Looking Up – Changing Your View
Have you ever noticed how your body position can reveal your mood? Too often when we are emotionally down our head drops down, and when we are cheerfully up our head looks up, more apt to look at the world face to face and take on whatever challenge it may bring. Picture this: If you focus downward you will see more darkness, for the ground is where the shadows lie. Yet by looking upward toward the heavens, you open your sight to light and, by doing so, will see more possibilities, and with possibilities come hope. So simple is this concept, yet it just may be that subtle change of position that will help you to step out of the darkness.
A while back I went on a photo shoot to an old coastal town. Because I was in the mode to see and find new things, it didn’t surprise me how much this quaint village revealed. I see more when I am on assignment because I don’t limit my sight.
When walking into the beautifully restored movie theater, I was struck with an atmosphere of art and form that was characterized in a mix of old world meeting contemporary design. The care and detail the owners painstakingly took with beauty and form made it almost impossible to not stop and take notice. Visually captivated, I stood there looking up and became mesmerized with the detail in lighting that was used to illuminate the open space of the lobby. Usually, when entering a movie theater’s lobby, my sense of smell takes center stage as the aroma of buttered popcorn enters the happy recesses of my mind; however, this experience was much different. The visual impact was so encompassing that my other senses willingly took backstage as the ambiance stopped me in my tracks.
I stood and studied the unique, colorful, leaded glass design of each hanging light source for quite some time as I slowly changed position to see all I could see. By looking up, and not for just a glance, I was then able to notice a Venetian balcony that surrounded this menagerie of lights. My curiosity then led me on a venture to find a way to get to this upper level. Success brought me to another room with seating and a view of the lights I could not have imagined if my feet had remained on the ground floor. By standing high above on this mezzanine I saw an added perspective to this gallery of art and design that otherwise was hidden, allowing a different view of the beautiful array of color so close that I could almost reach out and touch it.
This photo was taken from the balcony that day and helps me to remember that it is by looking up that I will find new pathways and a new view to my world. In seeing things from a different direction, I am able to step out of my confines into a new place of possibility, a new place of hope. By this example I will make an effort to become more aware of where my focus lies and hopefully make a concerted effort to force my sight upward toward Heaven, toward the light, rather than toward the rubble at my feet shrouded in the darkness of my shadow.
In Other’s Words:
“And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.”
~G.K.Chesterton~