Changing the course of nature, a series of actions, grew out of a fundamental principle that the embodied and living Self (as organism) alters the existing flows of the ambient natural system — the system which the Self is (merely) the energized extension of. If one envisions life itself as being a negentropic phenomena occurring as part of a field of energy without known limit, then it makes some recursive sense that a life-form would seek to extend the alteration of the flows that are moving around it, through it. Predation is a form of this, eating, consuming; sensing even could be construed to be an alteration (as Quantum) confirms — that the observer changes that which is observed. Alteration, fluctuation, change occurs at all scales.

One easily accessible phenomena that presents the idea of energy flow with a certain universal precision and intuitive simplicity is water. Fluid flow surrounds the body in water vapors, airs, sprays, and floods, while we also consume this flow directly, finding necessary sustenance for the body-system. Although the internal system is, topologically, simply an extension of the surface area of the external skin — both skin and gut are sensitive interfaces with submerging energized flows — with liquid energy flows everywhere.

Life speeding up entropy …

(the tool — axe, hand, mortar&pestle, hammer, rock, saw, shovel, rope (or use ‘natural tool))

“non-destructive” ?? (impossible not to change), but constructive/destructive don’t really apply

chopping down the dead birch tree in the Catskills (@ Bill’s place)
sawing a tree for fire wood
breaking off lower (dead) branches of all trees in an area
pushing down dead timberrrrrrrr(!)
adjusting the flow of water in a creek
trundling rocks (rolling with gravity)
throwing/skipping rocks into/across water bodies (skipper)

tying trees together (rock to tree)

watching anything

digging a hole

the body (hand on things, stepping on ground, in water, etc.)

Video — (finding a rock, digging it out, moving it, digging a hole to get dirt to fill the first, and replacing the rock in the second hole and covering it up.) (crushing a handful of leaves (mortar and pestle))

Changing the Course (of History/of Nature)

This series of performances takes place in isolated areas in the American West where the artist encounters moving water. Water in the West is a fundamental issue. Watch this space for evidences of change:

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or go here…

Back to basics, with Howard Odum’s rewrite of his 1971 classic on energy and social systems. At this point, it should be required reading for anyone undertaking an undergrad liberal arts degree, and anyone who might be unclear and consequently confused/concerned about the contemporary dynamics of human and ‘natural’ systems. The principles outlined together form a powerful model for understanding the contemporary global social/ecological mess. He approaches evolution, religion, economics, social systems, cosmology, and numerous other concepts with a fresh and thoroughly-researched point of view. He has done (he did, he passed away in 2002) what I would like to do with my thesis, but given that a book like this is the result of 30+ years of rigorous scientific research (both in the field and across numerous disciplines), combined with readable writing skills, I should have started years ago. The fact that I get everything he writes says something, and even that I can make several crucial additions to his world-view (relating to the dynamics of human presence and encounter, media, and creative action), gives me some small hope.

Acquiring these holistic views, given the education system that I participated in, was impossible because these ideas and their implications were simply not taught. Although I got some thermodynamics, there was no applied conceptual grounding or ‘big picture,’ but rather only simplistic problem-solving-in-a-bubble for the engineer. And the visionary, conceptual overview was ignored. (Well, with the singular exception of several courses with Gene Woolsey, the flamboyant Don of applied systems analysis at Mines — his courses were challenging, and definitely real-world in their execution and subject material.) Otherwise, disciplines were/are self-limited and self-censored by the whole discipline-specific and hermetic peer-review publishing system. Etc., etc. I could rant, maybe I already am. But only the fact that I have, on my own, read widely from a spectrum of sources across arts and science, western and eastern, that brought me to this point. The weak link is the writing style. I have no trouble teaching these topics, but making acceptable textual presentations is a hopeless prospect. Old dog, old tricks.

The argument may be made that a fence, a window, an article of clothing, a wall are — one-and-the-same — as deflectors of the extant natural flow of energies out there. They represent a set of energy deflectors imposed by humans on their environs.

The other issue, tied to this is the production of waste (unusable) heat energy which impinges on a locality after the use of high energy sources which are subsequently rendered into usable and unusable forms of energy with varying efficiency. The primary source of this unusable energy is in the actual production and maintenance of the energy deflector systems: making and installing a fence, fabricating a window (glass being an extremely energy-intensive manufacturing process), building a wall, a building, a dam.

So: two major mechanisms and the second is responsible for the construction of the first. It takes an energy (depletion) to create these barriers which subsequently carry and direct energy flows as prescribed by their particular socially-mandated configurations.

[This all goes back to the hypothesis about virtuality -- where virtuality is (merely) the presence of a situation of attenuation of 'natural' flows (and here, tool-making is a key component). The question of what is 'natural' may be approached from a couple way, but more on that elsewhere.]

And all the way, Coyote laughs.

The day spent in leisurely absorbing the energy of place. The campground is built under the only trees for miles, (eucalyptus, from Australia!) so there is raptor and other bird activity all the time. The owls at night contribute a fantastic dialogue to the silence.

A short hike west to some low hills, down a wash, ends up, with the recent extreme rains, at a cattle pond full to overflowing. As per usual, I do not do a ‘before’ image (note to self — do a before image next time!). The downstream side of the small embankment dam has been undercut to within a meter of the main body of water which is substantial. With a small stick, I scratch a small line across the top of the dam, gradually increasing its size, using the initial slight flow of water to clear the waste from the cut. After twenty minutes of play, there is a sizable gap in the dam along with a flood of water rushing through, further eroding the dam body. Monkey-wrenching? Nah, this is merely a slight acceleration of what is happening ‘naturally’ — the breaching of the dam will occur eventually unless there is maintenance energy applied into the system. It would have likely occurred with the next substantial rains.

