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.
I took the last opportunity, and the clouds were worth it. Landscape and soul can become one.
Heavy rain today and tomorrow will soak the firm beach,
but to restore the water to its normal level, we would need more like 40 days of rain.
The wood seems to be waiting.
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.
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.
We only seem to appreciate this when the absence is more intense than the presence.
But it has its dark side, too, showing us that there are places that have never seen color, that are sheer absence.
The consolation? There are still both darkness and light. It could well be all dark.
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.
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.
Color, it seems, is more intense now, but maybe only in our imagination.
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.
After the third time, only a thin layer of fog remains, now separating reality from its virtual mirror image.
We have woken up — what have we lost?
Quarries are magical places, offering us a dialogue with the past: Stone is patient.
Still, they are subject to change by nature or man.
Over time, the scars become habitats
and places of beauty — for whom?
A year after I returned to serious photography, in 2009, I came across this archaic ritual:
Whenever I visited McCormick Creek State Park subsequently, I stopped here for a few minutes.
Visiting this place became a ritual by itself.
The winter of 2009/2010 was violent, and the tree got a bit dislodged.
It remained like this for another year.
But in 2012, the spring flooding carried the tree away.
Whenever I passed by, I checked how this place had changed, hoping for another fallen tree to appear on the altar stone.
Last year, something unexpected emerged.
A young sycamore has grown, lodging its roots under the rock.
Let’s be patient.
Living in the moment or living through time is done best in full clarity. But one can also experience life in a less focussed state of mind.
And by this I don’t mean intoxication, but the conscious effort to admit the obscure.
In music, this happens when we start to listen to the silence in between the notes.
Visually, this happens when we unfocus.
In life, it is a way to accept what is between inside and outside of us.
The tree pictures from Tuesday’s post were taken within a few minutes, exploring more space than time. Their complexity was due to structure and color.
This corresponds to one particular way how one can organize one’s life, through moments of significance, lived to the fullest.
Today’s tree images were taken over the course of an entire morning. Individually, they are much more simple — there are few colors, and the structure doesn’t overwhelm.
This sequence suggests another way to consider one’s life, as a process, in acknowledgement of time passing.
The fog in Tuesdays images was secretive, increasing the mystery of the single moment. Here, the fog is for protection from the penetrating light of the rising sun.
After many cool and sunny days, we had a bit of rain yesterday, and the morning today brought out the glorious early fall colors of southern Indiana.
What better could I do on today’s evening than to sort through the pictures I took before sunrise at Spring Mill’s State Park?
There was dense fog over the lake, making things a bit spooky, but I decided to just show the trees.
If trees get along for half a century and longer growing together, why do we humans have such difficulties with it?
Have we stopped growing long ago, and become dry and gnarly?
Let’s enjoy each other and not spawn hatred.
Winter will be here soon enough.
There is, of course, the other, darker view of things.
In a swamp, things like to be messy, and so do we.
Mess, we think, can be cleaned up, but there are other things, like a constant harsh contrast between light and dark,
or, worse still, an unsharp uncertainty.
There are times when neither horizontal nor vertical means support,
or when it overwhelms.
This is a wondrous place. I will return soon. And leave again.
There are many ways to experience a place, or a person.
The Twin Swamps Nature Preserve in the south-western corner of Indiana features two swamps, and today we will look at the less challenging aspects of the Cypress Grove there.
The water level was low, exposing the adorable cypress knees to the fullest.
This is a completely alien biotope, and still our own concept of beauty applies.
I keep wondering: Is this because our concept of beauty is so naive, or so universal?
The Inner Frame 