I have been coming to this three or four-mile stretch of Taughannock Creek for many years now. I usually come armed with a camera, hoping to catch a glimmer of what is there for anyone to see at any time of any day. There is nothing particularly heroic in this enterprise. I am not out to photograph perfect plant specimens or capture a salmon disappearing into the mouth of a grizzly bear standing precariously at the edge of a waterfall. I usually bring a beat-up single-lens-reflex digital camera, one or two lenses, and a tripod sturdy enough to steady a shot even in the middle of a strong spring current. I come here frequently because it is a beautiful place and also because it is well within my bicycling reach whenever I feel the urge to spend some time where the wild is still apparent despite the ever-growing encroachment of human activity. The beauty and mystery of the wilderness pull me in, but awareness of the chaotic state of human society and the limitations of my mind and actions also nudge me toward the creek. I am all well aware that what sits in the space between these two ears is not “my” brain but the brain of humanity, a peculiar self-reflective organ overwhelmingly conditioned by the violent and sorrowful experience of the species during its entire prehistorical and historical journey. So, what brings me into the silence of nature, seeking solace and healing, is the appalling psychological, social, and ecological consequences of a largely irrational human mind. Far more than recreational relief, in my treks up and down Taughannock creek, I seek an unvarnished perception of myself as an integrant of humanity and perhaps some insight into our mysterious presence in the cosmos. I do not know if there is a solution to the conflict and suffering that has afflicted the species since it first appeared on the face of the Earth, but it is clear that if such a solution is possible, it must involve an end to the deception and alienation affecting every individual brain and mind.

From the moment I enter the space enlivened by the little stream, I feel a subtle relief and a surge of energy, both of which grow with the amount of time I stay there, enthralled by everything I see. These effects did not come easily to me. After spending my first forty years in large urban centers, I lived off the grid in an isolated cabin in the Catskill Mountains for over a year. It was there that I was finally able to overcome the experience of boredom or fear that prevents so many people from ever spending any significant time in direct contact with nature. The characteristic craving for certainty and security of an overly self-concerned and culturally programmed mind had to somehow subside before the solemn indifference of the natural world would stop eliciting reactions of restlessness or dread that would cut short my excursions into the wild or debase them with mental chatter. A fully attentive visit to the wild denies the gnawing sense of loneliness and insecurity that typifies the overly civilized mind, the mind isolated, conditioned, and atomized by accumulated experience and book knowledge.

It took time and determination, but it finally became apparent that being at peace in nature required me to accept that the world, evidently not of my own making, cares nothing about what I know, think, fear, suffer or desire. I can now remain quiet and alert when I am by the creek simply because I embrace the fact that I am nothing to this place, and more generally, to that immensity that is not me. None of the cultural attributes and psychological traits that make up my separate identity—whoever I may think I am and may want to become in the future—can resist being directly confronted with the withering anonymity of any part or aspect of the natural world, let alone with the impersonality of existence as a whole, actual and potential.

To be more specific, to the cosmic stream of life and death, as to the little stream that is the subject of this collection of photographs, it means absolutely nothing if I identify myself with any particular form of Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, or Hinduism, or with any of the countless flavors of the spiritual or the atheistic. Matters and claims of personality, temperament, character, gender, age group, race, educational level, social class, nationality, political persuasion, professional specialization, or artistic or sporting preference so dominant in social life are irrelevant here. The creek and the universe that cradles it will not congratulate me for the achievements and gains of my past nor console and counsel me about its many traumas, losses, and disappointments. Neither will anything here be in the least concerned with whatever labors and worries may be demanded by any dream I may harbor regarding future security and personal fulfillment. The point is that when the insignificance of one’s psychological presence is finally seen in the implacable mirror of nature’s indifference, resistance to the inscrutable all-inclusive embrace of life comes to an end. Then, with a spacious silence replacing the mental noise of self-concern, something else comes into being, something that cannot be captured by thought.

Total, undivided and unconditioned attention denies the hold that previous experience and the craving for, or fear of, future experience habitually have on the mind. As a result, words and images (the currency of self-centered thought) stop constraining and distorting the open field of awareness. In that state of fearless, non-projective being, sitting quietly on some rock or walking up and down the flowing waters of the stream, solitude is not loneliness but the timeless, anonymous awareness of the whole. It is not that “I” witness a grand spectacle, but instead that, in the absence of a knowing observer, it is as though the stream of existence were seeing itself through the impeccable optics of attentive human eyes and a mind made lucid by the disappearance of memories, present obligations, and future expectations.