The Honest Alchemist

The Sextant is Simon Sarris

Commence

It was the middle of a winter day with snow sending streams of light back towards the sky; the white mounds softening the sounds of life. On the other end of the phone was my friend, Drew Coffman, enjoying one of his many coffees amid the Southern California sun. As we caught up on becoming fathers, our conversation veered toward photos of our children. 

Specifically, would we share photos of our children on the internet?

My wife and I, veterans of Silicon Valley startups and giants alike, have abstained from sharing photos publicly of our son. Not for a lack of production. Mostly, we didn’t want to be those parents on the internet that treat their feed like a family album. I had not seen someone share their family story in a beautiful way on the internet… at least yet.

As I went on, Drew gave me space with the patience of a saint. Then with an undercurrent of excitement asked me:

Have you heard of Simon Sarris?

Mostly Everywhere

In the weeks after our call, I hosted three workshops in the lead up to my new course, Photography for Creatives. Each one of these events drew people eager and excited to learn about photography. I asked this same question in each of the workshops:

Who is someone that mixes in photography with their writing that you enjoy?

All three workshops with attendants across the world had one name in common:

Simon Sarris

Capturing images around the site of our own soon to be new old home.

Useful Philosophy

Just as we produce thoughts by talking things over, we produce memories by composing them and reflecting.

-Simon Sarris, On the Usefulness of Photography

Descending down the internet rabbit hole of this New Hampshire man, I first followed his internet home among the blue bird.

His threads were like galleries if they made space in cities for quiet simplicity.

This man must be a mystic with the essays he delivers in a few words and a picture…

Then I discovered

The Map is Mostly Water

. The first word I typed into the search field could only have been one: photography. And so began my first reading of, On the Usefulness of Photography.

Photography is a magical art and a surprisingly underrated tool…

-Simon Sarris, On the Usefulness of Photography

Before the first period of the first sentence I knew I had found a kindred spirit across the continent. Though not yet convinced I would be posting images of my kid on the internet, embracing this philosophy of photography charged me to capture more moments too often considered miniature and unnoted. 

As the essay concluded I realized I could now concentrate my own philosophy on Photography:

Photography instructs us in how to notice and appreciate beauty. This is why making images is a worthwhile practice. By capturing a scene, subject and setting, we are asking ourselves to explore meaning. In this way making a memory becomes a meditation in itself.

Or in Simon’s own words:

Learning to be on the lookout for beautiful things is a way of contesting the relentlessly rationalistic view of the world that surrounds us. Just as we produce thoughts by talking things over, we produce memories by composing them and reflecting. By taking lots of photos you may come to find more things you cherish.

-Simon Sarris, On the Usefulness of Photography

Homesteading

“Home” is the set of rituals you make for yourself and others there, in order to dwell poetically in a place.

-Simon Sarris, Designing a New Old Home: Curiosity

Deeper than the dermis of Simon’s photography was another adventure. Though we had similar instruments yet found ourselves mountains and plains apart, we shared a frequency. We both want homes in a rural world…

I devoured his series Designing a New Old Home and discovered I was not alone.

I thought about baseboards and crown molding. Plaster walls and windows in doors were my ponderings. I am already clearing land and creating elevations for our New Old Home. Even angling the entrance and openings to the world as though I was crafting a cathedral. Perhaps that’s the point though. That even cabins are sacred homes.

Grading crush into our cabin clearing here in Idaho.

This man is timbers already set ablaze, lending my kindling a light.

Regardless of where they live, most people have more control over their environment — and their environment has more control over them — than they realize.

-Simon Sarris, Designing a New Old Home: Curiosity

Authentic Alchemy

Rational insight is a powerful tool, and one of our worst excesses. 

-Simon Sarris, In Praise of the Gods

If Simon’s photography was the skin of his work, and his Everyday Aesthetics, the bones, then his philosophical works reveal his soul.

Like Sarris I have spent countless hours now quantified in years at a keyboard and screen. I’ve written code that affects things you probably know. And yet I have no desire to worship those things as many men do. 

How could I not be captivated by this beautiful advocacy for religion when across the courtroom is rationality claiming the defendant doesn’t even exist! 

To argue proofs of religion is to miss the point of religion. What matters is if one’s sense of gratitude and wonder are fitting responses to our world. 

-Simon Sarris, In Praise of the Gods

Passing over these pieces of philosophy felt like I was walking beside a brother in the wilderness. Even though we did not escape the same Egypt, we both march in the sands to our own promised lands. I found comfort in my fellow man's quest. I gained clarity on the abundant beauty available to anyone. 

One of my woodpiles in the forest.

Señores & Señoras, Simon Sarris is the sage of the Granite State. I can’t count how many times I found myself attempting to say these things in the city named for Francis of Assisi…

Religion is active: you must practice wonder and observe mystery. To learn a creed and a mythology is to begin to produce a vigorous life, and any vigorous, embodied life will produce creeds and mythologies. The mythos we create is the opposite of nihilism, it is the definite optimism of the power of the world waiting be lured back by us.

All children know this.

-Simon Sarris, In Praise of the Gods

Continue

If the map is mostly water then someone can be our sextant on the seas. Reading, meeting, and conversing with another points us to constellations otherwise unseen. 

While Leon, my son, will not be gracing the internet just yet, I delight in sharing more of the details of this wild life. My disciplines with photography have been enriched. I am encouraged by these dispatches as I continue to create my own existence out in the forest. I am emboldened as I write, refine, and share my philosophies, knowing we do not walk alone. Together over the Jordan, over Jericho, and onto our future home.

Using a zoom lens to see if I can find New Hampshire through the trees.

Until next week,

-Steven

If you haven’t already go subscribe to

Simon Sarris

. And if you ever read this Simon, thank you for all you’ve put into the world. May you be blessed in abundance as you continue your work.

This essay would not exist without Write of Passage and the remarkable people of Cohort 10. Thank you to

Haley Brengartner

,

Rebecca Isjwara

,

Chris Wong

,

Writing to Lampposts

,

Latham

,

Elizabeth Edwards

,

Grace Sydney Smith

, and

Alan Hibbard