Building a healthy life isn’t just about working out or eating right. While both are crucial, if we don’t recognize and share beauty, our souls will starve in darkness. Once that happens, there isn’t a workout or diet plan that will make us healthy.
Working within the addiction field has taught me that beauty and light are the first casualties of substance dependence. I believe that teaching people to find light within darkness SHOULD BE the point of addiction treatment. Instead, all too often, treatment focuses on things that, while important, don’t really allow light to enter lost souls.
I think that, while also teaching about triggers and substance pharmacology, we should also teach people how to appreciate light and beauty that exists all around us. For example, Figure 1, below, is photo I took of a budding chamisa plant. I’m deathly allergic to chamisa pollen, but i think the yellow is so vibrant that I had to shoot it in an attempt to share the radiance I sense when I see these budding plants.
Figure 1 — Chamisa bud
Furthermore, one night I stepped out of my front door because I heard a weird noise and I saw the butterfly in Figure 2.
The point of these (and other photos I shoot) is to show that light and beauty is all over the place, if we learn to recognize it. While all people should do themselves a favor and learn to appreciate the beauty in small things, for addicts, it’s absolutely necessary. Without the ability to see light in the external world, addicts can never escape the darkness that invaded and took residence within their souls.
Really, diet and exercise are a part of human health, but caring for our souls is just as important. For me, the camera, pen, and guitar allow me to capture and share moments of fleeting beauty that nourish my own soul and allow me to be fully human. My life’s mission is to teach others that they can see and share light, as we all derive from the same source of light and love — it’s just that some of us have become disconnected from that source. It’s my duty to share that source so that others can find it in their own way….
