Kate McGarrigle memorial concert. The Gods still resonate within us.

I tuned in to the radio when I came in the house for afternoon tea and it took a while to actually listen carefully. With 24 hour radio available it is all too easy to hear much but listen poorly. Kate Mc Garrigle's song 'Procepina', written in the last three months of her life and sung now by her family, pulled me into focus.

Her daughter, Martha, referred to the Greek legend of the goddess Persephone (as we spell her in English), the embodiment of the seasons of agriculture in the Mediterranean when the wheat was put into underground storage for the summer months and then brought out for planting with the fall rains. A yearly cycle of harvest, storage, replanting and growth through to the next summer harvest. The same cycle over thousands of years since agriculture was first invented in that part of the world. The two embodiments of agriculture, Hera, and her daughter Persephone were in this song. The focus was on Hera's plea for Persephone to return from the underworld - “ Come home to Hera, come home to Mama”and what was so touching was that she was plainly identifying with Persephone being called home to mother as she herself was participated in the process of dying to this world and already hearing the voice of the next.

It is an amazing artistic feat to be able to create through every stage of life, to find the myths that we all feel deep under the skin. The Gods of the ancient world still resonate within us. Some time ago Kate said to her daughter “ I think I may be a goddess.” and maybe she meant it literally or perhaps she was simply grasping a truth; that the Gods are deeply us, their stories the transit of our own deep and eternal selves.

Song writers work with metaphor, with story, with eternal themes and they touch us with that potent mix of story and music. This recipe of music and phrase, of metaphor and legend has been with us for a very long time, so far back that Homer would count as recent. To be human is to have brains designed over long periods of time to work with music and poetry and to respond far more powerfully than words alone, the prose version, would elicit.

Scything the meadow: an outdated technology; or is it?

The scythe swings rhythmically in my hands, the grass, sending up its seedy stalks on this early summer morning, slides along the long thin blade and parts from its roots with a satisfying 'Ahhhh' before being deposited in a windrow along the edge of the swath I am cutting through the meadow. The tool, the grass and I are working smoothly together in an ancient ritual.

My father, once an English farmer, taught me how to do this when I was young and now I don't suppose there are many people in the wealthy West that know how to use a scythe anymore. Perhaps they have only a vague idea what 'cutting a swath' really means if they read the phrase used metaphorically in a book.

I do own a lawn mower and a weedeater and use them regularly: they are noisy, use gas, wear out eventually and need replacing, but they do specific jobs very well. My scythe usually hangs under the eves with its sharpening stone, waiting for this time of year when its own particular qualities come to the fore.

I pause regularly to sharpen the long, thin, curved blade; holding the scythe upright with my left hand and, with my right, sliding the sharpening stone down the cutting edge on alternate sides, just like I do for sharpening the carving knife at home. Cutting grass for hay is not a test of strength, but of finesse, and I wish to perform this dance smoothly and accurately.

Each stroke begins as I bring the curved handle back to the right, line up the next strip of grass stems and then swing back to the left, pulling my left arm back to my body as I do so. The blade runs along parallel with the stems, slicing them cleanly and the final curve lifts and deposits the cut pieces in a neat windrow, there to cure and dry. So smooth, so very satisfying, so quiet, and so cheap.

That simplicity, the long life and inexpensiveness of a scythe, the basic skills, are of course not popular in our market economy. Why, if everyone lived this way, made their own hay, used no tractor, no fuel, had no overhead ,surely the world would collapse! Perhaps it will anyway, and then my simple scything and hay making skills will be in demand once more.

Photographs do have a point of view.

'Images from the Likeness House.' Dan Savard.

In our Ganges library I found a fascinating book about early photographs that now reside in the Royal BC Museum and were taken of First Nations peoples along this coast from the 1850's to the early years of the last century. Perhaps it is my background of studies in Anthropology, my childhood carvings of totem poles and early friendships with native children in a small coastal community, but this material draws me in big time.

The photographs provide so much information about how things were; the portraits, the communities, the little details about canoes and carvings, how the boards were laid on house sides and roofs. One’s eyes are such great gleaners of information and the camera has recorded all this for me in detail; but not without the filters of the mind of the photographer and the social conventions of the time.