I do take an after image, and then head back to camp circuitously. It is after I see Coyote’s paw-print in the rain-damp soil, walking on a trail, that I cross the wash on which the dam is built. I am surprised that the huge rush of water from the breach is just reaching this spot. It is first a trickle which then ramps up to a full-on rushing creek. Fascinating to see the water fill the bed of the wash, pooling in hollows, flowing over small water-falls. I see immediately this is a perfect audio situation to continue documentation of the ‘changing the course of nature’ or ‘changing the course of history’ project that I have undertaken in the last few years. I lope back to camp, grab the recorder, and race back, downstream, to the wash. The flood is proceeding slow enough that I can run further downstream several times to record the ambient audio and make some images of the process.

Then it’s back to camp for dinner.

Sky-worms bugger the clarity of the atmosphere, attenuation the flux of Light reaching the surface. Obviously this is under a major north-south air-route — the only good thing is that the planes are at 10 km altitude, so the sonic disturbance is minimal. The affect on high-altitude haze, however, is profound. Long vision (at the sky and at the landscape) refocuses eyes through these worn diffracting glass into another focal point. Eyesight goes bad with all the reading and writing. The next year will make all that has gone before (go pale in comparison, argh!) as the PhD takes shape. No life, no sight left.

I have not seen another human the entire day with the exception of a well-armed ranger cruising through the campground. A droll chap, probably 30 or so, from the East Coast, a Federal employee, dislocated.

Around sunset, a car pulls in, first they park in the next slot, but then pull out and park across the campground, 50 meters away. There is a couple, they mill around, looking like they are setting up camp, it’s cold, getting colder, sunset. I’m sleeping on the ground. They turn on a radio playing pop mariachi music. It gets louder and louder as time goes by, getting later and later. They are sitting in the front of the car probably drinking, smoking, whatever. At one point well after 2300 I yell over to TURN IT DOWN. That has no effect. I honk my horn, also to no effect. I contemplate going over, but also realize the odds are that the occupants are armed. I instead pack the car up, fuming, and drive to a side-road further south in the valley and find a spot there. Faugh, why would somebody drive all this way — it’s at least 50 miles from the nearest town — to sit in their car and play loud music? Sorry, I don’t get it. [expletives deleted!]

Later, Orion drags his belt and sword from the sludge of Light pollution that sits to the south: Los Angeles, more than 150 km away or so. To the east, light from Taft and Bakersfield. A strong wind arises late in the night, there are no trees where I have moved to. Uncomfortable night after the luxury last night.

Life on Earth is driven by energy. Autotrophs take it from solar radiation and heterotrophs take it from autotrophs. Energy captured slowly by photosynthesis is stored up, and as denser reservoirs of energy have come into being over the course of Earth’s history, heterotrophs that could use more energy evolved to exploit them. Homo sapiens is such a heterotroph; indeed, the ability to use energy extrasomatically (outside the body) enables human beings to use far more energy than any other heterotroph that has ever evolved. The control of fire and the exploitation of fossil fuels have made it possible for Homo sapiens to release, in a short time, vast amounts of energy that accumulated long before the species appeared. — David Price

Perhaps this is a clear-eyed look at where we are in the moment, or perhaps a less-than-optimistic view of the future, or perhaps it is completely blind to the possibilities that catastrophic change will be for the overall good of the planet. Who knows what the future brings? Whatever the case, if thermodynamics has anything to do with it (It’s The Law!), then some of Price’s talking-points have full validity. It’s not a question of optimism or pessimism, but merely the dynamic evolution of this place that we inhabit called Terra and the qualities of all life of which we are merely another expression of. In addition to the small number of other unique characteristics, our species is the only one which causes massive extrasomatic energy (resource) usage at a rate far exceeding the accumulation rate of those same energy sources. On a localized scale, this situation could be faced by any life form, and actually is on a regular basis, the problem with humans is that there is no mobility condition that will mitigate the localized ‘soiling of the nest.’ There’s nowhere else to go.

At this point it is more about numbers than anything else, numbers which are not ultimately knowable: like the quantities of energy reserves available.

Or then there is:

It takes the technical, social, infrastructural, and economic resources of an optimized globalized economy at its peak to extract and use our current energy flows, and even then oil production cannot be maintained. There may indeed be plenty of fossil fuels left in the ground, but following a major systemic collapse, most may remain there as that capacity dies away. — David Korowicz in Energy constraints will collapse global economic recovery

Strangely enough, those who deny all these doomsday scenarios are the same people who, with their stocked arsenals, will be best set to gun for food, water, and whatever Mad Max theater plays itself out on the wide scale of developed-world implosion.

Does any of this matter? Psycho-spiritually, I think not. The flows of energy in the cosmological system will remain the same as they have always been, changeable, changing, yes, and because of a general anisotropy, there are variations in intensity of flows. But we are not separate from all this, and nothing we do will change the trajectory of entropy. eh?

And so, encroaching on the last major procedural hurdle before the doctorate goes to the external examiners (next year sometime). The panel assessment seems to be routine and bureaucratic. Public speaking in compressed time frames is no fun. When there’s always too much to get across in the extremely limited time frame, and the highly institutionalized context allows for negligible true dialogue. In some ways, the process is a deeply laughable (chortle?) imitation of what it claims to be, or what it once perhaps was. That is, learning as a process of open and sustained dialogue between two or more humans. Facing the unknown that each other presents, or both facing the unknown of what is, or what is out there. Contemporary ‘education’ is a thin and watery drool coming from somewhere up above — meagre remains of what’s left of a blasting monsoon of shared life that brings one to a deeply profound awareness of that-which-is. Instead we squelch around in evaporating puddles of shared encounter, wishing for more rain, and complaining about the weather.

