Tulipness.

Outside right now a robin is singing its Spring song over and over again. Hard to miss, and it is a lovely sunny morning too but I have passed over nearly all the information about what is really going on. The cycles of nesting, of eating and being eaten, the forming of clouds out of thin air and their drift on the gentle breeze. The relationships between everything that has no reference to human beliefs or practicalities. I think of the photo I took the other day of two tulips in the garden.

The photo was part of a series I was making using the on-camera flash on a bright sunny morning: setting the camera on the ground so small plants were viewed from below and the flash had the effect of darkening the background. An unusual point of view which is always productive of interesting pictures with the added bonus that it lead me into understanding the world from another perspective too.

Two tulips grew side by side, the taller trailed one petal down toward the shorter. I altered my angle of view so that the trailing petal just lined up with the other flower, - a diagonal and dramatic red line against the blue grey of the sky. The impulse for this pattern was elusive. Was it that I personified the flowers, elder helping younger, two dancers, or was there some other factor at play? Certainly it was the gesture, because I had worked to get the line up just right and ‘dramatic’ was in my mind. Seeing a dynamic thing happening here that was more universal than mere human transference. For that brief moment I was seeing the world from a tulip`s point of view and feeling the essence of tulipness.