Seven Birds by Bodhi Smith

May 03, 2019

"seven birds" a new impression from bodhi smith
 
“like the meeting of the seagulls and the waves we meet and come near. the seagulls fly off, the waves roll away and we are we...” ― rabindranath tagore, stray birds 
 
"this beautiful bird, a little yellow-breasted finch, landed on my windowsill...she just stopped my time flow...i looked at her, for i could see nothing else mattered in that moment, and she looked directly at me, and then turned her head slightly sideways, and then quickly back...she then sang to me a wonderful melody of tweets and chirps in harmony with the sound of sunshine glowing through her feathers...her wild and innocent essence warmed all my senses, to my core...and all of a sudden with an assured certainty, i knew everything was going to be alright" ― bodhinku, little bird
 
“if you're a bird...i'm a bird” ― nicholas sparks, the notebook
 
“take each moment watchfully. watch your breath. and that is one of the most significant practices for watching because the breath is there, continuously available for twenty-four hours a day wherever you are. the birds may be singing one day, they may not be singing some other day, but breathing is always there. sitting, walking, lying down, it is always there. go on watching the breath coming in, the breath going out. not that watching the breath is the point, the point is learning how to watch. go to the ocean and watch the waves. sit on the beach and watch people passing by. watch anything, just remember that you are a watcher. don’t become judgmental, don’t be a judge. once you start judging you have forgotten that you are a watcher, you have become involved, you have taken sides, you have chosen. you are in favor of this thought and you are against that thought. once you choose, you become identified. watchfulness is the method of destroying all identification. don’t identify yourself with anything, and slowly one learns the ultimate art of watchfulness. that’s what meditation is all about. through meditation one discovers one’s own light. that light you can call your soul, your self, your god, whatever word you choose, or you can remain just silent, because it has no name. it is a nameless experience, tremendously beautiful, ecstatic, utterly silent, but it gives you the taste of eternity, of timelessness, of something beyond worlds" ― siddhartha gautama buddha, hakyamuni
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MEANING
this is my newest photographic impression, taken in clearwater, florida just before all the tourists start to arrive at the beach, still pretty peaceful and quiet of all the commotion to come, so much so, that even the birds have not been rustled from their roosts by any humans yet...and this impression gets its name from those very birds, because if you search through the entire image, there are seven birds to be found at various places within...
 
this is a very long 1:5 panoramic impression, creating an extremely wide perspective of this mellow beach scene...made of 15 vertical semi-long exposure images (each 30 sec), each shot at 80mm, and all stitched together using photomerge in adobe photoshop cs to create one single, extremely high resolution impression image with over a 180 degree field of view without having the distortion of a fisheye lens...
 
as always, i used both a 3-stop gnd filter in combination with a 10-stop nd filter for this composition (made up of 15 images stitched together, each shot at 80mm)...the nd filter was needed to soften the water flow and slow down time, and to also help oversaturate the colors and enhance the blues and reds in the image, plus i used the gnd filter to help balance the composition in-camera...and truly this impression would not be possible without the use of my trusty dolica tripod in combination with the progreyusa filters which i use...for this image i chose the new 10-stop 3.0nd progrey antarctica filter (if you have not tried this filter, you must put it on your list!) and the 3-stop 0.9gnd progrey genesis filter to help balance down the brighter sky/clouds with the darker middle ground and  foreground...
 
"why do birds fly? because they love the art of flying...why do people love? because we love the art of loving...being in love is like being a bird and flying...so if you are not embracing love right now, you are just a bird waiting to fly" ― bodhinku, love and flying
 
"the higher and higher we fly on our wing of love, the smaller and smaller we appear to those who have yet discovered that they have wings" ― bodhinku, wings
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MORE QUOTES TO ADD FEELING AND THOUGHT 
“muddy water, let stand, becomes clearwater” ― lao tzu, tao te ching
 
“why is it that the hardest thing in the world is to convince a bird that he is free, and that he can prove it for himself if he’d just spend a little time practicing? Why should that be so hard?” ― richard bach, jonathan livingston seagull
 
“hold fast to dreams,
for if dreams die
life is a broken-winged bird,
that cannot fly.” ― langston hughes, the collected poems
 
“some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. so you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. and the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure” ― stephen king, the shawshank redemption
 
"sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love

(all the merry little birds are
flying in the floating in the
very spirits singing in
are winging in the blossoming)

lovers go and lovers come
awandering awondering
but any two are perfectly
alone there's nobody else alive

(such a sky and such a sun
i never knew and neither did you
and everybody never breathed
quite so many kinds of yes)

not a tree can count his leaves
each herself by opening
but shining who by thousands mean
only one amazing thing

(secretly adoring shyly
tiny winging darting floating
merry in the blossoming
always joyful selves are singing)

sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love” ― e.e. cummings
 
“a bird is safe in its nest - but that is not what its wings are made for.” ― amit ray, world peace: the voice of a mountain bird
 
“you're a lot like that bird in the barn. you're so scared that you're going to be caged in forever, you can't see the way out. you smack yourself against the wall again and again and again. but the door is open. stop flying in circles and fly out.” ― katie mcgarry, dare you to
 
"you will have to create the path (of life) by yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. it is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints. one cannot follow them; there are no footprints left behind” ― osho, unleashing the forces within


"seven blackbirds in a tree,
count them and see what they be.
one for sorrow,
two for joy,
three for a girl,
four for a boy;
five for silver,
six for gold,
seven for a secret
that's never been told"  ― john brand, observations on popular antiquities

"everyone likes birds. what wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, and as universal as a bird?" ― david attenborough, life on earth

 

“i always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth, then I ask myself the same question.” ― harun yahya, the little man in the tower

 
“like the meeting of the seagulls and the waves we meet and come near. the seagulls fly off, the waves roll away and we are we...” ― rabindranath tagore, stray birds  

"be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings” ― victor hugo
 
“i want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.” ― jalaluddin rumi, a year with rumi
 
“birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. how do they learn it? they fall and through falling, they're given wings." ― jalaluddin rumi, the essential rumi
 
"rise up this morning, smiled with the rising sun...three little birds, pitched by my doorstep, singing sweet songs of melodies pure and true...singing, this is my message to you...singing, don't worry, 'bout a thing, 'cause every little thing gonna be all right..." ― bob marley, guitar chord songbook
 
"the nature of reality, like a bird, needs two wings to fly, one wing is wisdom and the other is compassion to balance it out" ― siddhartha gautama buddha, the dhammapada
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"how can you be holding me from doing what i want to do, when all i want to do is hold you?" ― bodhinku, holding
 
"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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