I started by looking for God at church. I found friends there, and they served delicious doughnuts in the lobby, but I didn’t find God.
Then I tried looking for God alone in my room while I prayed. I thought if I scrunched my eyes really tight until my head hurt maybe he would appear. He didn’t. As I grew up and kept seeking, I tried meditation, psychedelics, yoga, listened to hours and hours of talks by innumerable spiritual gurus, but all of this striving to reach some disembodied higher state left me more alone and disconnected than ever. It wasn’t until I stopped looking up to the heavens and started looking around, at the earth, that I started seeing God. Now I see God everywhere.
As I write this, I see God in the squirrels chasing each other through the trees as the last of the autumn leaves drop one by one from their branches. As I started picking up my camera and taking pictures of God, I found the sense of belonging and purpose that I had been seeking since my first existential crisis at the age of 15. My creativity became the place that brought me into a deeper connection with my environment, my community, my inner world. I stopped looking for answers to life’s big questions in books and started using my art to ask these age-old questions in different ways. If religion is the structure, practice or portal through which we enter into connection with the divine, then creativity is mine.
This photo series asks, what if we lived in a world that saw water as holy, alive, and worthy of devotion like we do the gods of human likeness? How would that change our understanding of water? How would that change our understanding of God? How has God being conceptualized as a masculine figure in our Christian-dominated Western society affected our relationship with the feminine?
These images invite the viewer to reconsider the gods and heroes of our current paradigm and start looking for inspiration outside our human stories. If water was God, we could see ourselves in her reflection. We could reimagine our story as thirst quenchers, life givers, essential and connected to all life on earth.
The image is a dream, the beauty is real. Can you see the difference? –Richard Bach, Illusions
About Sarah Aha
Sarah Aha is an imaginative artist and dream director, delving into the realms of imagination and emotion with her conceptual art photography and photo manipulation. Her background as a dancer and actress enriches her work, as she blends her fascination with the human form with the essence and spirit of the natural world. Frequently the subject of her own camera, Sarah moves within the frame, employing tripods and remote shutters to craft self-portraits that bring her internal landscape to life. Gathering a collection of original photographs, she crafts a visual narrative, using diverse compositing and editing techniques to manipulate each element. She infuses her work with vibrant colors, textures, and personal touches.
Sarah uses her camera to explore beyond her own physical boundaries, seeking to understand the Self. Her journey has taught her that self-exploration, if unchecked, can spiral into a cycle of introspection and self-critique. Now, her goal is to broaden our understanding of self to encompass all life, transforming self-discovery into a bridge for connecting with the world, rather than an isolating void. [Official Website]