Tomorrow, it happens. We shall see. No brolly, no Wellies…

So, over this hurdle, and maybe the final work commences, perhaps finishing earlier than scheduled, or at least that inspiring outcome is a concept on the radar.

Meanwhile, surviving week-to-week, in part through the acupuncture and massage treatments from Heiji Cho and some of the Chinese Traditional Medicine (CTM) students here at UTS. The gall bladder channel is the one being worked — to release rising yang from the liver. hmmm. The treatments work, they seems to diffuse the migraines that do show up and eventually, as is common, with any lock, the migraines will vanish. I am confident of this, and only wish I had come to this conclusion last year, or even earlier as these episodes interrupted life from time to time. The stress of movement came on such a regular basis, but there was no thought to find a source, find a working solution, a cure. It was only the process of gritting the teeth until a dark and quiet room could be found for the duration. Western meds never really worked, they only covered the symptoms at best, and in some cases a single pill cost as much as a full 90-minute acupuncture treatment session.

But choosing to undertake a treatment of what is known as ‘alternative’ medicine was always a difficult stretch. Despite input from trusted others who had benefited. There was the hardship of paying cash from the pocket to the practitioner when cash was never so abundant.

An Outward Bound group rafts in, and are lectured to in the Trex seating arranged for “camp fire talks” here in the campground. I find it really bizarre, when there a thousand ‘natural’ places to sit for a dialogue, they make a bee-line to the plastic composite seats. I guess they got lectured on the tamarisk mitigation work around Echo Park, I didn’t ask, as I was too busy prepping for the day. They later went into the woods between the campground and the river and were doing something. Wonder if they saw the carnage I wrought on the tamarisk behind site #7! (more …)

Sleep difficult, not sure why, whether simple discomfort, though the back of the truck seems very comfortable in the immediate impression, warm, soft enough, but body cannot find a comfortable position, side to side, somehow, problems. Could be that yoga hasn’t been happening in the last days. Hiking is a challenge for the body as well.

Drive up to the head of Sand Canyon, intent on doing a hike, but what looks like bad weather coming in, a heavy front across the whole west, sends me back after a short recon along the Bench Road. It seems doable as an alternative escape route, if this end is the worst, though, in wet conditions, forget it. And it totals thirty miles to Elk Springs, not just the three miles I did on recon. Almost all of it is in the red and yellow clay-sandstone alluvium, and this is precisely this same stuff which sits at the top of the Echo Park Road — from the 2000-foot displacement on the Mitten Park Fault, so, no real solution in heavy and widespread rain. However, this doesn’t seem the case — the rain is sporadic, fast-moving, and interspersed with bright sunshine and the roads are basically still dry after two days of ‘winter storm,’ so fretting about it is a waste of energy. Either I get out on Friday or I don’t and have to wait a few days. Plenty of water, fuel, and food, so that is no problem. The only locked-in point is the flight next Wednesday evening to Portland. But I’d still hate to miss the yurt-raising in Glade Park at Collin and Marisa’s this weekend!

Getting places, visiting friends. This is something I do that others don’t seem to do quite as much. With or without kids, people go on vacation to some elsewhere which is not local. But why this nagging impression that without me making repeat and sustained contacts, that Others have little interest in doing so. Of course, they have a life too, but so do I (I think): what trumps one over the other in considerations of time to maintain contact? It’s my job, perhaps. Is this a general un-sustainability of contemporary social conditions — at least as it sustains social relation beyond the immediate in-your-face people engaged with? Distance, obviously, can increase from there and is measured by the face-time, life-time, and life-energy spent. We do not do well spreading our attentions widely, except for those who crave (are craven) to have the attention of many. There are humans who can capture the attention of millions of individuals. This is only through mediation, however. With increasing numbers roughly equivalent to increasing mediation. Bang for Buck.

Does it matter, this wide-scaled exploration of the apparatus, the anatomy of power relations in the social system I am embedded within? Is it again merely something done to fill the time of being here. And will have little or no use in the long run except as a legacy substitute for being here? Ach, it is all looking towards that eventuality, as far as I can see. And what is that? Whilst reading on a early 20th Century historical treatise on Augustus (Octavius), a paean to the Caesar, successor to Julius Caesar, and master of the Roman Empire for many decades. The understanding must be embedded in a living praxis.

Suit-up later despite the weather for a relatively short but very intense hike to check out the small bench area above the soft red hills that are immediately above Lower Pool Creek Canyon. Dimension is distorted. Small- and smooth- looking becomes large and rugged (as usual). Slow pace, looking for access up the bench face. Strange smell, noted. Noted again about ten minutes later. And five minutes after that, the first fresh, very fresh paw-print the width of my hand. Thank god no overhanging trees of any height or size up here. With the near presence of a sizable carnivore confirmed, looking becomes a multi-dimensional immediacy. But then the sunLight breaks through after a squall, and I race through the juniper around to the west side of the bench trying to find a strategic vantage for some photos without foreground trees. Can’t get to it quick enough to capture sunLight glistening on wet uplifted fault faces of Harper’s Corner. Looks damn nice, though. Didn’t become someone’s dinner at the expense of a couple good photos either.

Back to the east rim, to plot a way back down, I spy a strange sight 200 yards below in the fading Light. A tremendous elk rack still attached to whitened skull apparently hanging in a juniper tree. No easy way down the bench there, I have to back-track to find an accessible egress. Finally make it to the rack. Amazing, 14-point, other bones strewn around. Blood still on some of it, so, not too old. A scattering of the rest of the stripped skeleton on the ground in the area.

Then a few minutes later, stumble on some large chunks of petrified wood which I trace to a deposit in a loosely consolidated conglomerate sandstone layer. Strange that the wood would remain intact in such an environment. The pieces are internally fractured, but exhibit good detail in the re-mineralization of the wood structures.

