Tag Archives: Transition

Hello Again

Jun
24
2021
by IBK | 6 Comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m resuming my blog called: “Word and Image” after a two year hiatus. Some of you are reading this for the first time  … Welcome!

 

My last blog on May 03, 2019 with the title: “Things Are Not Always Clear” was the end of a season and the earliest transition of a nine month journey that culminated in my husband’s joy of healing from a medical event in July of 2019 and the anticipation of having our small family gathering for the Christmas holiday in Denver and welcoming a new member to the clan … our youngest son’s fiancee.

In January of 2020 I was diagnosed with breast cancer, had a mastectomy in February and a week later my husband Dave, who now had advanced prostate cancer, stayed with his sister in Kansas. Covid 19 realities had entered our reality as well as everyone else’s.

We were reunited by the end of March and were able to spend some precious weeks together realizing that a new journey was beginning where we would be separating. After a 4 week home hospice journey, he died peacefully, surrounded by family.

That’s the story in a nutshell and I’ve been writing this blog in my head and heart and mind in myriad ways. Finally on June 12, the one year anniversary of Dave’s death, I was at peace that things were clearer, and that I am now in a new season of the “Grace of New Beginnings,” a phrase that I first read in a book called: “Celtic Benediction; Morning and Evening Prayers” by Phillip Newell.

I am grateful for this season. I’m currently cancer free; have grieved well with the support of so many; and am finding in this grief journey a freedom and joy in God’s provision and timing. From Psalm 31 verse 15, a beautiful reminder … David the Psalmist talking to God: “my time is in your hands.”

One of the best life changing gifts post mastectomy, is that I became a morning person, with no effort of my own. I just started waking up around 5-6 a.m. every morning. That led to a slow resumption of walking every day and became my physical and mental health anchor in stormy times.

We each have phrases and habits that we remember and often turn to in times of transition. One that I remember, was from my high school English teacher who posted a new phrase every Monday:  “The journey a thousand miles begins with one step.”

I’ve stepped back on the path to explore and live the unfinished story with new habits and am happy to be back to “offer insight and encouragement in life’s transitions.”

Today’s image, the poppy, is a flower that I’ve photographed often. The gossamer petals, and tall stems sway in the breeze in clusters with other poppies and are difficult to capture. On a morning walk recently, I realized that the story I was trying to tell was about one poppy, surrounded by community, but distinctive in its beauty and dancing in the moment offering joy to those who choose to see and engage.

Ingrid (IBK)

Posted in Aging, Blessings, Death, Gratitude, New Beginning, Seasons, Solitude Also tagged , , , |

Move On

Jul
20
2018
by IBK | 1 Comment

©2018IBKimage

In 2003 Roger von Oech created a set of cards called: “Innovative Whack Pack … 60 Creativity Strategies to Provoke and Inspire Your Thinking.” On one side of the card is an insight from Heraclitus, who according to von Oesch was “the world’s first creativity teacher … on the other side a strategy “inspired by each insight” and enriched by the author in a clever way to “whack you” out of old thought patterns.

On card # 43, this Insight: “A thing rests by changing” and then an explanation: “This paradox assumes that everything is always changing and that”it often takes less energy to move on to the next phase than fighting to stay in the current one.” Going with the flow in the river is suggested vs. swimming against the current. And then this: “If you allow yourself to let go of a cherished position, strategy, or belief – especially one that takes increasingly more effort to hold on to – you are more easily able to discover new alternatives.”

So today’s question: “where would your energy be better focussed: on where you’ve been or on where you’re going? Is it time …to move on to the next phase? Only you can answer that. Hint: think of  several applications e.g.  If I continue to keep track of ways that didn’t work will that allow me to take a next step? … and so on.

Today’s image from a stairway between floors at the Denver Art Museum is perhaps an illustration of this issue. If at the bottom I move up the stairs I’m moving to the next phase(exhibition) to discover a new offering. If I’m at the top looking back I can remind myself where I’ve been but not stay there since it could “increasingly take more effort” …
IBK

Posted in Courage, Insight, Letting Go, New Beginning, Reframe, Uncategorized Also tagged , , , |

Change vs. Transition

Apr
06
2018
by IBK | 1 Comment

©IBKimage2011

I’ve been thinking a lot about the book TRANSITIONS  first written by William Bridges in his mid-forties and then a second edition when he turned 70. He doesn’t think he made the point clear enough in the first edition re: change/distinction.
“Change is your move to a new city or your shift to a new job. It is the birth of a baby,the death of your father, … switch to a new health plan … In other words change is situational.”
“Transition, on the other hand, is psychological … not the events … but … the inner
reorientation and self-definition that you have to go through in order to incorporate any of those changes into your life. Without a transition, a change is just a rearrangement of the furniture ”

Wow, there is a lot to think about here. As Americans we have a lot of rituals around events like Super Bowl Sunday, and buying something that will “change your life” but of course can’t because they/it doesn’t provide an entry into the journey of endings and new beginnings or death and rebirth. Getting all set for the change doesn’t prepare you for the transition.

