Ashes and Snow Exhibit

Gregory Colbert is exhibiting his extraordinary Ashes and Snow show at the Nomadic Museum in New York. The exhibit is housed in this nondescript building on the West Side piers. From the outside it’s nothing. On the inside, it’s like a minimalist cathedral. Sublime photos of people and animals line the aisle while a video beacons you from the front.

The photos are entrancing. The juxtaposition of animal and human and the sensitive interplay between them is beguiling. Most of the humans in the photos have their eyes closed inviting me into a shared meditation. Their stillness reminds me to surrender. Contentment swelled inside me as I saw the bodies relaxing as they were nestled against the elephants or the whales.

The video installation played while Colbert read from his letters. At one point his words wrapped around my heart and opened it. “My heart is like a book that hasn’t been opened in a very long time.”

I’m surprised at the general state of shut down I’ve lived in as I focused on my profession. How did that happen? How did I live with my heart open to such a little degree? The journey I am on in writing this blog is an exploration of coming from an open heart regardless of the situation. As I make that the focus of my inquiry I see how often, and how easily, the door to my heart narrows every more. Without tending, it closes like those pneumatic hinges that close softly behind me.

I'm grateful for the shift in my focus, away from the hurly burly of life into a grander inquiry. Moments like these during the Ashes and Snow exhibit I appreciate those like Gregory Colbert that take their time to invite me into a tender embrace of life.