Last week a group of twelve Miksang photographers gathered in the Crestone, Colorado area to explore the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Our intention was to work with the the qualities of Heaven, Earth and Man in the perception of landscapes. In particular, we worked with landscape as space, landscape as form and landscape as visual haiku, or moment.

This was my third visit to the Dunes, and I was struck by how each occasion was perceptually unique. On the first visit, there was an overcast sky, which rendered the dunes very flat and almost one-dimensional. On the second visit, there was strong afternoon sunlight which created deep shadows, dimensionality and turned the sand warm yellow/brown. On the most recent visit, which took place over three days, there were endless variations.

One day in particular the dunes went from being clear and peaceful, to being covered with the shadows of white puffy clouds, to having a brilliant sunny appearance against an almost black sky, to being pelted by small hailstones which turned the dunes a rich brown color and then reverting back to clear and clean again! I had the experience of the dunes being a huge canvas for light, shadow and reflection from the sky above. Quite remarkable. Like Monet's Cathedral Facade.

As a Miksang group we tried to approach the dunes beyond expectation, romanticism, and labels (challenging). In some sense, we came to regard them as big pile of dirt! Dropping the labels and visual ideas, it seemed possible to see them as THAT, and allow the dune-ness to emerge beyond our concepts.

I recall one moment in particular, walking between two dunes in the middle of a very strong wind/sand storm. There was no horizon and no other reference points, not even the surrounding mountains. The wind was blowing the sand in all directions, at times turning the sky a soft blue/tan. There did not seem to be anything solid - the ground was shifting rapidly and there was nothing to focus on - even literally - my camera could not lock on to anything!. A very interesting experience to say the least. At other times the dunes felt like a mammoth being, seemingly alive and slowly breathing. The Great Sand Dunes are certainly dramatic, powerful and in very definite sense, potential quicksand for the un-grounded Miksang Eye.

At the same time, it was just another place, another field of perception - form and space and moment - just like all the other fields we explore - our kitchen, our backyard, our lane way, each other.

Michael Wood
October 12, 2007

Go to Michael's Sand Dune Gallery