Today’s image is in Zion National Park and reminds us of how the upheavals,the challenge from the wind and the light’s illumination are all a part of the transition process and can delight.
IBK

Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged , , |

Transitions

Oct
06
2017
by IBK | 3 Comments

©2017IBKImage

Good Morning,
For awhile now I have been offering insight and encouragement in life’s transitions, through this blog and perhaps it’s been my life’s work for a long time. As I was moving some books from an old to new position this week, I picked up the 25th Anniversary Edition of William Bridges 2004 book: “Transitions …Making Sense of Life’s Changes”. Add 13 years to that and you have a book that has and is still making an impact on people’s lives 38 years later.

The original 1979 book and the teaching in it by Bridges, I now realize was the beginning of my understanding that change and transition are profoundly different The subject of the book in Bridges own words … “is the difficult process of letting go of an old situation, of suffering the confusing nowhere of in-betweenness, and of launching forth again in a new situation. … so (1) an ending, (2) a neutral zone, and (3) a new beginning.” The story of the Exodus at the time of Moses is certainly an example of that. Leaving Egypt; The Wilderness Life; and The New Land.

We often confuse the event – the change – with transition – our reaction and reorientation to the change. We believe that we can quickly go from one event (change) to another without the process of transition, however long or short it may be.

In future blogs I’ll revisit some of what I’ve summarized here, but for now I encourage you to think of some of your own changes and transitions and how they’ve perhaps “grown you” albeit often with hard work and pain.

Today’s image is in the Rhino Neighborhood in downtown Denver, where everything old is now new again and an example of major transition in a city that is one of the fastest “growing” in the country.
IBK

Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged , |

Changing Our Viewpoint

Jul
13
2017
by IBK | 2 Comments

©IBKimage2017

A lesson I keep learning from my photography is that if you can’t capture a desired image which the eye sees, you have to move yourself to account for  the camera’s limitation.  Similarly, by shifting  position one can make an image look like it’s taken in sunny Italy, when it’s less than a half of a mile from a busy part of Interstate 70 in Denver.  In today’s image we’re seeing a pump house along Berkley Lake near my home, where I often walk in the evening when the summer heat dissipates.

 

Walking around this lake has also given me an opportunity to see some stunning sunsets, without the interference of electrical wires ubiquitous  in the alleys in my older neighborhood.  There’s a point here I think that perhaps helps us when we are anticipating, in the midst of, or just having encountered a transition of some kind.  Shifting our perspective and choosing (or being forced to by circumstance) to view a situation in a new way, can fix our eyes and hearts to perhaps see new viewpoints that can … in the moment … or after a passage of time, bless in new ways.

IBK

Posted in Courage, Insight, Letting Go, Reframe Also tagged , |

It’s Your Turn Update.

Jul
17
2015
by IBK | 1 Comment
©IBKimage2012

©IBKimage2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my last blog I supplied the image, and I asked you dear readers to supply the words in response to this question. What thoughts about transition come to mind for you as you reflect on this image?

 

Here are some of your thoughts.

“Some images bright, still central. Others are fading or emerging. Discerning which are trying to emerge requires time, prayer and a community with which to discern.”

 

… the path is not always straight or easy to decipher.

 

“Life is the interplay between light and darkness, sunshine and shadow, and hinges on our interpretation of what we see and experience. Just when we think we have something figured out and labeled, we might take another look to see that it has shifted and our perception has changed. What seems good or positive at first glance may not be for our highest good, and what seems evil or negative may be a gift in disguise. That is why it is good to give thanks in all things and not judge by appearances.”

 

Reading these and other responses made me think of the word shift as integral to transition. A shift in focus,attitude,perception, thinking and so on … thanks for participating and now a little shift of my own.  The original image actually looked like this.

 

IMG_0895

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best, IBK

Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged , |

New Directions

Jun
12
2015
by IBK | 2 Comments
©IBKimage2009

©IBKimage2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s image is a giant palm leaf that I photographed at the Denver Botanic Garden Greenhouse in early winter 2009, using a ®Canon Point and Click digital camera – my first one – purchased  in 2007 to document family celebrations. It was a time of new direction in my life including a recent move to Denver from a place I’d called home for 40 years.  Six years later, I find myself once again composing in a new way.

