Darts of Day in an Un-see-able Forest

 Photography used to be more fun before the smartphone era.  Yes, that sounds a bit ungrateful to all the things that camera phones do well.  One advantage that doesn't get talked about much is their lack of moving parts.  

That was always my problem with compact zoom cameras, with their dust covers and telescoping zooms.  It seems like a single grain of sand could have jammed things up.  But if you want to go back to having more fun, maybe a two-year lifespan is just something that has to be tolerated.

For example, when walking through a thick forest a person can slip into quite a mood.  It is hard to believe, but there was a time when I considered thick, dark forests to be undesirable.  Gloomy almost.  Today they make me think of being 5 F cooler, and what else matters?

The darkness makes you think about stumbling into a bear.  Thick vegetation could turn lethal!  And then, all of a sudden, you see a bright spot where the sun has somehow found a gap in the tree canopy.   The surprise and intensity dazzle you.  

 The bright spot is like jewelry in a glass case, draped over some dark velvet, with a bright spotlight shining down on it.  It would be a real challenge for a photographer to make the viewer feel what the walker does.  Transferring those emotions -- and not beauty -- is how Tolstoy defined 'art,' in his essay "What is Art?"

What shall we call these places?  Glints, sun-sparkles, or darts of day?  A neo-pagan would think of these shrines as having a type of religious significance.  Think of the shrines along the road in Mexico or the American Southwest, honoring  Our Lady of Guadalupe.  For me, these darts of day are shrines to 'Santa Sombra,' my most important deity/saint.

My first RV dog, Pancho, showing his devotion to Santa Sombra.

 Perhaps it seems self-indulgent and too fanciful to let your imagination run on like this.  Recall Kant's "The task of philosophy is to trim rather than cultivate the luxuriant tree of imagination."   But I think it is a fine thing for an older person to become playful and child-like with their imagination.

Or consider this quote, from "The Enlightenment: the Rise of Modern Paganism," by Peter Gay:  "The mythopoeic mind saw the world through the iridescent veil of immediate experience, things as living powers."

 Should I try harder to find a real camera to express this?