That is always the hard concept to get across; that photographs, like written accounts, drawings and paintings, have a point of view and are not simply the 'unvarnished truth'. That the photographs we may take today 'in living colour' are also just as tightly constrained and project a cultural bias that others can read. The images we take while travelling abroad are, like these images made by early photographers, reflective of a certain suite of attitudes. Some local people squat around a fire and we do not think to ask permission to take their image, not thinking that they may be uncomfortable about this thoughtless capture of their likeness. We look down and shoot ' local colour' from above, as part of our safari, rather than squat down in their sides and, with permission, make a likeness.

These unconscious prejudices come through in these old photographs. Indians are so often shot for their 'quaintness' their interesting savagery and the commercial value of their images. We see the romantic photographs of Curtis, the American photographer, eager to re-enact images of 'the noble savage' using models who, having neglected to die off as expected, obligingly doff their European clothes and pose in feathers, buckskin and bark clothing. Another photographer in Victoria poses an old couple on the linoleum floor of his studio and exposes his own attitudes at the same time as he trips the shutter.

But then there are also photos taken by survey parties in the interior of BC, at the same time as Curtis was making his re-enactments on the coast, that show local men and women in their normal working dress, at the blending frontier that is closer to another truth of the times.

An action photo taken by an Indian crew member of a whaling canoe in Juan de Fuca Strait is to modern eyes a masterful image, so close to the action that, despite the scratchy print, we are in the midst of the hunt!

The images in this book tell a lot about the relationship between the 'ghosts' with their cameras and the real people. The white ghosts got to write the histories and make the visual record but still, hidden in photographs like those in this book, one can read another bigger story stitched between the lines.

All the arts share so much in common: how a painter can have much to say to photographers.

  

Edward Hopper 1882 – 1967. Transformations of the Real. By Rolf Gunter Renner ( in our Ganges library)

A couple stop in a late night diner; we are aware of the reality of the moment, of the isolation of individuals in society, even in this case between the two at the counter. This is a painting from another era, but the theme is universal and versions of this image can be found in many photographer's portfolios. In fact 'alienation' as an idea came to be recognized through the Arts ( including writing and music) long before it finally appeared in the images of photographers today.

Beside thematic content, we can also look closely at individual Hopper paintings and learn much about making photographs. His interest in the play of light, how it delineates the scene and sets the mood, and in this 'Diner' image how the space around the central characters is so important to his idea. Imagine cropping this down closely to the central three people: a lot less lonely, less isolating and less effective.

'Bridge in Paris', painted in 1906, could be a modern photograph with its interest in colour and tone and in using closely confined, almost abstract forms to express a larger idea.

If we take time to browse through this artist’s images we see that his imagery may change but the theme is always present. That is what gives his work such cohesiveness, such believability. When a photographer does the same, instead of skating all over the map we can see him go deeper, grow roots and stand firmly upon the mountain of his work.

Historic photographs. The work of C.D.Hoy in Quesnel and Barkerville at the turn of the last century.

I recently found a book in the Ganges library that chronicles the frontier days of B.C.

'First Son. Portraits by C.D. Hoy.” by Faith Moosang, combines reproductions of Hoy's photographs with a thoughtful account of the early days of Barkerville and Quesnel, especially the easy going relationships between Native, Chinese and Caucasians in this frontier environment compared to the racist attitudes prevalent in the major centres at that time. It is the photographs that drew me into this little book and it just goes to show that all these years later that it is the person of the sitter that remains important rather than the 'artistic' treatment that I might favour in my own portrait work.

It is the hands of the sitters that are prominent. Working with available light only, Hoy, especially when working indoors, was restricted to long exposures and wide open apertures with their narrow depth of field. By his putting the hands in sharp focus we are drawn by what they reveal about every sitter, irrespective of race or nationality. It would also explain why so many images were made outside in natural light. It is in the fringes of the photos, what we would crop off today as distracting, that so much detail emerges about conditions at the time; a Caucasian family poses on the porch of their nice home, the steps however are roughly built of raw lumber.

Perhaps because the photographer was Chinese himself, the people before the lens seem so relaxed, so secure within themselves and this is for me the real appeal of Hoy's photography. They look at us across the hundred years of history that separate us and we feel ourselves to be their kin, we smile back. We know them.

Looking up! Photographing subjects in difficult places.

I recently painted and then mounted a bird-form piece of driftwood on the top of a tall pole in my yard. Not difficult to make and only mildly dangerous up the ladder, but a challenge to photograph later. 