 

After months of research, and indecision, and agonizing over making few images, and saving money for a possible new camera, I was finally able to name one key reason for my lack of enthusiasm … my now DSLR interchangeable lens  camera was just too heavy and the “bells and whistles” of this model were not a fit for the type of photographer I had become.  The delight of carrying that first camera with me wherever I went, now seemed burdensome with such a heavy one.  Perhaps it also reminded me that a lot of “heavy” changes had occurred in my life during these last 5 years and with the lessons learned, and losses grieved, it was time to “lighten up.”.

 

Two weeks ago, I traded in my camera and bought new and used equipment to support my current direction and interest. Stay tuned.

IBK

Posted in Letting Go, Uncategorized Also tagged , |

We Are Not Alone In Our Transitions

Apr
03
2015
by IBK | 1 Comment

©IBKimage2013

 

 

March 2015 was an unusually full month and the events that touched my life and others that I’m in relationship with, all had this in common: major transition. After the event comes the good-bye of one way of living or being – usually involving grief, disorientation, wilderness wandering, re-orientation and a re-definition process of who we are and how we respond in a new season in response to what is at hand.  Easily listed steps to major transition, however can’t begin to document the particular and unique effect that transitions impose on those experiencing them.

 

For my friends whose house exploded in the early morning hours and then burned to the ground in 16 minutes, the magnitude of their transition (thankfully all 5 members escaped without harm) began instantly to be followed by many months of heart wrenching re-orientation.  A church community says goodbye to it’s senior leader; an older friend dies and as an older one myself,  I realize the good-byes are more frequent and personal now.

 

All  transitions are of course not this heavy. More babies were born in my network ;  letters arrived from long time friends from diverse places; family milestones celebrated; several long phone calls (in a world increasingly communicating in short hand – oh wait … text messages); a friend’s new book written; resuming daily walking and … As our two friends in today’s image remind us, it’s better, together.

IBK

Posted in Courage, Waiting Also tagged , , |

Stopping

Feb
27
2015
by IBK | 3 Comments

©2014 IBKimage

 

On a recent trip to Brooklyn, NY this family of “parts” caught my eye while walking briskly down the sidewalk , arm in arm with two my own family members.  The middle child up in dad’s arms wears a ®Meineke Care Care Center shirt to let us know that …yes you’ve arrived at the place to have your car fixed. The clever metal sculptures comprised of old mufflers and other under-the- car parts, offered great delight and a pause on a windy cold November morning.

 

Often we’re so distracted with our lists, and goals or pleasing others that we  spend our energy on a busy life vs. a chosen life. I first heard the phrase a ‘stop doing list’ in a a newspaper article written by Jim Collins, author of Good to Great . In a course on creativity and innovation at Stanford Graduate School of Business, he was challenged by the teachers in what he called the “20-10 assignment”. You receive 2 phone calls: 1.”You’ve inherited $20 million no strings attached; 2.You have a terminal disease and have no more than 10 years to live. What would do do differently and, in particular, what would you stop doing? ” This was a major turning point in his life. The ‘stop doing list’ became … “a mechanism for disciplined thought about how to allocate the most precious of all resources: time.”

 

So what does this have to do with  today’s image?  Perhaps someone decided to stop throwing old parts away when they were fixing cars and start reassembling the parts to finally realize a dream of creating something. What do you want to stop that will release energy for starting or rediscovering something that is  authentically you.

 

My ‘stopping’ list in this new year included not judging myself for needing to pause after numerous transitions and several losses, including friends dying. Happily by ‘stopping’ I’m now ready to re-engage in one of my passions … offering insight and encouragement through life’s transitions…

IBK

Posted in Cropping, New Beginning, Seasons, Stopping, Waiting Also tagged , , |

Evergreen

Dec
20
2013
by IBK | 2 Comments

©2009IBKimage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking closely at today’s image, you’ll see a small tree growing out of a rock field on a ledge near a waterfall at Yellowstone National Park.  The falls are more famous as well as spectacular grand views  often seen on postcards.  What intrigued me about this small tree, was it’s actual existence in a harsh environment. Think of the various conditions of wind, rain,  hail storm and at times extreme heat and cold; look closely at the small bend in the tree, suggesting at one time perhaps a boulder lodged in its trunk and yet it is quite hardy, crowned with healthy new evergreen growth.

 

At this year closes perhaps we can be grateful that in the midst of our sometimes  difficult conditions we at some point – if we’re open to that – are transformed by change and loss and after a time of grieving and  anger and inconvenience and love and nurture by those close in heart, even if far away, in the new season the new growth appears and the heart rejoices; changed, but with stronger roots to withstand the opportunities and challenges of being human.

Blessings to you and yours as you gather near and far in the coming days rejoicing in the love of God and neighbor.

Joy,

IBK

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