THOUGHTS
When spring brings
these green spears, heralds of rising life,
I ache, awake.
I want to slip myself under that emerald blanket where
roots weave through wet humus,
to listen.
To revere what the dark made holy,
to set my womb down
against the dust of life and death and life again,
to ground myself in the resurrected nourishment,
to find the quiet where loss gives rise to life.
Photographed just after I visited an LDS temple for the last time.
It is no secret that Ashley Thalman is no longer LDS. It is also no secret that some of my most profound memories, relationships, experiences, and growth came as a practicing true-believing Mormon. And I was true. I served a mission and deeply felt the purpose of the eternal plan of salvation and it gave me hope, helped insulate me through child abuse and neglect, a parent's death, and a painful marriage.
It has been a hard and rewarding road learning to navigate spirituality on my own terms while wrestling with the pain points that very aggressively, very unexpectedly destroyed my foundational belief in Mormonism's core concepts and culture. I did not "fall away", nor was I "lead" from the paths and prescriptions of Mormonism or the Gospel. I did not read "anti". I just took my gospel doctrine calling seriously and leaned in hard to what I thought Christianity was.
It would be an understatement at best, and dishonest at worst, not to say that my faith crisis hit me with the force of war. I felt like I was exploding, imploding. I collapsed under the weight of it. I aches with screaming and sobbing and moaning. This went on and on for well over a year.
Groaning in heaves of crying, praying, begging. "Please, let it be real." --- "What is the point anymore?!"---- "What happens when we die!" I ran. I ran so hard and far and fast that I ran my knees ragged and the torn cartilage evidence is audible.
I tried, I read and researched hoping to find a loophole, a wormhole to bring me back all my assurance and knowing. I versed myself on the finer points, the broader foundations, the intentions, the culture, the history and yet, I could not unsee what I had seen. I wished I could and still I couldn't. I was not wrong but I didn't know that. I made myself wrong and felt deep pointed pains of loss and grief.
There is a difference among the disaffected, between those of us who never felt the true-blue depth of Mormonism, and those who did. It is the divisible difference between leaving a casual boyfriend/girlfriend and divorcing a person you were deeply in love with and committed to for 20+ years.
I taught gospel doctrine for about 6 months following the collapse of my belief because I hoped that somewhere in Ashley was a spiritual gift to reconcile not only myself, but all the pain the church and its culture had caused, with all the good of all the people who relied on it and were committed to it.
But then I mercifully moved. I left the branch I had belonged to for 6 years and I stopped going. I have never been back. I started telling friends, told my family, experienced a lot of freedom not having to hide anymore and once my divorce was final, I sent in my official resignation letter and had my records removed from the church. This entire time I had an army of ex mos, jack mos, liberal af mos, mo mos who all loved me. But even still I had to learn to love the me I never planned on becoming. I had roadmaps of unorthodoxy, exit, resignation. I had Reddit. I had tools. I had a therapist but some are not so lucky.
I know this hurts to read for some of you. It would have hurt and worried a previous me. I do not share this to "leave the church, but not leave it alone". I share it to humanize something happening that is not one dimensional. You see, I never foresaw this path for myself. And because of the alchemic work I have done to accept, embrace and grow from all this I have become someone I was always afraid I could never be. And I love her. And I'm grateful that I'm not LDS and at the same time I am grateful that I was. And that's flippin' hard to work through and not everyone can say that.
So, here is the point of this long long share. And a little invitation... Our culture of Mormonism is filled with countless people who, like I once was, are running and aching and sobbing and begging and hoping to reconcile their faith. They are everywhere. For some, even once reconciliation and relief comes, they stay. The reasons are myriad and each one is real and worthy and shitty and isolating and painful beyond what I can explain here.
These people are teaching gospel doctrine, they are bishops, they are your daughters-in-law, they are leading auxiliaries, working at the COB, at BYU- all wearing the costume, walking the walk, because it is too painful to leave, too expensive, too emotionally costly, too dangerous. And sometimes if may be because of things they have heard you say. It may be that they are so certain that your love is limited to their 10% and temple recommend that they keep this huge grief from you, resigning to live as a shadow. And you don't know who they are because this is a well-intentioned culture that encourages us to "doubt out doubts" and therefore we erroneously "doubt the doubters" and that hurts people terribly.