Finally back to the bike for the two miles downhill back to Echo Park. More severe weather rips through the entire night. The road is definitely closed. No humans in sight.

Two days here in Echo Park already. Three nights, one night alone, Friday and Saturday there were a couple of people in, then tonight, Sunday, no one around at all. A bit creepy, especially with the mountain lion kill I just discovered over in the middle of the walk-in camping site. Saw that on the way back from Mitten Park this afternoon. Been thinking of the cougars the whole time I’ve been here. Seeing evidences of kills scattered widely across the entire space. Wondering what the total range in for a single cat? I just don’t want to meet one. Having fantasy imaginations, and on the way back from Mitten Park had composed an Ode to the Puma, not able to memorize it sufficiently to record it, but recite it loudly on the way back.

The trail is choked with small purple flowers where it starts from Echo Park. Then there are the vague petroglyphs, then one set of rafters float by, small against Steamboat Rock. Looking at things great and small, it’s all relative to the eye, and the unfolding context.

Eight years ago, I leave a stone from Iceland in a cavity of the standing carcass of a burned piñon, the stone is now gone. Where?

hike up Pat’s Draw and around the fault area, up a steep talus slope below the high scarps of Harper’s Corner, as far possible, and even some slow trundling down some very unstable and steep terrains. Seeing more 12-16-point elk racks, more mountain lion kills, and the weather is warm.

Have an incredibly erotic dream with Jennifer D., back from the Culture Capitals 2000 project in Prague. Will have to email her. Otherwise watery squint-eyed watching of rotating the stellar field.

This morning, a raptor circles a hundred meters away with its mate hidden in the trees along Pool Creek, making a creeeewing sound. It’s the same noise it made when I wandered over to the creek earlier in the morning. All the birds are noisy — it makes a multi-dimensional flow which lies on the ear with pleasing insistence. No need to move the head, as the sources are in motion and occasionally in sight.

No one else down here today. I could feel it on the way down, the road just opened late in the day, although it didn’t seem in bad shape at all. They’ve been improving it with trucked-in gravel for a majority of the fifteen miles over the last decade. There were a few spots where folks had driven through when it was wet, and this was something of a mess — a hint of how horrible it can get after a storm.

Been thinking about the bush-whack agenda for the next ten days or so — with some trepidation regarding the carnivores, the mountain lions (Puma concolor — pumas, cougars, catamounts) specifically. The experience several years back in Upper Pool Creek Canyon comes to mind, and is not one that I would want to repeat. So it goes.

(Canada) geese (Branta canadensis) calls are echoing around, coming from upstream at the confluence and downstream from the opposite shore under Steamship Rock. Last night I kept thinking it was people on rafts talking, but it’s no human heard for the last 15 hours.

How to connect this place with the Wendover experience. The sporadic expressions of military order — literally expression — generated from the huge globe-spanning techno-social system, compared to this place.

Para-state organizations (sanctioned by law or social(elite) mandate) can operate at a less intrusive level than purely geo(political) entities — they don’t tend to attract near the enmity of a military presence, yet they have the same affect of tapping into the life-energies of a population and gathering that energy back into the geo-political entity that sanctions their existence.

Coke in China: gets the Chinese people to drink, to spend life-time/life-energy on Coke’s strictly controlled energy source. This process supplies the Chinese government with convertible/abstracted energy (money) in the form of direct and indirect taxes on the process — on Coca-Cola, on the salaries of the workers, on raw material import tariffs, etc. It also clearly supplies Coca-Cola with the same. Coke draws human energy into a system which guarantees the flow of that convertible/abstracted instrument.

Hunting, gathering, human-driven agriculture all demonstrate this on a granular level where it is relatively easy to see the connections and full pathways of energy flow. But as the techno-social system gets more complex, the connections are more widely displaced. Then with the addition of abstracted systems of exchange, the system becomes very complex and it is difficult to tease out the interconnections of even a simple example. However, even deep in the abstracted system, individuals are using their life-energies/life-time in maintaining the widest-scale pathways of the globe-spanning techno-social system. We are all implicated! And, indeed, observing this clearly on any scale — from ‘natural systems’ to any scale of social system — it is easy to extrapolate the limits and consequences of what is only to be considered a sustainable system at a cosmological scale. At localized and extracted systems levels, such as “human life on earth,” it may not be sustainable, is not sustainable. But the extraction process is purely abstract, and considering things from a holistic/unified point-of-view, it is sustainable. The universe will go on. Sounds like a contradiction.

So, how to reconcile all this to different scales, locales, etc?

I chance to spot the raven squeezing through a small gap where the square-ended galvanized panel meets the arching roof. Bully fer ‘im! Then, later, I see them resume their shuttle flights to and from the hangar, going through that one gap and possibly another at the other end somewhere. Smart birds.

Re-construction is continuing on the Enola Gay Hangar almost constantly. All the new windows are finally in, the wing areas seem to be in order with their new galvanized sheeting. A couple days ago, the last gaps in the sheeting on this end and the far roof have been put in place. So, what of the ravens and their constant efforts to build a nest (and hatch chicks perhaps?) somewhere inside? They are now gone. I felt a little ill when I saw that the construction crew was going at the remaining gaps in the sheeting, knowing it would cause a huge disturbance in the lives of the ravens. Okay, to be sure, they would likely not have been nesting here in the flats if the building had not been constructed here to begin with — humans had already caused a significant distortion in the flows of this place — life does that, always. I noticed for a couple days the ravens sitting on the roof, but no more of the flying back and forth by the window of the residency. This is a huge loss, and I wonder if anyone else has thought about this as an affect of the restoration process?

