Update: This photography series continues to evolve and expand. Now called Reverence: Portraits of Natures Mortes, you can see a selection from this work in the Reverence online gallery and via the @humanitouphotography Instagram page. (April 18, 2019) I’m lighting the fuse on a new photography project. It’s one I’ve Read more
Words often come to me when I hike. So do creative ideas and photos and … The words often come in lyrical verse. Sometimes as fragments, notes to work out later. Sometimes as formed poems I jot down and then try to leave alone, letting the flow of that moment Read more
Laurel Astor brings a bowl of cut fresh fruit out to her small deck, where we sit surrounded by woods and the whirs of hummingbirds. It’s the food that gets us started. From its healing place in Laurel’s life to a book she published based on that experience. We talk Read more
It’s easy to get swept up with the mountains. I love ’em lots. They are dynamic, imposing, inspiring and, seemingly, something more than the lands of their non-mountainous cousins. That contrast is stark and can have us feeling disinterested, even ungrateful, for the non-mountainous territories we experience. Hiking on the Read more
A tall teenage boy looked at me from the street corner as I neared the intersection in my old VW bus. He had no crosswalk. I had no stop sign. He looked hard at me and then plunged into the street, his body language dripping defiance. White earbuds filled his Read more
There can be a follow-the-leader quality to yoga classes. Like going into an aerobics class and doing whatever the instructor says without giving it thought. I’ve done it. I’ve followed the instructions of yoga teachers and not connected to the deeper purpose. Now, after several months of intensive study in Read more
Jack Elder is a photographer by passion, a newspaper writer by trade. That’s the truth now and has been the truth often, mixed with and between a life filled with trades and passions. At 74, Jack’s accrued wisdom comes from a life lived broadly, and from his intellectual interests in Read more
Humanitou + PeakRadar.com Content Partnership Humanitou is about making connections. I created the site as a platform to shine light on amazing people doing amazing things, to let my curiosity fly and to learn. Humanitou is a creative outlet for me. It also is a megaphone for our community. Good Read more
With a cup of coffee in hand and a gentle demeanor, Jack Elder sat down with Humanitou and dipped into the wide range of his life that has led him here, there and, seemingly, everywhere. Jack, 74, was an Army brat who went to military school. He was a young Read more
“The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself … That is the moment you might be starting to get it right.” ~ Neil Gaiman Read more
On a clipboard marked “Adam Williams 1-B,” I have a stack of poetry I wrote years ago. The prose poem below digs into a mystery, reflecting on moments of father-son catch in the backyard gone by and forgotten. Decades have passed. Now, I have sons. One of them, at six Read more
There is a line in sanskrit, the language of yoga, that acknowledges the one true teacher of yoga in each of us as ourselves. Om bolo shri satguru bhagavan ki — Jai! The teacher within is the one true teacher — Right on! Turning within and tuning in leads us Read more
At the end of June I completed a 230-hour yoga teacher training with Root Center for Yoga and Sacred Studies. I’m about to add to that intense 32-week swim into the broad and endless ocean of yoga. I will continue with a 50-hour apprenticeship during the coming months. It’s a Read more
A new round of Humanitou portraits will be on exhibit in the 1st Amendment Gallery at the Manitou Art Center, opening August 3 with First Friday events throughout the area. For the past two months, framed 11″ x 14″ prints of Floyd Tunson, Layla Redding and Peter Maksimow have been on Read more
“Greatness exists in the inconspicuous and overlooked details,” writes Leonard Koren in Wabi-Sabi. Simple things get my attention. Edges of transformation in nature. Objects worn and discarded. I notice them. Then, I feel a mix of curiosity and reflection, almost sadness, and I imagine their stories. I wonder about the Read more
I previously noted my packing list for creativity on the go, that it includes a variety of note- and sketchbooks. Not to mention my smartphone, with which I also use Google Docs to capture ideas in the wild. So, not long ago, while standing with a double scoop of helado, Read more
From the #showyourwork files … I’m living by the peso and here’s my packing list: a pocket notebook for poetry notes on the go, a morning pages journal, an unlined pocket notebook for small sketches and pithy lightning bolts, a bigger sketchbook, and new artist pens and graphite pencils. Three Read more
A guitar hangs on the wall, and another leans into a corner in Xanthe Alexis’ living room. Poetry books are neatly stacked on the coffee table. An abundance of morning light and the art placed here and there fills out the vibe of creativity, comfort and quiet joy. Xanthe, 38, Read more
Found: conversation about life, death, curiosity, respect, the sacred. I love to see my sons‘ curiosity and little can stir that like the encounter of death in a creature they don’t otherwise get their hands on. In that gentle exploration — spreading fins, peeking under gills, prying open the mouth Read more
I recently wrote, in a post called “Time to Grow,” about breaking conventions from the busy-ness of our days, from the norms society puts on us to just do things, rather than take time to think about the things we do. One way I apply that time to think and Read more