Years ago when I was very "in" and I was hoping to gain insight on how to empathize and create safety for those who were out, or verging on it, a therapist invited me to "BE CURIOUS"- be empathetic.
That is where the magic begins. And if that feels safe, and you can follow the inclusive lessons of Christ a bit deeper you will deepen. It will profoundly enrich you to embrace others. Maybe you will find that you would be okay having a family member or friend who is changing shape. Open your mouth and reaffirm their place and security as someone you love and trust who can love and trust you.
My dad said the most beautiful thing a few years ago, "I trust that you had good reasons for leaving and I still think you are great." That is ideal! If you can't say it with integrity, start by withholding your judgements about those leave because you never, ever know who will leave next.
How much have we hidden to show only one side? How many parts have we divorced, and where did those parts go? What does it mean to make a welcome home for ourself, after we sent her away?
Woman, you do not fit into narrow prescriptions.
You are an endless landscape, an ecosystem entire of light and dark, rot and flowering.
You are the seed breaking forth, angry and determined.
You are the dark soil parting and nourishing.
You are the gift that the world called forth, you are whole and holy, you don’t need what you don’t already have.
You are sprout and root, stem and leaf, not a mere flowering part.
You are all the death that hides and the life that brings you back, again and again.
This is the true story of woman. Don’t let them tell you any different.
It was an October Monday in the quiet Edmonton airport where I met Mo. It was a chanced meeting and, like foreordained companions, we passed through TSA, through the sad terminal architecture, through the heavy-handed duty free gift shop- as a pair.
Taking cues from time and place, we chose a corner where the light was right, a place to talk and share. In that place we were seen and we saw each other. The truth is that Mo blessed me by being seen and showing up like he did. Connection, kindness, consideration, and fantastic light is all around us. And Mo, he’s experienced, artistic, deep, and funny. It has been so amazing in the last year and a half to see and watch Mo’s light and depth shine in a world that needs his voice, needs his generosity and humor.
I still don’t know if it is right after all, did I keep the truth and the fear in balance? I don’t know, but I felt proud writing it. I have always loved writing but I didn’t know much of how to do it until the last few months. It was always too personal to me and so I abstracted myself. There must be a million ways we abstract our clarity and each one has led me to becoming more and more and more distant from the sharpness I needed to bring to my writing, to my work as a portrait photographer, to the way I navigate hard heavy things that I don’t know how to do.
Here is what I wrote:
The relationship was so obviously mismatched that I didn’t think I needed to set boundaries for it. That’s how easy this shit always starts and then seven months later you’ve settled.
This photo was taken in 2017 on the day I decided I was going to break up with him. Three months and tries later I broke it off and blocked the number.
I’m not going to tidy this story up.
I’m not going to be flippant with the pain I had to feel by living this shitty story. I won’t soften it with, “and then I met Matthew” or lighten it up with fake laughter comforts, “ha ha, I was so blind”. Not a chance. That would be too easy and I’m not going to do easy to the woman in this photo, or the woman writing this post, or the women reading it.
The stupid truth is that I settled because it was easy.
Fuck easy.
Easy will rob you just like it robbed me. Easy is reflexive, easy is purposeless. Easy is a boy. Easy is a check in the bank and a boss you can blame. Easy is a slippery silent backslide to your own made-up bullshit. Easy neither asks nor makes anything of us, or for us. Easy will never scare you or excite you. Easy isn’t as bargain it’s a burden, it’s slavery. You deserve better and so did I.
This photo was taken by my friend Maddie Beeton
My daughter took this photo of me at Andi Pitcher’s cabin. No bra, lounging around, yesterday’s makeup, wild hair. It was a lazy morning, the kind that I’ve given myself permission to have. The sun was so warm there. Dotter raised the camera and I had a choice to make. I could have silently protested the portrait by letting her take it overexposed or by shewing her away, “Not until I’m dressed” or “No, let me take some of you.” But I didn’t, I set her exposure and let her see me.
