Chris Warner-Carey, Unknowing
Unknowing
Chris Warner-Carey
In the late 14th century, an anonymous author produced a text written in Middle English entitled “The Cloud of Unknowing”, in which the author provides a guide to the contemplative life. Anonymous instructs the reader that to know the Divine, one must set aside knowledge and intellect, and enter into intense contemplation, motivated only by Love, for the way to union with the Divine is to “forget” what we think we know and understand about the Divine. Instead, we must learn to rest in “unknowing”. This state of unknowing is described as entering or being enveloped in a dark cloud. The cloud obscures our desired vision of the Divine, but Anonymous assures the reader that with gentle patience and practice motivated by Love, what is hidden in the cloud will ultimately be revealed.
This text was not the initial inspiration for the series of photographs presented. I was drawn to photograph the coastal fog and low clouds because of the luminous quality of the light in the clouds themselves, and how that light reflected off of the water and other objects. As I continued photographing the ever-changing light and shadows, I began to make the connection to The Cloud when I noticed that while the clouds and fog obscured many details, some things were revealed in new ways, such as the birds, the textures of the water and contours of the land. The viewer is invited to imagine and contemplate what may be just out of conscious sight in the shadows and mist, always with the understanding that there are forces and presences that resist logical analysis, and will remain unknowable by the human mind alone.
Chris Warner-Carey is a photographer and a hospice chaplain, living in the coastal community of Half Moon Bay, California. His photographic interests derive from his location on the Pacific Ocean, with its diverse environments and communities of marine mammals, birds and the humans who live, work and interact with each other. Chris is interested in the history of photography, and photographic processes, and he has a darkroom which allows him to offer introductory workshops in film photography. He keeps a spiritual discipline based in part on how photographs can both reveal and obscure the presence of the Divine.