From ground level, even with my maximum zoom lens, it still looked like a tiny blob so out came the step ladder which I could move around to try different angles. From one angle the 'Raven' was bigger, but still a black silhouette, and when the sun burned through the overcast I had glare into the lens. Only then did I realize that my 'problem' was really my best creative solution. Raven, in coastal mythology is the one who stole light and released it into the heavens, and here, if I could control it, was Raven and the sun together. By putting the bright light behind a fir branch and then turning the camera to achieve a more dynamic angle for the pole I got a useful shot.

I also decided to photograph the crow on its nest of twigs that faces back across the driveway towards Raven. Once more I used the step ladder, tried a number of angles and settled on one that showed the detail of the carving, its forward leaning stance and 'nest'.

There was something creative but practical about this self assignment. In reality, although the subject matter was unusual, the same concerns applied here as in any other photograph, how to achieve the best possible image within the lighting and physical conditions present at the time. As in a wedding assignment, or garden spread for a magazine for example.

Hand tinting your paper print using powdered graphite

It is easy enough to 'photoshop' one's monochrome image but there is another way altogether that has a different look and harkens back to the early days of photography; hand tinting.

I have experimented with adding colour, usually water soluble pencil crayons before now, but the other day I bought some graphite powder from Island Blue Print in Sydney for a drawing project. Only later did I find that I could use it on two matte finish 12x18 black and white photos that had never seemed quite right. The images were far too busy with intricate details and I had put them aside. With nothing to loose, I started rubbing the graphite powder into areas on my Burgoyne image that I wished to tone down and later pulled fine detail back up with a sharp eraser. A touch of colour in a foreground detail for accent and I had created a one-and-only photo. A quick spray of odour free varnish sealed everything in.

In the second, Ruckle Park beach photo, the back lighting in the mid-distance was overpowering and I solved this in the same way, toning down the bright trees and emphasizing some detail in the foreground, altering the emphasis among the textural and tonal relationships.

These were subtle adjustments, but the sky is the limit when you start to hand adjust your printed images. The feel is quite different from doing this in advance on the computer screen, it is closer to darkroom manipulation, but making adjustments directly on the paper print has a directness, a personal touch and uniqueness that is very satisfying.

Picture with words. Breaking down the barriers of photographic tradition.

Most of the images we see actually have words in them. I am talking about advertising, posters, cards, films ( those credits and titles) and so on, and yet we have an ethic that says that a pure photo should not need or have words within it. True, but in reality we are accustomed to titles placed below and they tell us a lot about the photographers intent. Many photos work well with words so I decided to do some to explore the possibilities.

Speaking Stones.

Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every hillside, every valley, every clearing and wood, is holy in the memory and experience of my people. Even those unspeaking stones on the shore are loud with events and and memories in the life of my people. The ground beneath your feet responds more lovingly to our steps than yours, because it is the ashes of our kin.

                                   Chief Seattle ( adapted by Wm. Arrowsmith)

 The 'unspeaking stones upon the shore' that Chief Seattle spoke of have always drawn me to them. The long passage of time represented here, the shortness of my own life and the thousands of years of the native people's association with these beaches has always given a solemnity, a broader context to their assemblages. Indian stories where stones become something else and then transform back again have always seemed right, have established a cultural connection that we newcomers lack. For us, stones are just stones and we are the poorer for it.

Some time ago I scrambled down the rocky foreshore and out into the weedy world of the low tide beach. I was drawn by a large boulder that had split in half and peered into the crack. The sea surged in its depths, pieces of rock were wedged down there and, being male, what I saw was female genitalia, with all the bits and pieces arranged to perfection. Rock had transformed for me, just as it did for the original inhabitants, who's stories were more frank and straight forward than our own confused ideas around sexual matters.

That transformation story that I participated in down at the low tide zone opened my mind to seeing the rocky shoreline as a vast reclining goddess, bathed in the ocean, made of the earth and facing into the sky . Was this just my fancy, my imagination? Was this simply a collection of rocks? If so, was I the poorer for that limitation, less able to relate to the landscape? What stories will my European culture be able tell about our own relationship with this land even when many generations have left their ashes to blow upon the wind?

 

Building a fit body through physical work, walking and rowing.

