Patterns of Engagement

The Blessings of Babel

Ken Gillgren — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:30:00 +0000

I’ve realized that I haven’t made a sufficient linkage between my recent fascination with photography, particularly photos of nature, with the overall framework of this blog, Patterns of Engagement, which so clearly focuses on social interaction. What, for example, does a photograph of an eagle stretching its wings have to do with cultivating the civic [...]

Eagles Taking Off: The Shot I Got and One that Got Away

Ken Gillgren — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:30:18 +0000

THE SHOT I GOT During our annual pilgrimage to welcome Trumpeter Swans that winter in the La Conner area we also come upon migrating hawks, falcons, and eagles, especially along the Skagit River watershed. The lighting on this day was lousy, obscured by clouds and intermittent rain. Nevertheless I had Julia pull over to see [...]

Spiders and Wasp: The Shot I Got and One that Got Away

Ken Gillgren — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:30:54 +0000

THE SHOT I GOT Golden Gardens Park features a protected wildlife pond area. After taking all the photos of sleeping Mallards and turtles I could handle (a very slow day indeed), I set off toward my car, when I noticed a set of spider webs in the bushes to the right of the trail. One [...]

Launch of new blog category: Photo Essays

Ken Gillgren — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:35:17 +0000

After finally cleaning my hard drive, I’ve got the stats for the photos I’ve taken over the past year at Echo Lake near our apartment complex: at least 32 species of birds. Not bad for a once or twice a week local excursion. I’ve come a ways since thinking all ducks were Mallards, and all [...]

Sheltering a budding promise, close to the earth

Ken Gillgren — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 16:00:58 +0000

I took several photos at the Rainier Beach Urban Farm project, at several different levels of scale, from entire greenhouses, to rows of pumpkin or squash runners apparently vying for the longest reach, and even clusters of neatly arranged seedlings in a box. And then this first swelling of a future squash or pumpkin beneath [...]

Where natural rhythms prevail and refresh

Ken Gillgren — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 16:00:30 +0000

Urban greenery, in parks, gardens, and sheltered pathways, turns the experience of the city inside out. For some city dwellers, everything “outdoors” is for getting from one place to another place in as little time as possible; we mostly are “passing through” on the way to someplace else. Yet once in a while, we get [...]

When we become the peace that passes all understanding

Ken Gillgren — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:00:59 +0000

I kept watching for this moment to take a picture of the Peace sign that had been marking the progress of the prayer walk through Rainier Beach, sometimes leading from the front, other times lingering further back. Here, the sign stands in respect, bathed in the light of a setting sun, anchored in the silence [...]

A sacred place for reclaiming the shared promise of young lives lost

Ken Gillgren — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:00:04 +0000

This curbside memorial, in all its exuberant chaos of blossoms, balloons, toys and statuettes, represents for me the awakening of the sacred in space, just as the church bell represents the emergence of the sacred in time. This is where it happened, where two lives were prematurely cut off. And this is where the community [...]

A yard sale network–and neighborhood event–you don’t want to miss

Ken Gillgren — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:00:01 +0000

Something about the make-shift assembly of this particular sign caught my eye. The neighborhood had been blanketed with the “branded” poster at the top of the photo, but this entire configuration displayed an ad hoc flow of imagination with a passion for capturing the attention of any and all passing by. The “branded” poster has [...]

For whom the bell tolls, and when—sacred rhythms that structure and interrupt the routines of life

Ken Gillgren — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 18:39:41 +0000

Church bells and carillons are the legacy of times past, when the rhythms of worship and prayer structured the lives of the surrounding community as a reminder of what time it is now, and what we are called to do with the time we have. And those same bells would interrupt routines in alarm or [...]