“This sequence of photographs moves imperceptibly through the everyday into the poetic, so surely that you won’t realize exactly when you experienced the shift.”―A. D. Coleman, from the preface
The African Flower holds approximately 53 black and white photographs on 80 pages. It was printed by The Stinehour Press in Lunenburg, Vermont and was self-published by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe in 2001.
Complimenting the photographs are the mediations of Howard Thurman, including “How Good To Center Down!”, “The Inward Sea” and “The Singing of Angels,” among others.
You can purchase The African Flower: the Singing of Angels on Amazon here.
As we listen, floating up through all the jangling echoes of our turbulence, there is a sound of another kind—A deeper note which only the stillness of the heart makes clear.” —Howard Thurman from “How Good To Center Down!”
Moutoussamy-Ashe completed The African Flower as a way of reflecting the transitions that she went through over 30 years of making photographs. It is a prayer, one of gratitude for the journey encompassing the first 50 years of her life. The book ends poetically with a prayer written and delivered by her father, John Moutoussamy, at a prayer breakfast on February 1, 1968.
