Tuesday, December 20, 2022
December's Cold and Color
Friday, November 11, 2022
Blue Light, Blood Moon
Saturday, June 18, 2022
The Sounds and the Silence
In Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez suggests a way to experience a wild place " ...to approach with an uncalculating mind, with an attitude of regard. To try to sense the range and variety of its expression—its weather and colors and animals. And to be alert for its openings, for that moment when something sacred reveals itself within the mundane, and you know the land knows you are there.”
On this June evening at Black Rock Forest, we each translated the mundane into the sacred in our own way, if at all. Yet this is very much the ethos of the Silent Walks. At our best, we let go of expectation and adopt an "attitude of regard." The still air let the water offer a perfect reflection of trees, laurel and sky. No breeze meant a clarion chorus of frogs, birds, and bugs--including a deafening gray tree frog at Aleck Meadow and later a delightful barred owl. Starting with evening sun, we had the whole walk to observe the fading light, the green deepening to black, the lost contours. At the end, June's strawberry moon rose in a haze of yellow, casting our shadows to guide us back.
Thank you to everyone who walked and watched and listened and shared. A special thanks this month to Diana Mangaser, Director of Ann Street Gallery, for her enthusiastic support of linking this Silent Walk with my installation for the 1x1x1. It was wonderful to have some Ann Street friends on the walk!
The following are brief impressions shared by several walkers and photographic documentation. Click any image to enlarge, and check out the short video for sounds. To be sure, nothing compares to the consciously aesthetic experience of being part of the landscape. Join us!
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Entering the quiet zone |
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Lovely to watch the transition from evening to night and I saw a strawberry beneath the strawberry moon!
Black Rock Forest is such a special place. Thank you to the many people who work hard to make it the hallmark of advancing scientific understanding of the natural world through research, education, and conservation. My particular thanks to Brienne Cliadakis, Susanne Vondrak, and Aaron Culotta for their support of the Silent Walks.
Become a friend of the forest!
Special thanks to Emmett Munterich, the photographer for this month's walk.
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Sunday, October 31, 2021
A Nocturne for October
How lucky we were having a Silent Walk on this perfect October night. We added this because we wanted a Silent Walk in the fall, different but consistent with the spring. The evening sounds and smells, and especially the moon rise, gave us a chance to recalibrate to forest time.
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checking in |
The light was already fading as people arrived. We started in near total darkness, and witnessed a shy moon finally rise above the clouds. Walking tonight was moving through an impressionist's nocturne. Every edge was blurred, every color a soft glow. Pungent smells of decay, the constant rasp of katydids, and too many airplanes revealed the industry around us. We contain multitudes.
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Jupiter above us |
Watching the moon clear the horizon made me weep involuntarily. The beauty had to be acknowledged. It was hard to turn away and continue walking.
A curious beaver at Aleck Meadow quietly swam over to check us out, then
slowly swam away, giving us a thin white wake to follow across the
water's glass. Not so the beaver at the Upper Reservoir, who startled me with each slap. Takes all kinds, I guess.
On the Silent Walk, I notice the transition between thinking and sensing.
I noticed: How the air moves over the surface of the skin, the pockets of warmth, the smell of still water, how air thickens, the thin layers of fear and bravery when I walked by myself, how time moves differently in the woods.
I was silent but never quiet.
At first it was like watching a stage curtained, a slow reveal, a patient audience; and then it was like watching, waiting for a lover to disrobe, full of anticipation, and once revealed, you couldn't look away.
What hit me so hard at first-the various walks (of human history) and
All the ways in which we walk
To our death
To live/nomadic at first
For pleasure
In exhaustion
In unison
Alone
Katydids made the walk different than the spring.
I liked the feeling of different textures underfoot.
Beautiful, peeking moon.
Magical walk in the dark! Can't believe how much you can see. The trees were silver!
Thanks once a again to Black Rock Forest for supporting The Silent Walks. Special thanks to Brienne Cliadakis, Susanne Vondrak, Aaron Culotta, Angie Patterson and Matt Brady for all the ways your work has helped the forest and those (like me) who love it.
Please support Black Rock Forest by becoming a member.