My daughter is 10, the age so many of us began to pull at our skin, to notice lines in the abdomen when twisting, the way thighs pucker, the way we didn’t measure “right”. We inherited this from the work not done before us and I’ll be damned. I’ll be damned to be another woman pulling at puckers and hating my body, demonstrating this for my children and friends. I will not pass this on. I will let her take the photo and I will take hers, and yours, and again and again.
Taken nestled between two very hot sand dunes by my Matthew match.
I have felt the calling from something deep and wild inside of me from childhood. If I look back at my first real photo session which was made in a classroom at Provo high with Milmaliisa Loeskow as my subject, I can see that I was always coming back to this. I don’t know about you, but everything I wanted and valued deeply in the discovering years of high school are still the very things that I love and want. I don’t think we really change all that much in life, rather we return to ourselves if we are lucky enough and brave enough to do it.
I believe that we each feel a life-long series of magnetic aches, a train at night shaking the walls, a buzz that signals us. The volume of my signal has increased exponentially since opening Ultraviolet. Through conversation, songs, posts, books, texts, sex. I’ve been connecting and returning to myself through these dots, these crumbs.
”Do what you know.” - An early morning whisper while laying in Andi’s cabin.
“You set your intention and go.”- Errin
”Niches bring riches” from Amanda at A.&.Co
“Go with your gut.” From “Backdrop Stock”’s instagram story.
“We cannot see you. Who are you?”- D’Arcy Bennincosa
And lastly, “women women women”- like a spell that rose from what I could see. I scrolled through my Instagram feed and asked myself what messages I was visually sharing with my followers. I visited my website, a collection of my own decade-long work and I saw it- it’s always women. Women sit at the center of everything I see, every story I tell. And creative women are the heart of my very best work.
Creative women are the clients I would shoot with pleasure and excitement if I were fantastically rich and had no need for money.
The dots began to connect, igniting me with the tears and laughter of finally finding something. This is demanding as much as it is exciting. I have to change everything from pricing sheets to marketing to, everything else. But I’ve been reunited with an old friend in myself. The friend that reminds me that I deserve to do the things that make me lose track of time, that spill my heart over with excitement.
Photography is work and I know how to work. I know how to risk, I know about time and writing and pricing. I know how to show up, communicate, make, deliver, invest in my gear, network, write and collect reviews. I know. I know and I can do it over and over.
Yesterday during my tarot reading with Zina Bennion she told a story of her father, Joe Bennion, a legendary potter who once-upon-a-time made a bowl that he could reproduce over and over and over. It sold, it was beautiful and valuable and he was becoming known for the shape and glaze of his palatable offering, but one day he realized that the latest batch readied from the kill/kiln had been sitting for days unseen. No spark, no excitement no drive to decend to the basement and see. So he stopped there to return to, or to find the things that ignited him- the work that got his fingers hot.
In the upheaval of the last few years of my divorce, extreme haircuts, hard and long runs, surgeries, resigning from my formerly beloved religion, selling my house, finding the love of my life, partnering with him, learning self-love, becoming a mother and again a bonus adult to two children, taking 3 van loads of old things to the thrift store after sitting with old life relics and my drawing attachments. A year of sifting through my old mission stuff in bins, letting go of friendships, throwing away journals, changing schools, building and opening a new studio- I’ve learned this: my magic is found in doing the unknown, unreserved thing that calls, that has always called. “Do what you know” is the best and most honest thing. A depth living comes alive in the space of responding to what calls us. Clarissa Pinkola Estés said,
“If we were to name only one thing that makes the Wild Woman what she is it would be her responsiveness. The word response comes from the Latin word, “to pledge, to promise” and that is her strong suit. Her perception and deft responses are a consistent promise and pledge to the creative forces.”
