Shannon Kringen Creative Taoist Photographer

 here is an essay i wrote a few years back while finishing my BA degree in seattle:
Shannon Kringen
Creative Taoist Photographer . The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. Volume 28 Number 2, 1996 Characteristics of the Taoist Sage in the Chuang-tzu and the creative photographerby Philippe L Gross & S.I. Shapiro page 175
I am a photographer and I see it as a spiritual practice that keeps my mind fresh, alive and in the present moment. (if I applied this to my whole life I would be much more fully alive and free to learn,grow,heal, self actualize)
The article talks about using photography in the classroom as facilitating transpersonal vision. The characteristics of the Sage are sometimes echoed by statements in the photography literature of creative photography. Some of the sage characteristics shared with photography are: freedom from the sense of self, receptivity, spontaneity, acceptance, non-attachment, resourcefulness, free and easy wandering and “wu-wei” (an important concept in Taoism that literally means non-action or non-doing) for example: “As trees grow, they simply grow without trying to grow “
In creative photography (which I would call “improvisationally wandering with your camera and shooting in the present moment and responding spontaneously to what you see, shape,color,light,texture) can be seen as an communion between the self and the environment with no sense of separation.
Photographer Cartier-Bresson said “I am not responsible for my photographs. Photography is not documentation but intuition, a poetic experience. It's drowning yourself, dissolving yourself, then sniff, sniff, sniff—being sensitive to coincidence. You can't go looking for it; you can't want it or you won't get it. First, you must lose yourself, then it happens.”
A Taoist photographer responds in the present moment and lets things happen. The photograph almost takes itself. I fully agree with this most of my best photographs have been done this way. Spontaneously free and open to what is around me. Having never seen that kind of light or shape before. My heart and mind are in love with what I see and I shoot when it feels right. This cannot be planned.
I have had people tell me after seeing my photographs of shapes in water and mud puddles and chrome they now notice things out walking they never saw before. Art can be transformational for people. Flowing with life and not rebelling against it. Accepting what is “pretty and ugly both equally” being “equanimous”. All these spiritual principles are used in creative photography. I will add that this Taoist principles can also be seen in improvisational theatre and drawing and painting, singing, dancing. Especially jazz!
In summary the article states that creative photographers are sometimes conscious of these Taoist principles while they shoot photos and sometimes not. Either way it seems that a natural flow of life directs the action in this kind of photography that mirrors very closely that of Taoist wisdom. http://shannonkringen.com/taoist_photographer.htm

wild feral human, play in mud puddles

 

random sloppy ideas- wild feral human

play in the mud puddles

Edit- here's my imperfect post with flaws in it and typos in it that I'm not going to fix cuz I don't want to be perfect and I don't want to correct myself I want to be sloppy and messy and imperfect and make mistakes and not always be correct!!!! Makes me want to listen to Bukowski I think I'm on a similar wavelength or Tom Waits etc- or Leonard Cohen who said that the cracks are how the light gets through or whatever that quote is from one of his songs that I love! Rebel rebel!!! Just watched a video on how trends and artificial intelligence and algorithms have a artificially kind of addicted to patterns and trends and disconnected from our real selves and from real human connection and from real things of actual value despite all the fake silliness and trends online that I'm not interested in there are still creative authentic humans that are expressing themselves making art and music and sharing real things that have value also just judging things as having value and not having value and people are keeping score blah blah blah people are addicted to blah blah blah I think I'm going to stop clicking like and stop clicking in general and just try to share in a more handmade way if possible and not get sucked into arguing or debating or doing anything that seems just like BS and just like a waste of time I might even delete this post I think that the best way for me to use these social media websites is just to share artwork and creative ideas. I don't want to waste time debating or arguing with anybody and I want to completely ignore people who want to score me and judge me I also don't want to score and judge other people cuz that's a waste for me to do that as well and again I might just delete this post I think it's good to be awake and conscious of how you're using technology and how much is technology using you just to collect data and market and sell ideas to you and try to get you to March around and conform and behave like a robot doing as you're told thinking you have free will but really just conforming to what their programming you to want to think and do and feel with computer ideas and popular trends and this idea of conform conform conform obey obey obey basically March to the meat grinder like in that movie pink Floyd The Wall which is very relevant these days

Avoid trends and be unpopular intentionally!