I have been busy since Christmas trying to get in shape. As I get older this seems to take more time and thought, but I am finding all my exercise is paying off. A couple of years ago I seemed to age overnight; I had a pinched nerve in my upper spine that gave me terrible pain for many weeks before it gradually faded away, and then a year later it came back, fortunately not so badly. I associated these episodes with repetitive actions that are part of my usual work around the property, like working with firewood: felling, bucking, splitting and stacking. I cannot avoid this and other physical work so I needed to set my body up so it was less likely to recur.

Weeks before I started cutting I began to walk longer and further every day. I used the hiking poles that I originally bought for walking forest trails and beaches, but this time I went power walking, - striding along, head held high, arms pumping. “ Are you recovering from knee surgery?” was the usual sympathetic question of passers-by. These poles seem to be associated with the lame and elderly, but I am using them to give me whole body exercise while walking.

I began my wooding job carefully, limiting myself to an hour each day and by the time I got past chainsawing to splitting, the job itself became part of my exercise routine. Up goes the heavy splitting maul and down. Bang! Over and over. So what else could I now add to my daily exercise?

I would have liked to add a rowing machine to begin preparing for summer boating but space and money stood in the way. But wait! I could put my rowing canoe ( the one I built and then rowed around Saltspring Island in one day a couple of years ago) in my pond ( full to overflowing at this time of year) and tether it in some way so I could row as hard as I liked without immediately crashing into the far side. At first I simply nosed against a soft bank and continued to row but there was no give, no elasticity, so I bought ten feet of bungee cord, added a length of rope to it and fasted one end to a cleat on the wall of the studio and the other to the stern of the canoe. Now I can pull against a flexible resistance and also gauge how effective my strokes are by how much tension is on the cord. Who would have thought how powerful that final part of the stroke could be without seeing it in the bungee! I can count my strokes, a few more each day, and vary how much effort goes into it, starting gently, pulling strongly and then sprinting towards the end. What great exercise! And I am actually rowing my boat, not a mechanical substitute.

My weight has almost settled to my fit end-of-summer state, I feel good emotionally, my body is firming up, exchanging flab for muscle, but most happily I have been able to work and play without a return to decrepitude.

See Tillikum canoe blog listed on the right for more information on this rowing and sailing canoe construction.

The Englishman River: A sign for the times

  

If, with the knowledge we now have, we allow this [river] to become destroyed, we ourselves are nothing important.

'Writings and reflections'. Roderick Haig-Brown

This living river is struggling these days. Once renowned for its fishing, it is now off limits to angling along much of its course and having some difficulty coming back from the brink. I was there the other day taking photographs for my son-in-law who has long worked for its recovery through a variety of governmental and conservation organizations.

We approach down an old logging grade and wade across a shallow place to the far shore. I have been asked by Mike to document the catching of Steelhead sea-run trout, the placing of miniature tracking radios, and their release again. This science is being done to gain accurate information about population size and behaviour so that recovery of the stock may be truly effective. Between photos I am free to look around me, to attempt to understand what I see, what part the past has played in the formation of the present river and where its future may lie.

  

Like some other rivers along the east coast of Vancouver Island, the Englishman is short, steep and rapid. Draining the central ridge of mountains, the lakes that lie at its feet, and the flatter land closer to the sea, the river rushes down to the Gulf of Georgia, emerging near Parksville, just north of the city of Nanaimo. Even on a human time scale there have been great changes within the past century and a half, as European settlement has become more and more influential in the life of this river. Ten thousand years ago though, the glaciers which had covered all but the highest places were finally in retreat and massive amounts of melt water performed much of the land forming that returning vegetation would colonize, established the broad course of the rivers, carved the falls, the canyons and deposited the sand and gravel of the ocean beaches we enjoy today. Beside me on this gravel bar are hardy willows gaining a root-hold , just as they must have in those ancient days, and closer to the forest proper, young alders and taller willows lean over gravel flood channels and recently isolated pools of water. As the river changes course over time, gnawing at the outer edges of curves and depositing sand and gravel on the inner, it works its way back and forth across its original wider course. But then, for a relatively narrow river, this is a very wide gravel bar we are fishing from. Why is this?

Not only is the bar wide, but on the far bank the river is still carving into the land, undermining enormous old growth trees which then fall into the fast moving water and, lodged there, further intensifying the flow against the gravel banks. It is very beautiful on this mid February winter’s day and it is not easy to separate what is natural river formation and what is out of the ordinary. Our usual interaction with the river is a micro-second glance in our peripheral vision as we drive over the highway bridge, or we may visit a park and gaze at a waterfall, at a small section of the greater whole, with minimum understanding. We see it in a small bite of time and space and assume that what we see is business as usual.

