Keep your head up kid

I recently spent 4 hours of my life watching a CBC movie “Keep your head up kid” the Don Cherry story. We all have highs and lows in life but I was struck by how low life got for Don. I’d always seen Don Cherry as a loudmouthed commentator with an eccentric style, I’d never seen who he really was.

As I watched I couldn’t help but think that we are all at a place in life that is very far from where we could be; some of us feel hopeless and others feel helpless. Don Cherry said that it was when he was at rock bottom he said a prayer and very clearly heard the voice of God giving him direction. Things quickly changed and now years later Don Cherry is recognised as one of the greatest Canadians in history.

If you are going through a tough time, “keep your heard up kid” there is a plan for your life and it’s a good one.

Have a great day.

Rodney

On Senses and Origins

I'd been feeling rather flat today: feeling the struggle more than the delight and weighed down by what should be done and what might be rather than living in the moment.

It took my sense of smell to awaken me. I was standing in front of the stove making supper in the early afternoon. Stew to be exact. The tedious work for peeling and chopping was done. I was resigned to the fact that supper would be later than ideal. Just finished browning the meat (and the first batch was partially burned). And then it happened. In went the onion, the carrots, the celery, the garlic...and then the rosemary. Suddenly, the fragrance became overwhelming. Oh, it smelled so amazing! I just couldn't stop inhaling the incredible aroma. And a smile came to my lips, and a lightness to my soul...this was living!

As I washed up the dishes in the soapy water, I reflected on this experience, and was just as suddenly inspired to write about what I heard yesterday in my spiritual community, my church. My pastor (who has been so supportive of us in this process), was talking about the importance of our "origin story". What we believe about where we came from and how we arrived and why we're here affects us profoundly. It affects our purpose, our morality, and (one other thing I just can't remember right now!)

He went on to tell of a few different stories that are out there in the world. One of them was the Enuma Elish, where the purpose of the creation of man was to allow the gods more freedom from work:

When Marduk heard the words of the gods,
His heart prompted him to fashion artful works.
Opening his mouth, he addressed Ea
To impart the plan he had conceived in his heart:
"I will take blood and fashion bone.
I will establish a savage, ‘man’ shall be his name.
truly, savage-man I will create.
He shall be charged with the service of the gods
That they might be at ease!
The ways of the gods I will artfully alter.

So, if we took that to be true, we would have to see ourselves as nothing more than slaves created to do menial labour so that some higher beings would be freer to do what they wanted to without having to deal with "lower things" like taking care of the earth.

And he talked about the Hindu creation story and how different classes of people were taken from different parts of Brahma, the creator god, with the very lowest people taken from the dirt under his feet...and how this affects life in India even to this day.

And then there is the ongoing debate of whether we mutated over time to become the intelligent, creative, expressive people we are today, or whether we were the result of careful design (and there are all sorts of variations and ideas in between).

What we believe about our beginnings is crucial to how we live. I think I will be exploring this further...

Thanks to our newest participants

Just wanted to thank those who have just joined our project. Rodney had a great time meeting and photographing you. I think we are now at 85 images officially.

Just a note, the gallery shows February 26 to March 9th. We are having some difficulties changing our website. Sorry about the confusion in dates.

We are extremely busy, working on the book portion of this project.

This week, though, we have also enjoyed taking time for good food, fun with our kids, singing Christmas carols, and baking cookies. I've been thinking about how God could give up so much to come down to earth...starting out as a naked baby crying for his mama, just like every one of us did. Heard a great talk on this at church, actually. Some time soon it should be ready in podcast form here.

Anyways, we hope each one of you has a wonder-filled Christmas this year. I wish for me and for you: the time to enjoy good food surrounded with love, the time to be alone and reflect on your life and your dreams, and the time to think more deeply about the Divine Gift given so long ago.

Of Beauty and Wealth

As I was driving through the Rocky mountains last week I was struck by how much Beauty and wealth have in common and the more that I thought about it the more humbling it was.

Wealth, if you asked me if I am wealthy the first answer you would probably get after a hearty laugh is a resounding NO, you have to have money to be wealthy!!! In our society we measure wealth in terms of millions, billions or even thousands; but it always ends with dollars, not smiles, hugs, peaceful moments or even people whose lives you’ve touched.

This morning my 5 year old daughter come and cuddled with me for about 20 minutes, my almost 3 year old wanted to give me hugs and kisses and my 7 year old said “I love you daddy” before leaving for school, you can’t buy that so I am forced to ask myself am I wealthy??

