Getting Lost

May 13, 2014 by Jenna Filia Canty

 “Lost really has two disparate meanings. Losing things is about the familiar falling away, getting lost is about the unfamiliar appearing. There are objects and people that disappear from your sight or knowledge or possession; you lose a bracelet, a friend, the key. You still know where you are. Everything is familiar except that there is one item less, one missing element. Or you get lost, in which case the world has become larger than your knowledge of it. Either […]

Categories: Photography, Weekend Instagrams • Tags: A Field Guide to Getting Lost, better oneself, challenges, finding meaning, getting lost, healthy living, human spirit, meditation, New York City, Photography, Rebecca Solnit, reflection, self reflection, yoga

At 19, almost didn’t return. At 21, denied further study. “Now how ’bout that,” my Pap would have said..

January 15, 2014 by Jenna Filia Canty

Meaningful discourse is a powerful thing; we have all experienced essays, poems, lectures, documentaries, or speeches that riveted us in a way we couldn’t fully explain.  Something about it made us feel something, a moment worth so much. I write mainly because my whole life has been a steady search for compelling words from authors, poets, artists, and the people I love most in my life. I am addicted to that feeling.  And I like to share it on this blog. […]

Categories: Yoga • Tags: better oneself, Buddhism, challenges, depression, Douglas Brooks, finding meaning, good company, gratitude, healthy living, Hinduism, human spirit, mental health, Photography, reflection, self reflection, take five program, university of rochester religion, yoga

“your place… in the family of things” Mary Oliver

January 13, 2014 by Jenna Filia Canty

To complement your Monday afternoon: another piece by Mary Oliver, a note on saying talk to the hand! to loneliness and photos taken in my neighborhood of a lovely man I see nearly every day (haven’t had the guts to capture his face yet). I recently had a conversation with my dear friend, Tara, about how enormous loneliness can feel when evoked by certain life experiences (ie, losing a loved one, going through a break-up, living far away, etc.).  If Tara […]

Categories: Good Company, Photography, Yoga • Tags: better oneself, challenges, family of things, finding depth, finding meaning, friends, gratitude, healthy living, human spirit, mary oliver, meditation, mental health, New York City, Photography, Portrait Photography, reflection, self reflection

Cab Fare: Lessons from a Sikh

January 2, 2014 by Jenna Filia Canty

I hope you enjoy my new series on taxi drivers in New York City. My goal is to ask the questions I love to ask, take a photo, and share them both with you. Here is my first one from New Years Eve.  Thanks for reading. It was 7pm on New Years Eve and I had no plans for the evening. I stopped at Adorama to sell a few things and perused the used cameras while I was there. What […]

Categories: Photography • Tags: better oneself, cab drivers, Chakra meditation, challenges, finding meaning, human spirit, New York City, Photography, reflection, sikh, sikhism, yoga

Nepal: Evenings of hot lemon water, honey and fresh ginger

November 21, 2013 by Jenna Filia Canty

I close my eyes and remember Nepal: I like the evenings of hot lemon water, honey and fresh ginger. I like the orange bursting from the woman’s cloth wrapped around her neck. I like the man and his family who welcomed us for lunch everyday. I like the patterned umbrellas floating around the Stupa. I like the dogs in the streets and want to take care of them. I like the doorways and the strangers that sit in them. I […]

Categories: Photography, Traveling, Writers & Writing • Tags: Buddhism, finding meaning, good company, gratitude, hot lemon water, human spirit, kathmandu, love, Nepal, Photography, Portrait Photography, Stupa, travel photography

Cup o’ Courage: “True commitment always comes with loss”

November 6, 2013 by Jenna Filia Canty

“In Dante’s Divine Comedy the Roman poet Virgil accompanies Dante to the underworld. No one wants to be Virgil anymore — to ‘go into hell with Dante.’ But the willingness to explore with patience and empathy the actual experience of what people undergo, no matter how horrific, is indispensable in healing the emotional afflictions that haunt human beings. And we shouldn’t be surprised that recipients of such understanding will be capable of both remarkable resilience and extraordinary healing.” -Jeffrey Rubin, […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: beauty in art, better oneself, challenges, connecting, connection, courage, creative writing, cup o' courage, dante, deeper meaning, empowering others, empty your cup, fill your cup, finding meaning, finding purpose, good company, gratitude, Haruki Murakami, having purpose, healing, healthy living, human spirit, jeffrey rubin, love, meaning in our lives, meditation, mental health, Nepal, Photography, reflection, self reflection, sharing is courage, soulful conversations, soulful moments, spill your soul, Tara Carrozza, ted talk, uncertainty, virgil, vulnerability, writing our lives, written word

