My Waterfall Garden

I found a memory the other day
Yosemite Falls 2010, I was there
Learning to see beyond the immediate
Looking it squarely in the face through a 400mm lens

Sharing a moment of beauty unbound by it’s walls
The roar of the water echoing across the Valley
Or was that my heart pumping with enraptured overflow

I was taking it all in next to a lover, friend, and mentor
Lost in the beauty and the exhilaration
Part of the waterfall and part of each other
All of the emotions and sensual realizations
Of that day come rushing back when I see these images

Time gets suspended somehow
When you find a memory like this
You are in the moment,
All you can do is stop
And let it overtake you

Our lives are full of these
Each chapter in our book of life precious to us
Like a watercolor of a sunset
It is impossible to share the vast
Enormity of each ray of light, color, or sensation
Others can only imagine drawing from their own experience.

The magic of photography is that it causes you to stop
Focus on the moment and everything around you.
A split second is often all you have to capture in rich detail the story you want to tell
You become part of the story
Because you are the storyteller

By Cheryl McDonald 2025©

I thought it was time I made something less political. At least for my own sanity. I was feeling very overwhelmed and overpowered by our deteriorating democracy and my personal experiences too. I decided to go through old landscape photos to use as background and I found my Yosemite Water Fall Collection, it really resonated with me. Once more my ears were filled with the sound a huge rushing torrent of water, my body was covered in mist, the smell of wet moss, trees and ferns, were all present. It was overwhelming. I chose one of my favorites of Yosemite Falls because it was so huge, intense and strong, yet slightly abstract. My idea was to use my waterfall image as a background for something else a magical kingdom or garden maybe.
Next I found a group of photos I had taken of orchids at a dear friends house. I love orchids, they are all so unique and pretty hardy. They have a long bloom cycle plus they can grow pretty much anywhere even without much dirt. I imagined them perched on cliffs of this waterfall, undaunted by the enormity and power of it. Basking in the beauty and perfect light and moisture of these falls.
I built my garden using this rushing wall of water as the background and these fairy-like orchids in the foreground blending it together with clouds of mist, water spray, and a sweet hummingbird I found online. When I was finished I felt like I was in a more peaceful place.
However, I was then struck by an interesting counterpoint between the huge rush of powerful water surrounding these delicate orchids and I could see that my life today is once more in a different kind of overwhelm. We all are, actually.
Beyond our countries struggles, I am living with terminal cancer and many people I know are dealing with overwhelming life experiences as well. We are truly in a time of releasing old patterns, lives, and strategies that no longer work for us. We all need to stop and focus on what is working and how we can make it better. Blending the new with the past will be a challenge. My next chapter will be like nothing I have done before that is for sure. We must hold each other close and find ways to move through it all.
I hope you use this art piece as a mystical respite from the fears and forces trying to over take you. We are the orchids, a tough and sturdy bunch who will not back down, we will become stronger from our experiences.

Back in the beginning of this blog, I talked about doing something less political and then I remembered this quote I had heard once by Toni Morrison. When I read it before it was a shortened to just ”All good art is political”. When I looked it up I saw a much more complete thought and decided I should share it here, it’s from the site Goodreads.com.

“All of that art-for-art’s-sake stuff is BS,” she declares. “What are these people talking about? Are you really telling me that Shakespeare and Aeschylus weren’t writing about kings? All good art is political! There is none that isn’t. And the ones that try hard not to be political are political by saying, ‘We love the status quo.’ We’ve just dirtied the word ‘politics,’ made it sound like it’s unpatriotic or something.” Morrison laughs derisively. “That all started in the period of state art, when you had the communists and fascists running around doing this poster stuff, and the reaction was ‘No, no, no; there’s only aesthetics.’ My point is that it has to be both: beautiful and political at the same time. I’m not interested in art that is not in the world. And it’s not just the narrative, it’s not just the story; it’s the language and the structure and what’s going on behind it. Anybody can make up a story.”

Toni Morrison

Take care my friends and

Have a Happy Day
Cheryl