I have recently been thinking a lot about the many people who have let me into their lives to capture their essence and memories and I think to myself am I wealthy??

I think of our family; this last year my mother in law has scared us a few times by going into the hospital with severe chest pain, yet as we prayed for her she came out of the hospital with the diagnosis that it was not a heart attack and again I ask myself as a family, are we wealthy??

Beauty; they say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, are they on drugs?? If you showed the same image, person, flower, or just about anything to 10 different people you would likely get 10 different answers as to it’s beauty. If this is the case is there really any absolute as to weather someone or something is beautiful? When I think of beauty I think of my wife Sonya, I think of my kids, I think of my clients, and I think of the creation everywhere around me, but am I right, is it all really beautiful?

My kids love to do art, and some of the paintings that my 3 year old comes up with simply bewilder me and yet to him he is proud to show me his latest masterpiece. Is his art beautiful?

I used to think that beauty was in the eye of the beholder but I have come to realize that too many of us as beholders are simply too screwed up to see, recognize and appreciate the beauty around us. My new philosophy is this, Beauty is in the eye of the creator and our creator has blessed us all with an abundance of it. Beauty is all around us and we simply need to open our eyes to appreciate it, so too we are all blessed with an abundance of wealth and our wealth looks different to all of us, but it’s ours to appreciate all we have to do is to open up our eyes and recognise what we have been blessed with.

Beauty and wealth, they look different to all of us and yet all we need to do is look around us to recognize how much of it we are blessed with so the next time you look into a mirror open your eyes and look hard to see how beautiful you are and how much you bless the lives around you and you will realize just how beautiful and wealthy you really are.

Blessings,

Rodney

Thanksgiving…. a little late

I love thanksgiving, it’s one time of the year where we are really encouraged to be very thankful and to intentionally stop, look at life and be grateful. This year I have many things to be very grateful for; I have my wife Sonya without whom I don’t know what I would do, I have my three wonderful children who make me smile so often, we have my family and my in-laws all of whom are wonderful people that I am thankful for and God has blessed us with health and strength.

When I think of thanksgiving I’m also overcome with a sense of extreme gratitude for our clients without whom we wouldn’t have our business and without whom we would not be the people we are today. I feel so thankful for each one of you, you make me smile whenever I think of you, it’s an honour to know you as people and to have you as clients and I think the ultimate honour for us is when you refer us to your friends because then we know that we have been able to impact your lives in some way.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

This week I have a special thank you to send out, in the past few weeks I have had the honour of sharing in and capturing forever in print the nuptials of my cousins daughter, capturing the maternity and newborn images of both clients and close friends, creating family heirlooms in some family portrait sessions and of course our specialty capturing the beauty and mystery that is “woman”. This week I also had the opportunity to spend the best part of the day with a group of women that work together, the 4 of them decided to come in to do an Eve Session as a Christmas gift to the men in their lives who had everything, well almost everything. These men will soon find out they didn’t have what they wanted most, some amazing images of the women they love. Girls, thank you for an amazing time, I had so much fun with you as we laughed, texed back and forth to co-workers, talked about them, ate great food, drank good drinks (Pepsi for we, wine coolers for the girls) and created amazing images in one of the most fun sessions I’ve ever had here at the studio.

I’m trying to teach my kids to have an “Attitude of Gratitude” and instead of grumping about things to simply be thankful and as I try to live that out I find myself a happier and more fulfilled person; so thank you all for everything you do to make my life better, I really appreciate you more than you will ever know.

Rodney

Glee

I’ve been hooked on a TV. show lately called Glee. Glee is a show about a musical group in a high school made up of some “cool kids” and some “looser kids”, it’s a place where in that group status really doesn’t matter until you walk out the door. This week it was revealed to the school that Quinn the head cheerleader was pregnant and she and her quarterback boyfriend Finn immediately went from cool to uncool.

Finn & Quinn tried everything they could think of to try to get cool again but all to no avail. I sat there thinking about how we all really just want to be cool or at least acceptable to those around us; I know that in high school I didn’t usually feel like I was in the “in” crowd.

Life is so much bigger than what people think of us, let’s all go out there and live life to the fullest; hug your kids, smell the fresh air and enjoy the many blessings that we have.

Rodney

Faith, Fun and the Circus!!

I’m tired and it seems there aren’t enough hours in the day. On the bright side the sun has come out a few times in the last two days and it has been a real mood booster to say the least to see that beautiful piece of fiery goodness.