Apocalyptic. Huge wind storm, driving wind upwards from the playa to the black clouds collected over the ranges. Wind. Then, much later in the evening, the air becomes heavy on the lungs, and a fine powdered dust hangs in the more still air, like a fog, but dust, powdered mountains, air-borne terrain. It is dark, lightning and thunder shuffles in the background, unseen, muffled behind the curtain of dislocated earth hanging in the air. Eyes sting, nose waters, pressure heavy on the lungs, body recalls the Great Sydney Dust Storm of ’09, sleep is disturbed so the reading of Augustus continues, more on that later.

Many other events and actions go un-commented-upon, so far. And there are more sounds to upload, along with numerous time-lapse sequences. These seem most apropos to the time here. Watching the weather — back to the “window weather’ concept.

A nice hike with Neal, his last day before heading back to London (despite the volcano!) into the Toano Raptor Observation Area at the south end of the Toano Range. No big raptors except for a turkey vulture who didn’t fly away from a sheep carcass at the side of the track in until we were just 20 feet away (oi, pew!!). That’s as close as I’ve been from one of those huge birds. The hike in gets into snow pretty quickly, including corn snow coming down. But the sun is warm on the south-facing side of the canyon, and with the elevation gain, the view to the east over the playa and all the way to the Wasatch Range is fine. Apparently in the fall, during migration, more than 50,000 eagles, hawks, and falcons pass through the area.

Brutal sand/wind storm (again, what else is new in “Wind-over”). I have been almost completely scuppered in doing sound work here by the incessant wind (and not having a decent wind-snout for the Zoom H4. I thought Iceland was windy, well, this place is a close competitor. No trees, and the contrast of the flat playas between the relatively high mountains makes for some adiabatic action combined with a series of major Pacific storm fronts pulsing through. Noting when in (sparsely) wooded mountain valleys of the Toano Range, there isn’t the intensity of blast — the opposite occurs on the air base which is on the edge of a playa that extends 200 km to the north, 200 km to the south, and 150 km to the east: flatness breeds velocity. Velocity and sustainability — it goes on and on with only occasional respite.

Before this chunk of the later afternoon I went down to Blue Lake Wildlife Area to check out the swimming possibilities. The water is around 80F year-round and the lake itself formed through the effects of a geothermal percolation spring. It’s frequently used by open-water scuba divers for certification, and the area shows the signs of heavy human abuse (the BLM doesn’t really ‘manage’ it much).

The condition of virtuality arises when humans create a situation which attenuates the flows that are impinging on their sensual and embodied presence. When technology is defined as a way to alter the paths of energy flow: virtuality is a subset condition of the altered flows such that the flows that are obviously (or not!) entering the body system are attenuated. The obvious (materialist!) subset of the widest set is that grouping which attenuates the classical sensory-input spectra. These may be ‘scientifically’ framed based on typical wave-based mechanical and electro-magnetic physics: the EM frequency band of visible Light, the pressure-induced electricity of touch, and so on. In a holistic approach to presence, the affectations of flow are continuous, complete, and substantive.

Alluding to yet a further subset is the use of glass as a specific form of energized matter which is placed between the eye and the ‘world out there.’ This is a fundamental form of virtuality, where silicon dioxide is introduced as an attenuating filter of flows between embodied presence and the cosmos. (this is a short intro to a longer text on the history of glass that’s cooking on the back burner.)

Today, mulling the difference between technological determinism (as a self-propagating system on its own immutable trajectory) and the reciprocal idea that human social systems selectively construct the systems of technology they ‘desire’ (subject to all the variability of the particular social system within which the technology is embedded). Then, within that selection process, thinking about the process of development and the general trend towards greater complexity. Do these processes ever trend generally to greater simplicity? Does desire ever, on a wide social scale, ever become directed to less material abundance? Is material security predicated with amassing more-than-sufficient material wealth? Or do society-wide technological systems collapse towards simplicity only in cases of ‘natural’ disaster.

[Complexity and simplicity are used here as general indicators of the depth and breadth of the techno-social system's process of provision and production that leads to services, situations, or products deemed necessary for participants. Metrics of complexity would include geographic proximity, ease of access, energy density, and the number of substantive steps required to produce a product or create a desired energy flow. The relative necessity of a product is highly subjective and varies widely between different systems. Necessity is a cultural construct (complementing, say, Maslow's needful ranking). Complexity may be indicated by the number of discrete steps that can be described that a process passes through -- steps/degrees of flow alteration.]

When examining a production system, the primary question would have to be, “does this process end with a net gain of energy that can be subsequently utilized for the evolutionary advantage of the social system?” This question itself would suggest the inevitable rise of an elite subgroup when the wider population reaches certain environmental carrying thresholds — where that (evolutionarily optimal) subgroup is carried by the energy-providing activities of a wider group. But this is another issue to look at later.

The existence of (the) ‘natural disaster’ suggests that the state of a particular techno-social system may be seen essentially as the (ordered) organization of flows to keep back natural chaotic forces or to push those natural forces along certain (technologically-defined) pathways. Does this make the system merely at the affect of natural laws, and thus binding it into a materially deterministic framework? Nah, that ignores quantum, with its statistically indeterminate outcomes. Although obviously, any techno-social system is bound to thermodynamics and all other prescribed or yet unknown ‘natural laws.’

System collapse to simplicity is obviously a result of the ‘natural’ disaster precipitated by war (as an extension of human survival mechanisms?). War is the impingement of one techno-socially organized and directed expression of ordered energy onto another — with one set of system pathways disrupted to greater simplicity. Loss could be defined by the destruction of the internal structure for the directing of cumulative energy of participants in that social system. Winning is essentially acquiring access to the total (or partial) energy sources of the losing social system. This includes individuals, and all the pathways of energy flow that they have constructed — these are then directed, incorporated, into the winning system.