Light up that gas!

freedom and embracing grace, moonshone face

i create express and share stuff:

http://www.shannonkringen.com/

Retreat go within. A treat

 Retreat go within. A treat

ideas of now

 i resonate with this video BIG TIME. "The Priceless Benefits of Not Belonging"  https://youtu.be/mDGOZWp5iGk

Totally love that video "the priceless benefits of not belonging".  and I resonate with every point that  guy is making.   I totally identify with enjoying the freedom of being an individual and questioning everything.  I also tend to see every single person I meet as an individual instead of lumping them into some category and stereotype of who they are or who they are not... I've always been this way since I was like a little tiny kid and even more so now with things happening in the world the way they are in this like pressure to conform to things that I just don't believe I want to conform to.  People think and tribal ways and want to copy and conform to each other and yeah I follow certain rules but mostly I like to express my individuality as much as I can and when I noticed other people I tend to notice what makes them unique and different that's what I'm attracted to is what is unique and different... I guess people just want to feel safe and put things into categories but I think it's really artificial the way we categorize things and separate things everything is unique and individual and we're all creating this together I've always been somebody who wanted to question everything and not just go along with things...



see my videos here and subscribe if you want.
https://www.youtube.com/user/shannonkringen

This is a bit of a soap box but I'm really sad to see that there are many dogs and cats that are completely addicted to pet food that has wheat gluten in it  and all kinds of other fillers and synthetic things and carbohydrates that are not good for dogs and cats health and it lacks the actual protein and nutrients that they actually synthetic things in a can etc....which is the worst thing that a dog or cat could eat for their health and then people take their pets to the vet who prescribe medication for them instead of improving the pet's diet the medications may or may not actually help the pet it's really sad to see dogs and cats suffer because they're not getting the proper nutrition that they need that's the most important thing for both humans and dogs and cats is really really good nutrition and fresh air exercise enough sleep enough hydration good clean water etc health is something that I'm very interested in and our healthcare system is not really about health it's mostly about chemicals and avoiding talking about proper nutrition or even giving people the wrong information about nutrition but I'm not going to say what I believe is healthy here because I don't want to argue with anybody but let's just say that me and my cat I think are on very healthy nutritious diets. And I choose what I eat and I don't listen to someone else boss me around about it.  My cat is on a mostly raw meat nutritionally balanced diet for all cats life stages that I get at the health food pet store so I feed my cat very carefully but he's not on any medications and he's 15 years old and he's doing well he's an older cat but he's doing well he gets fresh air everyday and exercise and really healthy food and I never feed him any junk food.  A lot of the mainstream pet food that people feed their dogs and cats is kind of like the equivalent of humans eating fast food and Twinkies etc... I'm lucky that my cat switch to a raw meat diet with an easy transition most dogs and cats are very picky and it's hard to switch their food but my cat went right along with the raw meat diet.  Basically I keep his food in the freezer and I just thaw it out as needed to keep it fresh... it's kind of high maintenance but I love making sure my cat is healthy and his digestion is really good his pee and his poop is really healthy.... What I when I had him on a not as good of a diet he had like loose stool and kind of gross things happening in his Kitty box I never since I switched him to a raw meat diet his poops have been a really nice medium brown to dark brown color and they're just the right texture sorry if this gross is anybody out but his texture his I mean sorry his digestion is very very good and it's been that way ever since I switched him to a raw meat diet for cats.  I also have really good digestion but I won't go into detail on that.  And I'll say that I don't need to take my cat to the vet hardly ever and I haven't for the last two or three years because he hasn't needed anything he's just been eating properly and I just give him lots and lots of love and affection and attention and he doesn't seem to need any veterinary care so far.