This weekend we had a family outing on Saturday, we went to the circus together and then worked on some landscaping as a family. The circus, what a feeling of electricity I felt from our kids as we walked into the big tent in the Grant Park mall parking lot. We bought “Circus” Cotton Candy, and “Circus” Popcorn , a “Circus” Balloon and a “Circus” hotdog and mini doughnuts. What was so special about the “Circus” Food, to us it was simply really really expensive but to our children it was magical. It seems I have something on my forehead that says “Pick me” because in the whole tent full of people the clown picked me to come up on stage, be an idiot and ultimately get shot backstage (My kids were more than a little concerned about that) before ultimately emerging from behind the curtain to new life and a new lease on life.

Speaking of that I have had a number of people ask me about my faith, views on faith and all the rest of that mumbo jumbo so I will take a moment to let you into the deepest part of my being and share with you where I am at.

Firstly, I’m not a terribly religious person in that I define religion as a list of rules to follow to appease the Gods or God. I do however have a deep faith and here it is:

I believe that God loves me (and you) and has a plan for my (and your) life.
I believe that I (and you) have missed the mark that God has set out for us, and are therefore sinful and separated from God.
I believe that God sent his very own son Jesus die on the cross 2000 years ago to bridge the separation between us and God.
I believe that God gives us the opportunity to either accept or reject the gift of his son and thereby accept or reject the opportunity of having a relationship with him (although God is not a boy or a girl, history has generally given God the Masculine words like he, him, his) should we choose.
To put it another way, Dad just wrote us a check for a million but the money isn’t actually ours until we decide to deposit the check or cash it.

As a Christian I don’t somehow feel as though I’m any better than anyone else because I’m not, I have simply chosen to ask for forgiveness for my many imperfections. I have also been asked how as a Christian I can do the type of work I do at Eve Studios or the types of projects I do such as Just As I Am. The answer is a simple one, when I look at the universe around us and the world in which we dwell I see such incredible beauty everywhere I look and I feel as though God is the ultimate artist. I also look at the body that God created and marvel at the beauty and complexity of it and quite frankly feel as though it is the ultimate slap in the face to God to not appreciate and capture the beauty of the human body and spirit.

I know this is sort of the readers digest version that I’ve just given you but when it comes right down to it faith is not nearly as complex as many make it, God’s biggest command is “to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength; and to love your neighbour as yourself." I feel as though if we all lived even a little bit like this the world would be a much better place.

I hope this answers some questions, if not, call me up and set up a time to bring me a beloved Pepsi and we can sit down and discuss anything that’s on your mind.

Love you all,

Rodney

Party Time

It’s 10 pm and I should be cleaning up the studio after an amazing evening with you all (We had the official opening night of the first set of project images tonight ) but instead I sit here with a plate, no a very big plate of two bite brownies, creampuffs, shrimp and of course my trademark Pepsi. I wish to thank you all for coming out on this beautiful evening and celebrating the beauty that is you with us all. I also want to say a huge thank you to Sheena Grobb http://www.sheenagrobb.com/ for not only gracing us with your presence and musical talents but also opening up your heart to us.

Working on the Just As I Am project has been one of the most rewarding and significant projects that I have ever done, my life has changed as much as many of yours has through this process. This week has been an interesting week for me, it’s been a week of remembering many people in history that have had a significant impact on history the most well known of which was Mother Theresa; to thinking about Feron Hall a Winnipeg homeless man who risked his life to jump into the icy Red River to save a life. Neither of these people fit the mould that we as a society look at as successful; neither of them is particularly good looking and neither of them is wealthy. Money and looks are the measuring sticks that we as a society use to determine worth, if you don’t have one you had better have the other to be seen as valuable, yet both of these people are honoured by us even though it seems that they have snubbed us and our way of doing life.

I’ve heard it told (although I have not verified the story as fact) that some years ago Pope John Paul 2 felt that Mother Theresa should have a decent vehicle to drive around in so he donated one of the Vatican limos to her. Mother Theresa being the gentle spirit that she was thanked him and quietly sold it and donated the money to the poor (although she herself was living a life of poverty).

Feron Hall in the aftermath of saving the young man in the river has had a long list of people step up to “Save him” from his life and get him on track so that he can be just like us but Feron in his gentle and kind way has gratefully declined saying that he is happy with his life the way it is and doesn’t see the need to change right now.

All of you who have so far been a part of this project have been a lot like these two individuals, you have stepped up and said I’m more or less at peace with who I am and where I’m at, that is more than most of us in our society ever get to. I want you to know that I’m proud of you and grateful for the way you have impacted me.

Blessings.

Rodney

PS We’d be interested in hearing what your experiences were tonight so please take the time to share them.