The whole deterministic model seems to focus on material interpretations — that is, metrics of ‘advance’ that will happen along an apparently calculable technological trajectory. Rather, as outlined here, there are conditions of technological advance and retreat that are framed by other factors which make the prediction of a trajectory highly inaccurate. The first being the level of complexity of the techno-social systems, the second, the efficiency of that system, and the third, the stability. All of these factors fluctuate over time and are deeply embedded in a milieu of human and, indeed, cosmological factors. The general trend, however, looking at the broad arc of the history of technology is to increasing complexity, variable-yet-generally-increasing control by social systems of a wider range of ‘natural’ energy flows. Is it deterministic to say that there will be an increase in complexity of any techno-social system unless interrupted by natural disaster? [Clearly, the complexity of a (the!) techno-social system is limited, as the energy basis for the system is not infinite: what does that imply?]

What motivates this evolution to increasing complexity? The short answer could be the drive to reproductive advantage — evolutionary motivations for life to not just continue, but continue with advantage over the competition. It is easy to see that the affect of this drive could be interpreted as having its own character and endless source of ‘forward’ motivation. But clearly the ultimate source for that is, again, the impelling force of life-systems to simply continue and continue with ever-greater complexity (creating an ever-widening ring of increasing entropy). So, the ‘explanation’ for technological change, as a social phenomena, ultimately rests, as do all social systems, on the fundamentals of living systems.

Vastly complex systems obscure the actual and perceived level of reproductive advantage — for example, while modern Western medical advances have increased overall abilities for successful propagation of the species, the wider technological system on which that (medical)sub-system depends generates substances (and situations) toxic to reproductive viability and life in general. One would then have to argue that the reproductive viability increase is for a limited number of the total population. Those remaining after the cull benefit from technologically augmented survival, while the biologically and energetically compromised remainder are ‘used up’ in supporting the few. The increase of complexity may be directly correlated to the larger absolute number of people, combined with the drive to absolutely optimize reproductive capabilities of those in the positions of power at the same time as the elimination of all actual or potential competing life-forces.

Nan’s funeral in Charlottenburg. I see a number of people that I have not seen in some time. Kathy Rae is there from Manchester, and Sandro, one of the students who came to Iceland all those years ago.

the funeral is moving, standing room only. in the room with the casket, a video tape interview with Nan running silently, along with a projection of one of her Light-water videos. flowers, candles. friends in black. stories from a few folks.

after the service, Sandro mentions that he has a photograph from the Iceland trip, which he then pulls from an envelope. I am moved when I see that it is one of my postcards that I sent him after the trip. I think I sent each of the students that I had addresses for a copy, if I remember right. I immediately notice that it is on resin-coated paper, ach, but that was a time when I could use nothing else as I had only the college lab which could hardly be called a lab even. I worked with what I had. he said he would send me a high-rez scan of it. it underlines that old idea I had to gather up all the postcards that I have ever sent and put on an exhibition. what fun that would be. especially if each of the people would attend the show.

it is very nice to let memories of Nan float up, especially her work which is essentially about Light. and her presence as a mentor, teacher, friend, her art. generosity. the community she supported.

and memories of her Armani suit and her fondness for good cognac.

Avalon from Roxy Music plays in one interlude. and I make this small tribute — blackbird sings…

yes, spring does arrive. the chestnut tree outside the back windows rather suddenly bursts into a leafy presence that only the chestnut can express. added advantage is that it blocks the view into and out of the windows, replacing too-near humanity with … green.

We do not need to invent sustainable human communities. We can learn from societies that have lived sustainably for centuries. We can also model communities after nature’s ecosystems, which are sustainable communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms. Since the outstanding characteristic of the biosphere is its inherent ability to sustain life, a sustainable human community must be designed in such a manner that its technologies and social institutions honor, support, and cooperate with nature’s inherent ability to sustain life. — Fritjof Capra

first-responders on the way home last night. on the way back from checking out the local sonic scene and to meet Shannon and Rick for their solo performances at LanFranchis, a (the!) local alternative space — reminded me very much of FishBon in Santa Barbara except folks were smoking. also met Katherine, a creative writing student at UTS. the performances were good with a decent 5.1 sound system. it would have been nice to do a mix like I did for leplacard in helsinki two weeks ago. here’s an ambient mix from the evening.

make it to Bondi this morning after long transport delays.

other notes on the antipodes: clouds (definitely the wrong word!) of black fruit bats the size of fat and dumpy seagulls drift (definitely do not fly!) in the late twiLight airs above the treetops. a … disturbing … sight. not for its natural curiosities, but for the way the beasts move — as though they are in a drunken haze of meditative zen tranquility while moving across a space of thick gaseous vortices, all lying at the bottom of the sea. and me looking upwards.

the next note: so far, while the National Art Museum has a permanent exhibition of Aboriginal Art, I have seen only two drunk Koori around Kings Cross — near the 20-meter-high Coke advertisement. enough said. maybe dumb idea along with this Colonial geometry but I would like to get a decent didje for working the breath when next in desert lands.

