When I traveled to Japan in 2025, my belief in the sacredness of the environment was reaffirmed by both the beauty of the landscape and the Japanese people’s appreciation of all existence, including rocks and trees. When I first learned of the parable of Indra’s Net while enrolled in a yoga teacher training program fifteen years ago, it completely altered my understanding of reality. I began connecting with nature in a more poetic and intuitive way. I saw that what happens to one being ripples through the entire fabric of life and came to believe that we are all manifestations of this oneness. Eastern and Western thinkers who have grasped this have described reality as a circle where the center is everywhere. Superiority and the concept of the other are revealed as illusions and man’s place becomes smaller or even inverted. While in Japan, I became acquainted with the work of philosopher Kitaro Nishida, who wrote, “God is that which dissolves the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity and unites spirit with nature.” When I immerse myself in nature, my smaller self connects with something larger and eternally cyclical that allows me to live in right relation to the ecosphere and become more accepting of impermanence and my own mortality. 

Observing interactions between life forms and noticing how nature maintains continuity through change helps me face the increasing precarity of existence. I have observed how ancient trees and fungi work together to improve the health of their ecosystems, and I have also seen how life forms survive and regenerate after devastating weather events like Hurricane Helene in the Appalachians. I have felt the energy of the sacred man and wife trees at the Meiji Jingu Shrine, and witnessed how their intwined limbs create an entire universe. And when I visited the Saihoji Rinzai Zen Temple, a 1300 year-old temple with a famous moss garden in Kyoto, or looked up into the canopy of ancient trees in the Ritsurin Gardens, I was in awe of the longevity of these lifeforms and the care that has gone into preserving them. Everywhere nature has something to teach us about survival and connection and our impact on the world, for better or for worse. I chose to make platinum-palladium prints from my digital negatives to evoke how precious life is, and to celebrate both fleeting moments and that which endures under our care or through it’s own resilience.