Welcome to SkywatchFriday!
Today, I’m sharing two photographs taken from our most recent trip to Pondicherry or Puducherry, as some prefer to call! The views depict a moody evening on a rather gloomy day, that I chanced upon, while on a walk around the property where we were staying.
I came upon the very edge where a wired fence overlooked a little water body that extended way beyond. Promptly, I flipped out my phone and took a few quick shots.
The two photos set me thinking. It had something to do with the sky, of course! But, it wasn’t just the sky.
Many years back, when I was in school, I had chanced upon a book of quotations which came in handy whenever I had to prepare for an essay or any form of creative writing.
Interestingly, I’m sharing two images below, each making me feel very differently, about the vastness of the sky, which symbolises the spirit of freedom for me.
The first image, despite being beautiful, feels somewhat restrictive and the fence only creates a barrier that cannot be transcended.
Just then, I recalled the lines from the well known poem that I had read way back in middle school. The words flashed before my eyes and made me realise how the mind is way more powerful than we imagine it to be and that the inner freedom of our mind has the power and the ability to transcend the physical barriers of confinement!
Written whilst living in a prison, by Richard Lovelace, one would expect nothing less!
The second image I’m sharing below, evokes a sense of lightness first, as if the chest now has more room, one that allows one to breathe without negotiating every inhale.
The right to be free has always been very important to me and the sky seems to have evoked this sense of rapture in the midst of an unfathomable vastness, that my heart and soul have longed for! Perhaps, that is why the sky calls out to me, through all its changing forms, no matter where I am!
If you’re still wondering which poem I’m referring to, here are the last stanzas of Richard Lovelace’s poem ‘To Althea, From Prison’,
“Stone Walls do not a Prison make,
Nor Iron bars a Cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage.
If I have freedom in my Love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such Liberty.”
The lines come from lived experience and they speak of someone who had the grit to overcome the external constraints by not letting the spirit break!
Before I digress further, here are the photos:
Now that you’ve seen both the images, I’d like to know from you what emotions did the sky evoke, in the two images that I shared.
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Linking this to #SkywatchFriday, where you will find some amazing sky photographs from all over the world.
To view my complete sky photo collection, please click here.
Same sky but such different emotions.
Great sky and reflection shot.
The outdoor setting brings back a memory of visiting what had been the most notorious prisoner of war camp from our American Civil War. It was a prison called Andersonville and my husband and I visited it in 2010. Imagine having freedom so close but you aren’t even allowed to approach the fence. Just feet away is freedom and food. The bottom photo is the freedom when the war ended and the survivors were freed to go home. Almost the same view in both but oh so different. Alana ramblinwitham
My thought are similar to yours. The first photo, through the fence, feels much more restrictive than the second photo. I get why fences are needed sometimes, to protect something, or to keep animals from wandering off but there are other instances like the sense I get in gated communities that they are just trying try create an “other” that is not quite good enough to be behind the gates.