The whole world was asleep. Everything was quiet, nothing moved, nothing grew. The animals slept under the earth. One day the rainbow snake woke up and crawled to the surface of the earth. She pushed everything aside that was in her way. She wandered through the whole country and when she was tired she coiled up and slept. So she left her tracks. After she had been everywhere she went back and called the frogs. When they came out their tubby stomachs were full of water. The rainbow snake tickled them and the frogs laughed. The water poured out of their mouths and filled the tracks of the rainbow snake. That’s how rivers and lakes were created. Then grass and trees began to grow and the earth filled with life. — Koori creation story

more note: in the water. for the first time in surf for a long time. body at first not responding, that combined with the size of the breaks. a few minutes conversation with a beach guard who is out in the break herding folks away from a rip. he says it’s a hell of a first day to visit Bondi — they were pulling people out all day, jet skis crashing through the foam heading out beyond the breaks to check on surfers, and hovering choppers. sets get up to 3 meters, look like even more occasionally. it’s a workout to get through even the secondary shore breaks which are easily at a meter-and-a-half. noticed the surf report online is in feet. old timers guarantee that maybe? great to be out there, though. damn. but no room for error. no body surfing, just stroking between breaks, diving deep under the curlers, and staying out of the way of anything turbulent.

memories of recent and undocumented interactions with rainbows. dredging up a spectral wonder committed to film at the God’s Falls in North Ice land. and this text composed some months back on the back deck of a house no longer lived in:

what sight of rainbow gives full and transitory is not the will to wake up the next morning, it’s just late afternoon, well before sunset. lightning strikes the house. the radio quits. do the dead feel the hissing crack of close lightning like the living do? a bit of dread, a bit of shaken body wonder?

rainbow gives nothing except the radiation to brush the eyes. but in that brilliant subtlety there is everything. the smell of rain soaked earth and sage, cedar and piñon. when it is leaving. gone. all is gone, even memory of persistence of vision an illusion. after all, memory is imprint of the primal mind leaving the moment. rainbow gives only memories of itself, written in state-shifted electric bodies.

psychogeography, yet another buzz-word in contemporary media art Worlds. usually applied in the context of the controlled environment of urban human-scapes. a gravel and sand bar at the confluence of the Yampa and Green rivers makes an ideal counterpoint. despite scaring off the wild geese and beaver. where to go? the water’s too cold to ford the river, and the canyon walls too steep to climb. around-about, then.

long hike onto the bench above the campground and above Mitten Park. lizards, snakes, birds, jack rabbits, mule deer, limestone, sandstone, chert, black widows, other spiders, textures, sounds, steep climbs, looking over several precipices. there is nothing here. there is only. there is only energy. mind reflects back surface noise and shapes, so far. noise of social engagement. clearing will take time. and will ultimately bring back more power to the spirit. hoping that no job offers arrive during this period of being offline. doubtful that anything will. given the record of life to this point.

darkness falls drifting slowly upwards from the ground. under the huge cottonwood Light is lost. in the branches of the piñon. blond dead grass radiates sunshine recalled from noon. sandstone walls the heat. moon begins to Light canyon walls after twiLight. high-pitched bat chirps ping fast when bug is echo-located, otherwise, slower twips as they sail around the heard space, defining its dimensions. all this mostly unseen to eye.

Jeb Bush as a politico-in-the-making left his mark on the world during a debaucherous elk-hunting trip near Gunnison, Colorado in the fall of 1974. Is this a case of “Fools names and not their faces are always seen in public places?”

what else to say about that. it didn’t kill the aspen tree, but it leaves the unsightly human detritus and hints at the depth of the sleaze that dominates the family in power. The moral system that allows a man to vainly scar a living tree in a delineated Wilderness area is not only corrupt, but shows a contempt for natural systems that is fortified by the family’s exploitative nature in the extractive minerals business.

the yucca (Agave americana) that I transplanted to a spot outside the back door as a fist-sized stub about a decade ago has reached three feet across with spined leaves that could easily impale any hearty mammal. to avoid the most direct damage, I trim off the sharpest part each time I am here. anyway, the plant is about to do it’s thing. that is, shoot a 12-to-18-foot (4-to-6 meter!) center stalk that culminates in flowers and ultimately dried seed pods. sometimes called a Century plant this is a mis-nomer as it takes only (in this case) a decade to reach this point. the entire plant then dies off. not absolutely sure this is about to happen, but looking at the image you might see the yellow patches on the spines. it appears that the plant is drawing its energy inward, away from the spines in order to shoot the stalk up. either that or the plant is dying. we’ll see. was considering putting a web-cam on it as it is just outside the back office window…

of course, it’s just a full moon, but the estimation of Light pollution is … depressing — what is pollution other than the direct re-formation of natural energy forms by the active intervention of human beings? a (theoretical) natural system without humans (very theoretical!) will be in dynamic balance with all elements, so when there is a concentration that is mortal to the local system, it will seek a balance. question is, when the system is skewed to the extreme of unbalance, what will the re-balancing be like? gradual, as history has gone, or, like the tsunami, sudden and catastrophic. and, I wonder, who cares? in the face of daily life, is it really possible to pretend a care for a macro-scaled system, what does it mean to care for the world? is it perhaps merely an annoyance combined with the leisure to contemplate the abstracted concept of the world?

Phrynosoma solare, a horned toad which is not a toad, but a lizard. this cute fella likes to chow on ants. found him hanging out on the driveway, so I moved him over to the basalt outcropping nearby, watched his colors change. constantly aware that the abundant rains of this past winter have altered the ecosystem substantially. more bugs, more and fatter lizards, birds, plants, everything. very interesting.

“What is it?” we ask, meaning what is its name? This odd quirk of the human mind: Unless we can name things, they remain for us only half-real. Or less than half-real: nonexistent. A man without a name is nobody. A man’s name can become more important that his person. A plant, an animal, a thing without a name is no thing — nothing. No wonder we humans like to think that in the beginning was — the Word. What word? Any word. Any word at all, anything rather than the silence and terror of the nameless. — Edward Abbey

plowing (ploughing) through Abbey this time, after years since reading “The Monkey Wrench Gang,” seems dated, depressing, even dark. so much of the landscape that he passed through is evolved, so much of what he prognosticated about the Southwest, at the hands of corrupt politicians and developers has materialized like a cancer across the face of the land. the forever-expansion, development-is-good, it-creates-jobs mantra that is chanted by deeply unholy men (and women). bringing 4000+ square-foot pseudo-adobe MacMansions dotting the land with Hummers in every five-car garage. although there are places one might go and on a middle-scale — meaning the easily visible — local scale, to the uninitiated eye, the natural system seems untouched. but with any consideration of scientific data on atmospheric systems, plant and animal ecosystems, hydrologic systems are being irretrievably altered. what of the domination of a species which will destroy most of the other macro-species only to live shortly in an impoverished environment: soon to succumb to viral celebration in the host of hosts. definitely, catch it while you can. take the last road trips around before gas costs what it should and the only way to get out of Dodge will be on foot. and the only way to survive the plague is through a slow and costly counter-evolution.