I visited the Englishman once in the Fall when the river was a raging torrent; so powerful, so aggressive, like an enormous jet from a fire hose as it tore at its banks and tossed whole trees down the falls. Normal or exceptional? Normal for the present or in the past as well? I only have to go to 'Google Earth' and have a look at the big picture to realize that the forested banks are but a thin corridor shielding the river from human settlement and that the upper watershed in the shadow of Mount Arrowsmith has, like nearly all of central Vancouver island been stripped of much of its vegetation. Helicopter logging of old growth trees, so essential for the health of the river and its related communities, is still going on in the as yet less damaged upper reaches of tributaries and nearly a third of the watershed is in private hands and subject to continued logging. With extreme weather events, which are becoming more common, there is nothing much to slow the runoff. This wide gravel bar, that gnawed far bank, these enormous trees with their roots anchoring them in the stream may not be normal at all.

It also turns out that even some of what I see before my eyes is actually artificial: those tangles of logs along the bank, below which Steelhead lie waiting to rush out for the hook, have been constructed and are held in place by steel cables, and the boulders I slipped over fording the river have been put into place by an excavator. There has been a lot of careful work done here by many levels of government and NGOs to save the lower reaches of the river. The fishing that I am helping with today is not for sport but is part an earnest effort to bring the Englishman back to the world class angling stream that it once was.

A river is a fairly simple phenomenon: water runs down hill until it reaches equilibrium; so this river will continue to do that into the distant geological future. It just may not always be what we would like in our present day human context. For now, it supplies fresh water to coastal communities at little cost, and if the fishing can be improved it will be a valuable economic resource once more and the presence of those mighty Steelhead a balm to our lives. We think of nature as a resource for all our many needs and we treat it as such. Draw out too much too fast from the capital however and what seems so limitless will fail us. The establishment of protected zones along the main course of the Englishman and in the estuary, all the investment in time and money by many organizations and individuals, is such a valuable attempt to counterbalance what otherwise seems a hopeless and irreversible trend.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the reality of rivers and the natural world, but there is something rather awkward about human beings, or at least this last destructive wave of human settlement over the past one hundred and fifty years. We need to think of the river as a single unit, from source to ocean rather than a series of emergency parts; repairing one, while permitting logging in another. We need to see the river as a totality: an old growth forest and complex community of beings including its fish, as well as fresh water for our human communities. The Englishman River with its long history and present problems is held up before our eyes and its future welfare is closely tied to our own.

Hitch-hiker: the walking wounded and the will to live

On the radio, I recently listened to a military chaplain with PTSD, one more article about wounded soldiers from the years of Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan. After meeting my hitch-hiker, another survivor from a previous war, I was reminded of a favourite book by Victor Frankl , a psychiatrist who survived the Nazi death camps, called 'Man’s Search for Meaning'. He developed a theory ( logo-therapy) about why it was that some survived and others gave up and died. It is a very moving and thoughtful little book.

Suffering: if one cannot change a situation that causes suffering, he can still choose his attitude. ... As we will see, the priority stays with the situation that causes us to suffer. But the superiority goes to the 'know how to suffer' if need be. - those who master a hard lot with their head held high.

                                         ...................

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning. If there is a purpose to life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering and dying. But no man can tell another what this purpose is. Each must find out for himself and must accept the responsibility that his answer prescribes. If he succeeds he will continue to grow in spite of all his indignities.

                                       .....................

Victor Frankl is fond of quoting Nietzsche, “ He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

Man’s Search for Meaning. By Victor Frankl

I'm driving home past the building where I used to work long ago, when I see the hitch-hiker with her thumb out. I do not make up my mind until the last second and then pull over. Close up, she looks grey and more than a little wild, but then I would expect that from someone outside this community resource place that serves a variety of folk, especially the poor and disadvantaged. She has an unlighted cigarette in one hand, and a squirming mesh bag in the other. She says, “Is my cat ok?”so I nod and they clamber on board. Her eyes are blank, as though there is no one home inside.

