LUMEN NATURAE: BOOK ONE

Forest

Lumen naturae, the light of nature, conceived by medieval alchemists as a light that, entering the human unconscious, generates a path of interiority revealing the deeper self.  Being in nature, whether the deep green forest or the austere dry desert, holds the potential to inspire inner illumination. In this first volume of a planned multi-volume set, a penetrating green dominates, the viriditas, the greening force of abbess Hildegard von Bingen. Photographed in the forested coastal region of northern Sonoma County, California, these forests are rebounding from successive clear cuts, graced from time to time by an abandoned fruit tree and other objects, suggesting an untold history.

O most honored Greening Force, You who roots in the Sun;
You who lights up, in shining serenity, within a wheel
that earthly excellence fails to comprehend.
You are enfolded
in the weaving of divine mysteries.
You redden like the dawn
and you burn: flame of the Sun.

~Hildegard von Bingen