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I have a love for trees, especially ones that are twisted or burnt. In this gallery, the larger trees are ancient Bristlecone pines, which are some of the oldest living being on Earth. The smaller ones are various trees and shrubs from across the Eastern Sierra.
It took going to Death Valley in the middle of a pandemic for me to become comfortable with self-portraits.
My love of Iceland started many years ago when I did a two-day stopover in Reykjavik in winter. It's a magical time with limited hours of daylight. I have been back several times since. The horses and waterfalls keep calling to me.
I find inspiration in medieval reenactment as part of the Society for Creative Anachronism.
The Five Elements are: Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, and Metal. Each corresponds to one of the five Chinese seasons. To read more about the "Living with the Five Elements" please the see the interview with me by Jen Strongin in Alameda Magazine.
Please note: I am working on a 10th anniversary edition of the deck that will be out in 2024.
The Kuan Yin oracle deck is based on an ancient system of divination dedicated to and inspired by the Bodhisattva of Compassion. This photographic version combines my photographs and the poems as translated by Stephen Karcher in The Kuan Yin Oracle: The Voice of the Goddess of Compassion. (For further information on each poem, please see his book.)
There are 100 cards for 100 poems (plus a small folio with information and instructions). You can shuffle the cards, think of a question, then choose a card (or cards). The lines at the bottom correspond to bigrams for each season, and there is a moon phase associated with each poem as well.
The 10th anniversary edition of the deck will be a fundraiser for the Mono Lake Committee, who have been stewards for the preservation and restoration of the Mono Basin ecosystem since 1978. I took several of the photos that appear in this deck at Mono Lake. It is one of my favorite places on Earth.
Note: the cards do have rounded edges but the ivory frame shown here is just to separate the cards from the rest of the page.
Thank you for supporting my art, my devotion to Kuan Yin, and the Mono Lake Committee.