Magical Seeing

When I was a very young girl, I was immersed in a magical, light-drenched natural world. I lived by the wild and undammed Wenatchee River. The mountain range called The Enchantments floated above my childhood home like an Avalon in the sky, seeming to be untethered to my little earth. The snow-covered mountains soared high and free above me and my family, guardian of all I was, protector of all I would become.

The Enchantments and Colchuck Lake. I’m not sure exactly who took this photograph–probably my dad, but maybe one of his friends or a member of his climbing club.

My dad photographed all this high country wilderness–macro, micro, telephoto and wide-angled lens and eyes.

My dad, Warren Brown, circa 194, with his Leica. — My dad, Warren Brown, circa 1974, with his Leica.

My sister became a watercolor painter of trees and skies with a fine brush for the details of the snowy owl, the raven, the vultures and the eagles.

My sister Cheryl Long, became a painter; this is her Snowy Owl. — My sister Cheryl R. Long, became a painter; this is her Snowy Owl.

We were a family caught up in a shimmering net of the beauty of place, and each in his or her own way struggled to live up to the emotional privilege of being somehow allowed to exist there for so many years in the wide arm of the river, under the great wing of The Enchantments.

We lived in a dreamlike world...Circa 1967. Left to right: my sister Cheryl, brother Lisle, me, our dad, Warren, sister Toren. — We lived in a dreamlike world…Circa 1967. Left to right: my sister Cheryl, brother Lisle, me, our dad, Warren, sister Toren.

I found my own way into the heart of this enchanted world through poetry and story and was lucky enough to stumble upon a career that sustained me in those passions. It was through poetry I first learned the power of what my photo teacher Laura Valenti calls, “Magical Seeing.”

Like poets, photographers immersed in exploration of soul must consider the contrasts between the elusive light and a rich and suggestive dark. In both word and image, poets and photographers like me struggle to capture the haunting, evocative mood, that sense of timelessness and nostalgia.

Memory, dream, reflections... — Memory, dream, reflections…

I like that these years I live in now are called my “golden years.” I can look back at that young girl and see that she spent her entire life in pursuit of this magical seeing. She understood with her heart what I can now not only feel but explain: that we live mythic lives thrumming with the vitality of light, and, as Valenti puts it, “Rich with meaning and mythology and magic.”

Valenti’s challenge to me is the one I have always put to myself, “What can I do to express ever more profoundly a magical way of seeing and being in my world?”

I still live in a natural world so explosive with beauty and detail that I could weep with despair over my inability to photograph it in a new and “more magical” way.

Every once in a while, numinous figures appear from the other side to guide me and reassure me I’m on the right track. In this moment, it was The Cow Parsnip Diva who brought the good news.

I read a book once on designing a Romantic garden. The primary tip my husband and I implemented in our garden is the concept of using arches to create receding vistas that open up to little rooms in the garden. Even a small lot like ours became extraordinary when we thought through adding these layers, these glimpsed views into other little secret gardens within the garden.

On an ordinary walk from my house, I can look through the surprising doorway into the deep reflective green of Delta Pond.

Earlier this week, I was out specifically shooting for “Secret Places,” and now I add this memory about building a garden to Valenti’s thoughts on seeing opportunities to photograph layers–through archways, under trees into remote and beckoning meadows, through the scrim of a rain cell moving fast across a sunlit valley.