Indiana – Page 8 – The Inner Frame

Black Rock Barrens (North IV)

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While the world waits, let’s continue to the second stop on my excursion North, the Black Rock Barrens Nature Preserve.

DSC 5501 In contrast to the nearby Black Rock Preserve, this one features a decent long loop through the preserve, but no rock formations.

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It does offer the opportunity to get lost in the tall grass. Doing so in the summer will probably result in dangerous blood loss due to insect bites.

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With a bit of effort and luck one can access the Wabash from here, too. It’s just behind the trees up there.

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Lamentate (North III)

And I was moved to ask myself just what I could still manage to accomplish in the time left to me.

Thus Arvo Pärt about his composition Lamentate, a piano concerto of sorts, inspired by Marsyas, the enormous sculpture by Anish Kapoor.

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Pärt’s Lamentate is, as the name suggest, not merely a lament but a call to arms, in order create a counterweight to the state of the world. Marsyas does this in its own way, too, in the form of a musical instrument filling all of space.

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The short canyon in Shades State park that leads from Devil’s Punch Bowl to Silver Cascades Falls is such an oversized instrument in its own right, to be played by walking it.

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The beginning is total silence.

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But, even during the worst drought, there is a trickle of water, feeding the fall with bits of sound and hope.

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Four years ago I attempted a prayer.

Lamentate.

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The Flow of Time (North II)

My first stop on my expedition north was at the Black Rock Nature Preserve, which features sandstone cliffs and, we guessed it, a black rock.

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There is not much to do, but I didn’t ask for it, and the steep climb down the cliffs rewards with satisfying views.

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The preserve borders at the Wabash, with becomes a few hundred miles further south a tributary to the Ohio.

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Unlike time, a river’s past and future are certain. But this certainty has the disadvantage that it nurtures the desire to be elsewhere. If I entrust myself to these waters here, I will be in New Harmony after a while.

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What certainty was I given when I was entrusted time?

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Certainty and time can both be merciless, each in their own way.

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Introversion (North I)

When I explain 4-dimensional geometry to the layperson, I usually begin with forward, sideways, upward, and, then, inward as the fourth direction needed. It helps a little.

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Earlier this month I went a few hours north to explore places I haven’t visited before, which is may way to begin an introspection.

One of the stops was the Portland Arch Nature Preserve, which features one of the rare arches of this state.

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To move inward, we begin with the broadest perspective, and then slowly refocus on the essential. Aren’t these rocks something?

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What was familiar begins to appear strange.

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The clearly structured 3-dimensional world begins to dissolve into abstract patterns of color and light.

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Are we getting closer to the core of things when we give up our grounding in a rationalized universe?

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And do we merely turn upside down when we walk under the arch, or do we also turn inside out?

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To paraphrase Heinrich von Kleist: Crossing under the arch a second time has helped to fall back into the state of rationality.

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Prayer for Water

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The long drought that ended today caused the water levels of our water reservoir Lake Monroe to drop so much that the usual impassable lakeshore became easily walkable, allowing a detour from my pandemic hike, the Pate Hollow Trail.

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I took the last opportunity, and the clouds were worth it. Landscape and soul can become one.

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Heavy rain today and tomorrow will soak the firm beach,

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but to restore the water to its normal level, we would need more like 40 days of rain.

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The wood seems to be waiting.

Fall Colors

I thought all paintings had colours, actually, he says

In Jon Fosse’s Septology V, Asle delivers a painting in black and white, in dismay to the friend who commissioned it.

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The lack of color is a misunderstanding, like the lack of harmony in contemporary music. It is not the celebration of an absence, but its recognition.

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We only seem to appreciate this when the absence is more intense than the presence.

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But it has its dark side, too, showing us that there are places that have never seen color, that are sheer absence.

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The consolation? There are still both darkness and light. It could well be all dark.

Three Times Around

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In fairy tales doing something three times usually accomplishes the job — be it with a good or bad outcome. So let’s try it out with Strahl Lake in Brown County State Park.

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We arrive well before sunrise, when both lake and air are shrouded in layers of fog. This is a dream like state where reality is separate from us.

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Color, it seems, is more intense now, but maybe only in our imagination.

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Each time I pause at this iconic view for a few minutes. The sun is up, but not yet able to penetrate the fog. Should we go back to sleep? Of course not, no fairy tale stops at the number 2.

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