I have been patient in waiting to hear the magnet call clarify. I hear it now and I’m responding to it. Steve Jobs said, “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
I knew Ultraviolet was a piece of my story but I didn’t know exactly how it would spark me, heal me, break me down, and require literally every dime, every piece of energy, every tear and every bit of moisture from my hands. I’ve been through weird emotional hell with it. But I knew that it would be part of my story- I just didn’t know what part. And now a piece of that has been illuminated, the call is clear.
My work is to collaborate with strong women who have a distinct artistic voice. Women who are ready to be seen, who make a wild go of their lives, who are drawn to honest images, women who share their nuanced stories. My work is to make those images with women who have heard the call to share their soul’s work like I have heard mine.
Taken by my sister, Shawna on the highest peak of Antelope Island.
I have been photographing Erika for seven years. I have images of her hunched over a table, fiddling with petals in her early 20’s with old-soul fashion. She wore a striking white lace top tucked into something perfect.
Once we images of her precariously teetering on a wooden ladder while wearing woven wedges. Sweaty and determined we set a scene in an overgrown field, both of us pushing away stalky sunflowers, hoping the ladder would hold. We needed her high, we needed her caught in the late fertile light of September. Like yesterday I see her straw hat angled in picturesque style on her curl-topped head, surrounded by sunflowers.
We made photos on her wedding day, standing on a carpet of summer grass with perfect Claudia Dell contrapposto. She wore a classic cream dress, a peach in hand, wearing a bemused smile.
I have behind the scenes images from my Provo studio where she arranged flowers to top my Dotter’s tiny head and later atop Carol Lambert’s elderly one.
Mrs Lambert’s granddaughter hired me to photograph her purple-obsessed grandmother and I hired Erika to make floral crowns. We worked together to make images that captured Carol in her aged glory; crone, mother, maiden, girl- all the parts of a woman there and gone, rising to old age in the white-haired woman who sat regal, in flowers. Carol died a few days after that session of royal purple and flowers. We caught that image just in time.
As women and creatives, Erika and I have seen things, life has intersected over us and we’ve witnessed it together and apart; a confluence of witnessing and documenting, sharing and showing.
Erika has allowed me to chronicle her majestic life unfolding; here a little, there a little while mine unfolded unseen behind the camera. Totally comfortable and trusting, our relationship has always been fed by apertures and flowers. Each time we’ve worked together we basked, created and remembered while I attempted to understand the ethereal spaciousness of the archetypal woman in myself, in her, in Carol, in us all.
And so it is.
Here are some images from last Spring when we celebrated Erika. I hope to make photos like this again.
And so it shall be.
It’s a curious thing to know the power of being present, while being pulled magnetically to the fascination of what is, at its core, a worshipful curiosity about the past. This tension is what makes me the photographer I am. Sometimes looking back is celebratory, other times grief-stricken but nostalgia can be a middle-sitting spot of honoring what once was. Life and living are not about building a shrine around the past. But remembering how things were is a way of seeing the now. The way a loved one looked at us or touched us is as much about what is gone, as it is about what is right here in this holy now.
I’ve been listening to Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead, and while I’ve been a long-time devotee of her shame research and how it can be a powerful antidote to perfectionism, I needed a refresher on what shame means and looks like. Brown identified a key factor of shame as exceptionalism and isolation resulting from a feeling of “I’m bad” as opposed to “I did something bad” and then not wanting anyone to know that we feel that shame. We, feeling as if we are inherently bad, want to reserve the tar-like ick of it for ourselves. “Aren’t I bad enough?!”
Listening last night, I resolved to try sharing and identifying my shame this week to both myself and the people closest to me; to be curious instead of afraid, to feel part of a human experience instead of unworthy of it. Sharing is a sacred antidote. Bit by bit becoming more self-aware of how shame still tangles itself around me, I trust that I can become more empathetic to myself and others. That’s the goal which each time I attempt, I’m rewarded.
