”― rolf jacobsen
 
"all night i rose and fell, grappling with a lucent doom. by morning, i had vanished at least a dozen times into something better" ― mary oliver, twelve moons
 
“for, after all, every one who wishes to gain true knowledge must climb the hill of difficulty alone, and since there is no royal road to the summit, i must zigzag it in my own way. i slip back many times, i fall, i stand still, i run against the edge of hidden obstacles, i lose my temper and find it again and keep it better, i trudge on, i gain a little, i feel encouraged, i get more eager and climb higher and begin to see the widening horizon. every struggle is a victory. one more effort and i reach the luminous cloud, the blue depths of the sky, the uplands of my desire" ― helen keller, the story of my life

“moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars" ― j.r.r. tolkien, the lord of the rings
 
“this is of what i happen to dream...the totality of things, the whole, the entire universe, divine wisdom could concentrate their lucent rays from mirrors into a single mirror...perhaps the knowledge of everything is buried in the soul, and a system of mirrors that would multiply my image would then reveal to me the soul of the universe, which is hidden in mine" ― italo calvino, if on a winter's night a traveler
 
“i am nothing but oxygen and hydrogen,
a lucent and luminous sphere of plasma
held together by helium and gravity,
and like a balloon i float on earth,
waiting to be released back into the sky,
waiting to go back in the reverse
direction from which i came,
traveling through a warm tunnel of light,
and out into a cold, dark abyss
where i will explode into infinite pieces.
i shall leave behind my body,
just like air abandons the skin of a shattered balloon,
and the magnetic dust that carries my
heart and spirit will lift me back
to congregate and shine
with the stars.
home again,
in the fluorescent
kingdom of the constellations,
i will once again be called by
my soul’s true name.
and my heart,
it will flicker again,
with every memory from its many
lifetimes,
and with every wish
made by a child" ― suzy kassem, song of the star
 
"i am your moon and your moonlight too
i have come all this way, eager for you
i want you to laugh
to kill all your worries
to love you
to nourish you" ― jalaluddin rumi, poems of ecstasy and longing
 
“i worship the moon...tell me of the soft glow of a candle light and the sweetness of my moon” ― jalaluddin rumi, the soul of rumi
 
“the sun loved the moon so much he died every night to let her breathe” ― jalaluddin rumi, the essential rumi
-------------------  
 
ABOUT THE IMPRESSION  
"i'm in a dark funk, everything seems all wrong...but she is glowing in a smile, and she looks into me deeply with those lucent eyes and says, "you are the light that gives me sight"...and once again, my world is bright, all is right" ― bodhinku, lucent love
 
this image composition is a 2:1 cylindrical perspective panoramic impression, created from 5 separate long exposure images (and 1 short exposure image of the moon) stitched together using the 'photomerge' function in adobe photoshop...with the darkness of the sun's last light being lit by a full moon, long exposures were needed to allow the proper amount of light into my camera at the settings i needed to create this impression you see here and permit the foreground before me to be illuminated...
 
and since each of the 5 images is a long exposure, and need to be perfectly aligned to one another, a panhead mount on a stable and sturdy tripod was an absolute necessity in order to keep each of them sharp with the glowing salt crystals in the three foreground shots, combined with the sharpness and motion blur of the ridgeline-sky images (and i use selective focus on most of my images, similar to the way our eyes see things)...for this i used a dolica 70" carbon fiber tripod, because it is sturdy, tall, and perfectly compact....for me, this shot would never have been possible without my friends daniel and april at dolica tripods.

in my photography i always use filters to create longer exposure effects and to balance the light in my composition in camera...i often use as many as four filters at time, and i always use at least one filter...in the case with this composition, i used one filter on the sky exposures to get the effects and balance i was looking for...so, i used the 0.9gnd progrey genesis filter along with the progrey g-150z filter holder and adapter for my nikon nikkor 14-24mm lens...this dark graduated neutral density filter was selected to bring down the much brighter moonlit and sunset lit sky 3 stops and allow me to use the correct long exposure time on the foreground for bringing out the glowing salt crystals, and not have the sky clipped from brightness, permitting the details in the surface of the moon through as well...this balances in-camera overall the image the way i envisioned...

i wish to openly thank my sponsors who have always supported me through both the good and bad times...for truly this long exposure impression would not be possible without the use of my trusty dolica tripod in combination with the progreyusa filters which i use with every photo i take...
 
"in the day and night sky, the radiant sun, the colorful clouds, the twinkling stars, and the lucent moon light up the heavens above...but for me, she's my glowing heavenly body, she's my lucent light, she's my true heaven on earth"― bodhinku, lucent heaven
 
"contemplate without thinking. stop the world. slow down everything. shut off the noise. relax. seize this moment. reconnect. feel and sense what surrounds you. listen to all the colors of light that envelope you. see the melody and harmony that floats about unnoticed. taste the solitude of all this wonderment. smell the beautiful silence within your peaceful serenity. then, reach out and touch your faith. this is my world. awaken." ― bodhinku, my world
 
above all else as always, i hope this message and image find you well.

namaste,
bodhi
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