I choose to close the door today on hate, and violence. On deliberate “misunderstandings”, and on a closed mind. These things tempt me at times to retreat Into an enclosed fortress where I am right and others are excluded. So I close one door in order to open another…Yet I wonder…Do I have the right to close any doors at all? – Sally Coleman
The door has always been symbolic, a metaphoric and literal threshold between safety and danger, light and dark, separation and connection, public and private, limitations and new beginnings. In Roman mythology the god Janus, who presided over beginnings, endings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and choices, is depicted as having two faces looking in opposite ways, one towards the past and the other towards the future. He is actually representative of the middle ground, what Buddhists call the middle way, floating somewhere between opposites. Even after so many centuries, doors still speak to us.
Doors are more than wood, metal or glass, more than common points of entry or departure. From massive wooden barriers to the famous “gate-less gates” in Zen literature, doors can mark turning points—either you pass through them, or they block your path. Opening a door can be a sign of entering the sacred, while closing one can be a blessing in disguise.
Suzuki Roshi, the Zen monk who founded the first Buddhist monastery outside Asia, often stressed that we should move back and forth throughout the swinging doors of our lives, both wholly independent and completely connected to all things. He viewed the very process of breathing as entering and exiting a doorway into our own life.
Sometimes I Imagine one hand closing a door that is behind me, and the other hand simultaneously opening another in front of me. Sometimes what I find most challenging is to linger in between those two doors, not tethered to either entering or leaving, held aloft by two seemingly incompatible forces of nature where something ends and begins at the same time.
In the bewildering complexity of our world the true art of living lies in finding balance. If our lives are not balanced, we fail to focus on what matters most.
Profound!
I don’t know how you do this each month, Sue . . . and for such a long time. But I’m profoundly glad that you do! The photos, the thoughts, what they individually and together express–I look forward to it every month!
Lovely photos and piece. It is not surprising how fascinated we are with doors. I know that when faced with an entire castle to photograph, I will focus on a single door. The panorama is far less interesting then is the entryway. As you touched upon, entire theses are written about the symbolic meaning of doors. In fact just reading your short piece has put my mind in a different place!! Thank you
Sue–I’m a lover of doors as well. I recognize a couple of these from some other photos of yours from earlier. Love the worn colors which have strength and softness. Here’s a fave quote of mine which seems ever more pertinent to the life I live.
“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.” Flora Whittemore
Your photos are always very special but these are even more so.
I’m so happy you like the photos.
Hi Sue–so strange –I sent a comment weeks ago but it never appeared. In any case, this is a wonderful entry this month–I keep the saying “The Doors we open and close each day decide the life we live” by Flora Whittemore close at hand. It’s such a reminder of the present moment. Thanks as always for this gift.
I love the quote. Thanks for sharing. Hope you’re doing well.