We establish that I am going home via a village on my route and that she is going there to check out a place to rent. She is having her government support cut,and is looking for a very cheap little shack. Do I have a little place for an old lady? She never stays long. She will garden, cook, but no, she is not a live-in caregiver either. The people here, they are too rich, they are not interested in communal living, like she did back in the old country where she was born: -during the war. I establish that this means the ethnic conflicts that wrapped the Balkans in horror for so many years.

I ask her to speak more clearly, I am having difficulty hearing her over the sound of the van, and she is prickly, quick to take offence about her accent, but I explain that if I am listening to someone, I really wish to hear what they have to say.

Have I heard of Nikola Tesla? From Serbia you know, like her. No, I do not need to hear her tell it. Just look him up. She is intelligent she says, but no one cares. We wander down the road but our minds are finding traction; I listen carefully and she begins to move past her defences and into neutral territory. She has been to talk to a counsellor at the centre and gotten short shrift. What she does not know is that I once did that same job for a few years, but now I have no agenda or responsibility to make things right for her so this is a meeting of equals. By the time we reach the village we have formed a friendship of sorts. I know about her grown children and how they say that if the old country is so great she should go back there. In Canada, 'Wonderful Canada', they keep you half alive,she says, but at home at least they shoot you cleanly. Have I seen this or that film or actress?

What I am thinking of is an old Meryl Streep film about a talented musician whose mental illness has landed her on skid row as a bag lady. Heaven knows what terrors have accompanied my companion on her road; from her beginnings in war, rape camps and ethnic cleansing and on down through the years. All concerns about whose side did what to whom during those conflicts do matter, but many who survived, from whatever side, are the 'walking wounded' of today. The 'wounded' part is almost a given, few could go through war without it showing, but it is the 'walking' part that has caught my attention; for here is someone who has experienced life in a hard school and yet retained her intelligence, her ironic humour, and her strong will to live on her own terms. We exchange names and birth dates as she get out of the van; “Astrology you know, it helps understand one another on a deeper level”. She helps people find their lost souls if I should ever need her. I wind down the window and wave goodbye and get a wave and a smile from my hitch-hiker in return.

The Nuremberg Rally, propaganda and the real dangers of emotion laden discourse.

We have all seen the old b&w newsreel footage of Herr Hitler speaking before serried ranks of enthusiastic followers and deliberately working himself up into an emotional frenzy. For most of us watching though, it is a long time ago, in a foreign language, and it would be ridiculous if it didn't also raise the warning hairs on the back of our necks.

We do recognize how dangerous this was, how these speeches of his and other National Socialist propaganda, subverted a whole nation and killed millions, but its now ancient history right? Those Germans, we think, how could they have been sucked in by such an obvious charade? So, why do we see his book 'Mein Kampf' becoming a popular book in India and extremist groups becoming more numerous in Europe and around the world? Do we keep careful watch on our own politicians of whatever political stripe and their appeal to our allegiance with emotional language and simplistic solutions to complex problems?

We can recognize our attraction to emotionally laced language as a form of tribalism: the right combination of slanted language, lies and emotion, the appeal to our deepest anxieties and allegiances and we are a ravening mob out for blood, or at least are easily influenced to behave along certain lines. We may be able to vote, but if the frame is constrained correctly, we will vote the chosen party, left or right, into power. How do we avoid this pitfall?

This human tendency is of course not limited to politics or to one particular agenda. Religions that appeal to narrow, rule-based interpretations, or that appeal to our emotions, or to observance rather than to independent discussion and understanding are on the rise. Our media has drifted toward 'feelings' and news magazine formats and away from balanced and analytical reportage: how often do we notice that a factual interview must also contain “ How does that make you feel?”and if a few tears or righteous anger can be elicited so much the better. We eat it up!

Below the level of language, our brains function in a fast shifting ferment of conceptual frames and feelings: everything is in flow; from our cerebral cortex to the more ancient parts that supply our most basic emotions. The correct choice of language and imagery by leaders, the right orchestration and tone of voice and we are lead by the nose. It takes a conscious effort on everyone's part to keep debate up out of that powerful emotional gravitation. If we do wish for a change we need to analyze what we hear and see around us, look for the emotional hook, the slanted language ( I have been using some myself, did you notice?), and out and out lies regularly repeated to beat down down our rational minds. We need to point out propaganda when we see others use it and catch ourselves as we slip into the same trap.