Today, ironically, I went on a little shame tour. After tackling lots of important tasks, I started wondering about my online presence. I should have stopped there. Something else Brené said, citing research, was this,
“Unwanted identity is one of the primary elicitors of shame"
I googled my name and found all kinds of old-Ashley, and past Ashley Thalman Photography content (I think it’s important to distinguish the fact that we are NOT our brands). A huge majority of the images my name pulled were old, like 2006 old. Looking back did not bring feeling of proud progression- not at all.
Photos with actions that have worn out, photos of my old home, evidence of a woman trying too hard, remnants of blind perfectionism and obsessive cleaning. There it was, my old life. With my hair painted red, making image that had too room up top that I took while going for “modern”. My past is out there, pimpled with tightly clumped groups on temple steps and wordy words that I still can’t shake for clarity. Ugh. Proof of everything I didn’t know back then yes, but so much proof of how messy and unworthy I still am. That is shame.
I went deeper and deeper into the old images. If I had been alert and intentional, I would have literally heard PROCEED TO THE ROUTE from Brene or or Matthew or Errin or my tarot reader Zina or the voice of the intentional me. Instead my eyes painted rolling patterns on my scull and I clicked and clicked and clicked looking at images of that old me. It was getting old. But just one more click…
And then the photos of my toddler kids surfaced and I felt like something had me at the throat.
Like every new parent, I was unprepared for motherhood. Everyone is underprepared. And even though I try to grow by knowing what I know, and forgive myself of the rest, I forget. And in this morning moment, scrolling and clicking, my shame came for me.
The shame of not being enough, of not being prepared, of not being smart and patient. The shame of making perceivably irreparable mistakes in motherhood and life that got on everyone I loved. The biggest ache that the then-Ashley bore, was never fully allowing herself joy because she was so afraid of joy vanishing. She kept it at bay with doing. Doing, organizing, hiking, counting calories, staying up too late. Avoidance.
And yes, that gone-girl had wildly happy and contented moments too. But I couldn’t see that this morning. I couldn’t see beyond what I wasn’t to what I brilliantly was.
So today, with shame at my throat, photos from an old Flickr gallery in my eyes, and a to-do list that is begging for my attentions, I followed Brené’s fresh words and I admitted my shame to my people. I wrote Errin and Mathew both telling them where I sat. I shared my regret and sorrow and harsh critiques of myself. Matthew reminded me about forgiveness and not making myself wrong and Errin gracefully called bullshit and told me to knock this crap off. Errin and I raised our newborns together and she sees the forest for the trees when I don’t.
So I dusted myself off and I refused to let my old shame habit devour me alone like it did back then. I’m still shocked that it comes, and sometimes I feel like WHY DID I DO ALL THIS WORK ONLY FOR THIS TO COME BACK? But this ride, with its insane diversions, reminds me that when I forget, rediscovery is an awaiting gift. Deepening cycles, circles, and seasons are the realities of growth. There is no arrival, life is not linear, I’m not going anywhere.
After speaking the pain and being heard, after sobbing and a load of laundry, I looked at the photos again. I looked for evidence of the real me, looking for the private raw beauty of my life as a mother, as a human, as a wife, as a friend, and as a hard-working learner, she’s there. It’s all there.
Art and Community-
I posed for a figure drawing class at Simple Life Studio . It was a life wish and the circumstances were perfect. Maybe at some point I’ll share the photos I snagged of the beautiful sketches, each different in their lines, interpretations, and perspectives. I left with tremendous respect for the ancient act of sitting, being seen, seeing, showing up and sharing the gift of representation through art. And for women in art who work to know the world in little glimpses that sketch purpose and beauty.
Listened-
Good Life Project with Samin Nosrat
Takeaway-
-At 10 years you begin to know what you are doing. This is so real. The last few months have really clarified my work for me.
-If we throw ourselves entirely and unabashedly into a projects and passions then we won’t have ourselves to regret or blame, regardless of the outcomes of that effort. The work, and our unique vision of that work matters and communicates something singular.
Super Soul Sunday with Glennon Doyle
Takeaway-
- The feeling of deep knowing only reveals the next step, not the 10 year plan that will become from taking that next step.
