Notes and Images from a Small Island (Practice 5 Day 4)

After some success yesterday with the waterfalls I decide to return to a location I have not used since before Covid 19 struck.  It is a series of small lochs punctuated by moorland and bogs.  Although there are blue skies overhead the day is dull.  However, as I walk towards the loch where I can normally find reeds and other aquatic life, I can see that the light and shade on the water is producing some beautiful shadows and reflections.  As I sit contemplating the scene and my theme of The Shape of Water, I start to think about water more deeply. . . and how I might reveal the essence of water.

Water is the essence and life blood of all things.  Everything relies on water to exist.  Therefore, is getting the essence of water, accessing the essence of everything else?  Being is dependent on being.

Water is fluid and dynamic and flows around and through other objects.  To capture the shape of water is to truly catch a fleeting moment never to be repeated.  My intention after reflecting on the location is to try to capture the surface shape of the loch.  There are moments of stillness and then quite significant movement stirred by a breath of wind.

My concern yet again, is whether I have captured the shape of water, but it seems to me that in order to access the essence of water it is inevitable that I capture its connections to other elements of the natural world – whether it be the rocks around and under the waterfall, living organisms on the seabed or the reeds around which the loch flows.