As a Canadian I see this in operation in my own national government, in parliament, in interviews with ministers and in the framing of issues to appeal to the most primitive of our emotions: crime ( the streets are unsafe, we need more jails), immigration ( keep out the poor and sick), military, (support our boys, do not question), global warming, ( not proven), environmental, ( terrorists!) and so on. Science, clarity, truth, compassion and reasoned debate, are not wanted here! I am sure that we are not alone in this, that it is on the rise around the world along with increasing populations and diminishing resources and that as human societies we have been down this road many times before and found deadly dead ends.

We do not need to diminish emotion or glorify rationality, that is the complexity of the case, but we do need to take a step back as individuals, groups and political parties, and analyze more, to refuse to be swayed by emotion when thinking is required and to feel genuinely and personally when that is appropriate. We must learn to be selective with language and careful in our debates, whether that be within our families, our town hall meetings, regional and national governments, or between nations. Hold! Enough!

'Transhumance'. adjusting a drawing using Lightroom 4 photo program

Transhumance

 Transhumance:   The sheep are taken up into the high mountain pastures once Spring has melted the snow.

This whimsical little drawing grew out of an art session with a granddaughter. I was just making smudges when I saw the mountain and drew in the distant landscape below and finally the little figures. It was very soft and faint but I knew that I could scan it into my photo program and make any adjustments I liked at that point. Lightroom 4 ( I've just upgraded) has some very useful tools for these kind of adjustments that would be impossible to do on the original 'light touch' drawing. The shadows that give modelling, the sheep dangling on the rope that was draw onto the background colour and later whitened, adjusting of colour intensities and sharpness; all done with the same techniques I would use for adjusting a digital photograph.

The relationship between metaphor and visual language.

In his book,'The Stuff of Thought', Steven Pinker makes a convincing case that the use of metaphor in language is a powerful instrument in creative thinking. We use potent metaphoric comparisons about the world as we understand it to think ourselves into more complex speculations and abstract thought. So how could this also be applied to visual thinking, and the development of humankind through time?

Carl Jung may have already approached this through his concept of Archetypes: powerful forms of basic imagery that underlie our thinking selves and surface imagery and are inherited as part of our genetic 'software'.Whenever we see something and the hair figuratively or literally rises on our neck we can be sure we are experiencing a visual metaphor. Whether this is a photograph of two children running into a darkening wood, Hansel and Gretel, or a renaissance painting, a cave painting from ten thousand years ago, or the paintings of Australian Aborigines on rock shelters, there is the probability that images too have been used to propel thought from the practical towards the theoretical. We are what we are today because we were able to imagine ourselves here.

With this in mind then, the role of 'Artist' was a pivotal one in the development of religions and religious imagery and a necessary stepping stone of visual thinking that lead to the sciences of today. At each step along the way visualization stood upon the imagery of the previous generations or rather the framework of thinking that came before. Once the idea of abstract thinking, the development of complex religions had been established, the stage was set for abstract thinking in Greek philosophy and eventually from there to the scientific method as we use it today.

Beside every set of words that changed our way of thinking were the statues and paintings that helped express parallel thought. The architecture of the past underlies the buildings of the present.

Avoiding that splitting headache: making firewood.

Firewood. part 2:  Splitting, stacking and air drying

I have now begun the splitting phase of my firewood project. A big job in itself, but if I take it a bit at a time and spin it out over a couple of weeks it will get done. I do not get myself into a lather and out of breath however, no blistered hands and aching back, but when I am splitting I am very productive, because I have done this job all my life and have developed a style that gets the best out of the splitting maul and the special characteristics of trees.

 

Firstly, when handling the maul, which is not an axe but is designed for splitting, I do not grip it tightly and use all my force but rather swing it smoothly and guide it accurately. A careful blow, aimed precisely in the right place will cause the wood to spring apart, while one swung hard but a half inch to one side will either bounce off or jamb in the wood . A steady rhythm, a calm and focused mind will see the wood pile grow as if by magic. If this sounds like the Zen of.... , or the Tao of..., you would be right!

 Secondly one must have a familiarity with the tree, its way of growth, its species, the special characteristics of the particular piece you are approaching. At first this will seem like a science study, but later it will become instinctual so that the wood you split is really part of yourself. ( see Zen of... etc.): like so many other relationships we have with things around us be it a piano, a motorcycle, or even with people we are close to.

