I like things that are experiential, have practical day-to-day use, and for meditation to have meaning in my life it needed to bring something of value or benefit to me. I’d experienced many of the intangible benefits like purpose, focus and balance which in themselves were invaluable, still are, but were these really a direct benefit of meditation? I was seeing them as disconnected somehow from the everyday, a sort of philosophical abstraction rather than a skill I could use in everyday life. 

And so in 2000 I was commissioned to photograph a flagship residential development for a developer, basically visiting the site on a regular basis to photograph progress. All was going well and as I reviewed the stock photos building up it occurred to me that a few shots from a higher perspective would give more variety – this was in the days before drones, so I’d been climbing the scaffolding to get different perspectives, but the options were closing down as building work progressed and I hadn’t budgeted for access platforms – so I thought I’d give the tower crane a shot. The site manager agreed to arrange an induction and training morning for me and then I’d be good to go. Climbing the ladder up the narrow inside of a metal cage with all my camera gear in a backpack wasn’t exactly the most comfortable experience and when the whole thing started to shudder and sway I froze. I hadn’t expected the crane to be operating while I was climbing! My brain went into panicked overdrive and my body just would not accept instructions, I was immobilised with fear, and there was no way anyone could come in and get me out of there. And that was when I drew on all of the meditative experience within to resolve the impasse; as they say, the only way is through it. With a hefty dose of self-talk mantra, a one step at a time approach I inched my way to the top (going back down was an option I discounted) crawled my way onto the gantry and, immersing myself in photography, got on with the job. The way back down was less terrifying, but still a challenge that I felt more than up to. When I reflected on the experience (more meditation) I was reminded of a dream I’d had around the time I took the plunge as a freelance photographer (more of that in Dreams), and resolved to face my fears again the following week. Although there was no real necessity for it, I decided to go back up the tower crane to put my fears to bed (similar to falling off a bike and getting straight back on again I suppose). Much later, in 2008, I was photographing another site with a tower crane and yes, I went up again, drawing on my earlier experience to give me confidence.