Cup o’ Courage: “See the opportunity, not the obstacle”

October 30, 2013 by Jenna Filia Canty

Thank you Toni P. Filia, of Maineville, Ohio for her submission to this new weekly series on courage and connecting. As Brené Brown said in her brilliant Ted Talk, courage comes from the “Latin word cor, meaning heart — and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.” Cup o’ Courage is a weekly series that allows us to tell a bit of our story in a small but meaningful way.   […]

Categories: Photography • Tags: authenticity, beauty in art, beauty in sadness, beauty is everywhere, being real, better oneself, brene brown, connecting, connecting with others, connection, courage, courageous, creative writing, cup o' courage, deeper meaning, empowering others with story, empty your cup, everyone's stories matter, fill your cup, fill your heart, find the beauty, finding meaning, finding purpose, good company, gratitude, having purpose, healthy living, human spirit, influence others, innermost thoughts, Maineville, meaning in our lives, meaningful conversations, Ohio, Photography, reflection, San Francisco, self reflection, sharing is courage, soulful conversations, soulful moments, soulful questions, spill your soul, spirit, stories that matter, ted talk, Toni Filia, vulnerability, writing our lives, written word, yoga

See the beauty, see the darkness

October 24, 2013 by Jenna Filia Canty

I love Sally Mann’s response when asked what the mission of an artist is. “There’s the paradox: we see the beauty and we see the dark side of things; the cornfields and the full sails, but the ashes as well. The Japanese have a word for this dual perception: mono no aware. It means something like “beauty tinged with sadness.” How is it that we must hold what we love tight to us, against our very bones, knowing we must […]

Categories: Meditation, Photography, Writers & Writing • Tags: artist, beauty, challenges, creative life, darkness, extraordinary things, finding meaning, finding purpose, healthy living, human spirit, Joe Bell, New York City, New York Times, ordinary people, paradox, Photography, Sally Mann, sunrise photography, sunset photography, Susan Hartman, talking about what matters, writing

Nepal: Windowsills & Doorways

July 10, 2013 by Jenna Filia Canty

“So I wait for you like a lonely house till you will see me again and live in me. Till then my windows ache.” — Pablo Neruda “At night, I open the window and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine. Breathe into me. Close the language-door and open the love-window. The moon won’t use the door, only the window.” — Rumi “But sometimes illumination comes to our rescue at the very moment when all seems […]

Categories: Photography, Traveling, Writers & Writing • Tags: colleen hoover, creative writing, czeslaw milosz, deeper meaning, depth, doorways, finding meaning, gratitude, illumination, love, make a change, man in doorway, marcel proust, Nepal, old man, old woman, open doors, Pablo Neruda, Portrait Photography, Rainer Maria Rilke, reflection, Rumi, shadows, Sharon Salzberg, soul, the human spirit, Thich Nhat Hanh, travel photography, windows, woman in doorway, woman in window

Joseph Campbell and the “rapture of being alive”

March 6, 2013 by Jenna Filia Canty

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive” (Joseph Campbell). “In the end, it is the people at home in their own human skins–people who love […]

Categories: Photography, Writers & Writing • Tags: authenticity, Broken Open, Elizabeth Lesser, farmer's market, finding meaning, humility, joseph cambell, Photography, rapture of being alive, San Francisco, writer

“Thus, life has a meaning to the last breath…”

March 5, 2013 by Jenna Filia Canty

“I have said that man should not ask what he may expect from life, but should rather understand that life expects something from him. It may also be put this way: in the last resort, man should not ask ‘What is the meaning of my life?’ but should realize that he himself is being questioned. Life is putting its problems to him, and it is up to him to respond to these questions by being responsible; he can only answer […]

Categories: Writers & Writing • Tags: building arts, expectations in life, finding meaning, finding purpose, give meaning to your life, meaning, San Francisco, sidewalk drawings, soulful conversations, street art, street artist, The Doctor and the Soul, the soul, things fall apart, tulips, Viktor Frankl