-I found this to be particularly striking as a reflection of what it means to be a human, specifically a woman, “I’ve felt split in two my entire life. There is the part of me on the outside that is saying the things that I am supposed be say, like, ‘I’m fine’. And then there is the part of me on the inside that is scared and lonely….We are all truth tellers…and it is very hard to hear the truth from a woman…and since negative emotions are less acceptable for a woman, we end up sometimes telling our truth in different ways than words, sometimes dangerous ways. Everyone tells the truth with something…which is why it is so powerful when you can integrate those two selves and tell the story of what’s going on on the inside with your words.”
- “Everyone is afraid of their pain but what we should be afraid of is the easy button- that is where suffering comes in. Pain is mandatory, it is what teaches us. Suffering is optional.”
Watched-
Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown Episode of Newfoundland. Bourdain’s contributions were great and he was such a perfect heart-filled asshole, I am so glad we have so much content from his voice and vision of the world. As for the episode, it is filled with forest and intention that communicated such a beautiful culinary and cultural story of Newfoundland. Images of rustic surfaces studded with crystal glass, wine chilled in rivers- it was dripping with naturalist romance made only the more contrasted by the Motley Crew telling the story. Something achingly nostalgic and ancestral was spoken about self-reliance and a connection between what we are and what we eat and how that sacred process of taking into our bodies something that has its own distinct form happens.
There have been many times in the last year, since moving to a low-income, working-class neighborhood that I have realized how reliant we are and, therefore, how wrong we have “it'“. It being living, and feeling connected and satisfied. How close we are to ruin and hunger, being as entirely reliant on trucking, highways, and low wage farming, water as we are. It felt right to see the rejuvenating cod in the cold ink water after learning about the destruction of those waters by heavy nets that dragged the ocean (I cringe at the untold bycatch) enacting a moratorium on the cultural of cod.
Ultraviolet Progress-
Negotiated a new floor for the studio, this time polyurethane. We are delayed and that occasionally leaves me feeling like we have failed something that hasn’t begun. But it will begin and Ogden is going to love our production studio. I feel faithful to the original ideas through and it has been miraculous how the money, time, and resources have fit and happened. Despite that, I am at that point in creating the studio where all woman who have given birth have been, in transition. I am that creator that wants to go home to avoid the demand of the delivery, that ring of fire edges closer. Anyone who wants to do big shit has to deal with the contrast of opposition. It’s weird in fact, and I have so many stories to share at some point, provided that I can fight my imposter syndrome back enough to get through writing this one-off post so that I can write the next one. My break this morning came in the form of seeing myself a few steps ahead, all having turned out to be the ennobling canvas we hope it will be for not only ourselves but for other people willing to brave the comical terror of delivery and creation.
Read
I started to read “The River”, from Gary Paulsen’s Hachet series to the kids and it is so beautifully written. I wonder if I will ever be the writer I want to be.
I am still reading Women Who Run with Wolves (it is so dense and resets my soul course making it hard to read at a normal pace).
I am also reading Hold Still by Sally Mann.
Ate
Made Mandy’s Shepards Pie which reminds me, I’ve been vegan for 3 years now. I still want some moose meat in Newfoundland though.
Laughed About
TV dinners, marketing
Parenthood
I love being with my children while they are in the process of discovery. The frustrated loping of laces, the goose egg first steps, the triumph of speaking bravely, the depths that come as they (and us with them) learn to sit in pain or say goodbye. They grow to face questions and realities that so often don't have formulaic answers and it is a gift to sit in what we don’t know to develop what we do.
Dotter and her class are reading, "The Watsons Go to Birmingham" and this evening, after dinner, she came to me with her hand on her heart,
"Mom, no one in my class is racist! Today we read about Martin Luther King getting shot and everyone was so sad."
Her experience is complicated with firsts! To feel sorrow and shock as bonding preteen peers, to learn about the heaviness of the ongoing civil rights movement, to examine what it means to be white, to learn about art, race, war, politics, abuse, sexism, love, equality, hatred, forgiveness- these are all necessary and sensitive topics. But to feel that no on is racist is a hopeful and harrowing thing.