It makes a big difference whether the species will split cleanly ( like maple) or will cling and resist the maul's attempt to force pieces apart, (like fir). How the tree has grown at this particular section of its trunk makes a big difference; wood that has grown under tension, or which has twisted fibres, can be very difficult. Knots are impossible to spit through and must be worked around. A knot is a branch that began when the tree was small and so extends from the centre core right out to the bark; you cannot split across it (well, never say never). So, if making firewood is this difficult why start at all? Because there is a way.

The most important part of the tree for splitting purposes is the middle of the growth rings, the bulls eye. Notice that this is not necessarily the centre of the tree because a tree does not usually grow symmetrically, even the rings will be wider on one side and more tightly packed on the other, and that will affect how it will split. That centre eye is critical to smooth splitting. One might say that centring oneself takes place in unity with each separate piece and its own true centre. When both are in alignment the blow falls and the wood comes smoothly apart. ( see Tao of...). I'm making a joke out of this, but it is true never-the-less.

A smaller piece, chopped through the eye

A small diameter piece needs a different approach from a larger one, so a simple blow directly across the end and through the eye will break it into two halves and these pieces will also split once more through the central eye. Miss that centre however and even a small diameter piece will resist splitting and you will find yourself with the piece of wood jammed securely on your maul. The temptation will be to lift the whole mass and bang it down again to force the split. This might work of course but is bad form and should only be performed in secret! Then you pick up the pieces and chuck them away from your work site because stumbling over wood underfoot is dangerous and upsets the even tenor of the work. For small pieces its a good idea to place them on a larger round as a chopping block because your blow will be more effective if much of the energy is not absorbed by the soft ground. Closer to hand too!

Splitting the pie

Removing the outside of each pie shape

The completed pile of wood

The big grand fir was beginning to rot in the centre

A large round of wood, like the kind I usually work with, (I am thinning my forest of larger, over-mature trees so the smaller can grown more rapidly) requires a more considered approach. Depending on my mood and the size of the round of wood, which might be up to three feet across, I will look for a fine hair-line crack running through the eye, the line of least resistance, and start my first split there, and continue to split pie shaped pieces until it is divided up reasonably evenly. A knot will have to be incorporated within a pie shaped piece however, so split close to either side of it because it will not split any smaller and you may not be able to use a super large piece in your stove! I try to keep the pieces together and standing upright because I hate constantly bending over and dealing with separate pieces too often. I will then circle the round of wood, splitting off the outside third of each piece (except for those with knots in them which will not spit any more) . With luck, (and usually we make our own luck) I will have a nicely splayed set of firewood where once there was one solid piece. And to accomplish that might have taken, in one smooth sequence, about as long as you have taken to read this. I then finally bend over and throw them to one side, preferably just where I will later build a wall with them so they may begin to air dry.

Progressively removing pieces off the outside

An alternate approach for a large round is to begin, not with a split across the centre eye, but with a series of smaller pieces peeled off the outer edge, following the direction of the growth lines. One must avoid knots of course, but things usually go smoothly, and then the final smaller centre section can be split across into pie shaped pieces. This technique is particularly useful when there is some resistance to beginning with a split directly across the round as in the previous example.

Completion of that round!

When I have finished splitting there will be some particularly awkward pieces that have complicated knots or cross grains. I will use steel wedges to beat them into submission or cut them up with the chain saw, whichever works the fastest. ( No Zen here!)

That little knot needed extra force

Although I haven’t begun yet, I will describe the reasons for building the woodpile and drying the firewood in the forest. Of course I could just throw the wood into rough piles and then immediately haul them up to my woodshed and stack them just once. I don't do that for several reasons: wood fresh from the tree is heavy and my VW van which has to double as a truck would not carry much in each individual load; loading and unloading would be heavy work too, especially for my back, and tightly packed wood in a shed would not dry well, even through the dry summer months. Dry wood is essential for proper burning!

Wood that is stacked in a sunny place ( like the clearing you have made just by cutting down the trees), just two rows wide, four feet high and as long as you like, with some plastic tarp or old metal roofing to keep the rain off will loose a lot of its weight with the sun beating down and wind free to blow through it. Then in the Fall, before the winter rains make the forest road soft and slippery I pack the the Winter's firewood up the hill and stack the now dry wood into the wood shed which is within a short walk of the house. Mind you do not stack you firewood against the house ( think of those wood eating bugs) or have your wood pile or shed too close to the house ( think forest fire and all those combustibles so close to home.) And, happy wooding!