These photographs were taken March 2010 in McDowell County, West Virginia. That is where I born and grew up. It is a very economically depressed area but a very beautiful place. My father and I would ride ATVs and wander around the mountains of the Coal Fields. Also, my best friend Sara, whom I have been friends with since birth, would hike all around the mountains.
I will admit, that I am an amateur at taking photographs (and this is also my first blog), however, for the year of 2010, I wanted to record the changing of the seasons in southern West Virginia. That year, I took hundreds of photos noting the changes in the landscape as the Wheel of Time come full circle. It was beautiful and I was able to do a lot of meditation and journaling that year.
Nature has a way of speaking to us if we take the time to look and listen. I am a person who loves symbolism and my religious views are mostly spiritual and pagan. This little project that I undertook gave me a lot of insight into my life then and still does two years later. Like this sunrise, for example.
The past year (2011) was a very difficult one for me. I had a lot medical problems and had to undergo ten surgeries. That situation not only affected me physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually as well. Most of us go through what is often called, “The Dark Night of the Soul.” Some of us have more than one in our lives. Last year was one of those for me. The Dark Night of the Soul can be compared to the season of Winter. We often feel that life is pointless and that our spirits feel cold and barren, like the landscape of Winter. However, during Winter, the land rests and through the death and decay of fallen leaves, dead plants, and branches fallen from winter storms, the land is nourished. The land is then watered with the melting snows and Spring rains. From the death of the land the land is reborn anew.
During the Dark Night of the Soul, we can let go of things of the past. We learn to do away with thoughts and beliefs that no longer serve us and challenge ourselves to become stronger and wiser. It is a spiritual, off with the old and on with the new, so to speak.
While looking at the pictures of the sunrise I took that very cold March morning with my father from the snow covered mountain tops, I realized a few things about my life. My surgeries were a healing for my body and my soul and that just as Spring follows Winter and the sunrise follows the darkest night, a new life will begin with the healing of my wounds. Not only in the physical sense of body healing, but my soul and spirit as well. It is always darkest just before the dawn, in the physical world as well as in the spiritual realms as well. Just remember to live each day as if it were your last, for none of us know when we will see our last sunrise.
dmhurt81 