Sacred and Profane
Recently, I was on retreat at one of my favorite places amongst the coastal California redwoods. The land, the trees, the misty fog that comes and goes, the star-filled night sky are all utterly magical. The elementals of this sacred space soothe my soul, filling me with the resilient energy required to face the daily mundane and the global profane. I’m particularly tuned into trees. (See my book Trees, To Walk Among Friends). So it was with gut-wrenching sadness that I came upon a vast swath of recent logging that laid a hillside almost bare. How do we find beauty even amidst the ugliness, scars, and devastation? How do we practice the notion that both the sacred and profane are Holy? I struggled with this during my meditations as I noticed a range of emotions moving through me; grief, anger and disgust for greedy, insensitive humans; the pure delight of dancing with rays of sunlight piercing through tree branches, made more visible by the roiling mist. Eventually my emotions and my energy settled on the middle path of equanimity, with the uneasy comfort that Mother Earth will heal herself and outlast us all. We humans are merely specs of dust floating in a cosmic sunbeam.
Beauty-as-Medicine™ Gallery (Click on any image for larger view)
Profane and Sacred
I doom scroll less and less these days and yet, articles keep showing up in my Substack feed of continued genocide, war, heatwaves and disease in various regions of the world. Right here in the USA reservoirs and rivers of the desert Southwest are running dry as water rights lawyers argue over that which no longer exists. And the Forest Service sprays glyphosate and other pesticides on our trees to help native species overcome invaders. Have we not learned that all of this meddling by humans causes one “natural” disaster after another? Not to mention how sick we’ve become thanks to the agrochemical industry. Every poison sprayed impacts every creature, every plant, every cell large and small. That shit does not discriminate. (Re-read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, published in 1962). But I digress.
Substack also sends me inspiring photographers to learn from and follow. Mark Cornick does beautiful abstract intentional camera movement (ICM) images (what I call Camera Dancing™), and Marco Secchi a long-time Getty photographer based in Europe is a great teacher. Both are helping me fine tune my seeing even after all these years. As a contemplative photographer, it is my dharma, my duty as Chittister says, “to give beauty away so that the rest of the world may, in the midst of squalor, ugliness and pain, remember that beauty is possible.” In these long dark times when nothing is normal or ordinary, when everything happens everywhere all at once, backwards and upside down… what is your dharma, your passion, your medicine? What keeps your heart’s fire burning that you thrill to share with others?
2026 Retreat & Workshop Dates
PhotoPlay for the Soul – June 10 @ChI Retreat, Santa Cruz, CA
The Seen and The Unseen – July 15 – 19 with Katrina Leathers in Holden, Maine
(spots still open until June 15)
Celebrating Spirit’s Bounty – September 20 @CCC Tiburon
Beauty-as-Medicine™ photo card decks for sale
Printed on deluxe 6×9 sturdy postcard stock with velvet finish, they feel lovely in the hand and are large enough to practice visual meditation and psycho-spiritual inquiry. An instruction card with prompts comes with each set. Email me if you’d like to experience Beauty-as-Medicine™ healing photography with me, or to order your own set of photo cards. $108 for each set (vertical or horizontal), or $200 for both, shipped directly to you from the printer.
Thank you for reading my musings and spending time with my photos. Feel free to send me comments and to share how this writing and imagery touched you. If you, or anyone you know, are on a spiritual quest, celebrating a significant threshold in need of spiritual guidance or a healing ritual, please reach out. This is an AI-free zone.
🙏🏻 Namasté 🙏🏻
Rev. Lisa
Email: lisa@Ljwdivinesight.com
Spiritual Guide. Wise Woman.
Contemplative Photographer. Mystic.
Beauty-as-Medicine™ workshop creator.
Spirit-Infused Healing Photography Books for sale at Blurb
“Photography is my love language. Teaching people to see Beauty-as-Medicine™ is my Ministry.” Rev. Lisa