at any rate, this IS a frog (possibly a Canyon Tree frog – Hyla arenicolor). but note the incredible coloration. the green exactly matches a particular lichen that grows on the granite in that area. the pinkish blush of the feldspars in the granite. there were four of them literally stuck to a large smooth boulder on Mint Wash. I was sitting opposite from them, having lunch with Marianne, about 6 feet (2 meters) away, and at first I thought they were phenocrysts in the granite, but then saw they were frogs. this particular one was the only one I could get close enough to make an image of, s/he was crouched on a relatively reasonable ridge. the other three were literally glued to vertical (overhanging!) smooth surfaces, but there was a 2-meter deep hole in the creek bed, full of water immediately below them. so, this one had to do. the beast is about 1.5 inches (3 cm) long.

a year since Dad died. doesn’t feel like that at all. a year. one of an endless cycle of circles around a Light. how else would we know, without abstract methodologies of measurement, except to see that things are the same, and different each time around. time may be a continuous phenomena, but it is variable for different beings, and states of being. why not? the willows, aspen, poplar, and birch are all transforming. rapidly. along with the snow marching down the mountainsides. by the time I get back from Norway in three weeks, this place will be stark, winter. time passes. flooding all corners of the sensual world, and affecting change in all things. when in the pool, at each deep inhalation there are smells of the sticky-sweet poplar here, almost a taste. it’s slightly different from the Cottonwood of the desert Southwest, but the smell brings a strong memory to surface. I’ve talked about this before in other places of this travelog. the smell of trees.

At times I feel as if I had lived all this before and that I have already written these very words, but I know it was not I: it was another woman, who kept her notebooks so that one day I could use them. I write, she wrote, that memory is fragile and the space of a single life is brief, passing so quickly that we never get a chance to see the relationship between events; we cannot gauge the consequences of our acts, and we believe in the fiction of past, present, and future, but it may also be true that everything happens simultaneously — as the three Mora sisters said, who could see the spirits of all eras mingled in space. — Isabelle Allende, House of Spirits

three juvenile owls, each a foot tall, are sitting on a clothes-line along the Boulder Creek bike trail as Loki and I bike home from Kathy’s talk at the Boulder Bookstore. in a blustery sturm und drang, we watch. rapt. as they flutter in the coming storm-wind, pouncing on falling leaves thinking they are prey, in the dark, just a few feet from us. no fear. predators-in-training. raptors. other cyclists swoosh by, oblivious.

partial solar eclipse near sunset. under the trees at maximum, the ground is scattered with crescent suns. recalling the family history of eclipses. used to note on my resume — that I have experienced 12 minutes of totality during the first 25 years of my life. that’s 12 minutes of time, accumulated during 5 total solar eclipses where the sun is completely covered by the moon. in order to experience this, one must be in a location that happens to be on the center line of the eclipse path. this is a swath of land about 40 miles wide and several thousand miles long along which the deepest shadow of the moon is cast during the eclipse. the shadow traverses this path at very high speed, so that any one point on the line receives a maximum of four to five minutes of total shadow. totality is a natural phenomena not to be missed, if one has the opportunity to travel to a point on the center line. my father happened to be an amateur astronomy buff who took me to 5 eclipses. his interest seemed to be mostly technical, it was driven by the desire to construct equipment to record the event in a variety of formal ways, followed by a focus on the actual recording of the event, and lastly by the intensity of the natural phenomena. the eclipses I experienced were in the company of groups of other amateur astronomers for whom the event was again, primarily a scientific phenomena. there was little if any discussion as to other aspects. although, it is very true that during the time immediately preceding second contact — when the moon’s leading umbral (shadow) edge actually overtakes ones position — and third contact, when the trailing umbral edge passes by, there is a palpable sense of hysteria in the air. darkness at mid-day, a black flaming hole in the middle of the sky, dogs howl, birds stop singing, and people are afraid. reductive science eases the throat-hold of rationality on the situation. leaving the throat to growl, howl, and squeal in guttural reaction to an event that presents the world as it should not be: paranormal.

another place.

The wind will not stop. Gusts of sand swirl before me, stinging my face. But there is still too much to see and marvel at, the world very much alive in the bright Light and wind, exultant with the fever of spring, the deLight of morning.

Strolling on, it seems to me that the strangeness and wonder of existence are emphasized here, in the desert, by the comparative sparsity of the flora and fauna: life not crowded upon life as in other places but scattered abroad in spareness and simplicity, with a generous gift of space for each herb and bush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock. The extreme clarity of the desert Light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life forms.

Love flowers best in openness and freedom.

***

Dehydration: the desert air sucks moisture from every pore. I take a drink from the canvas water-bag dangling near my head, the water cooled by evaporation. Noontime here is like a drug. The Light is psychedelic, the dry electric air narcotic. To me the desert is stimulating, exciting, exacting; I feel no temptation to sleep or to relax into occult dreams but rather the opposite effect which sharpens and heightens vision, touch, hearing, taste and smell. Each stone, each plant, each grain of sand exists in and for itself with a clarity that is undimmed by any suggestion of a different realm. Claritas, integritas, veritas. Only the sunLight holds things together. Noon is the crucial hour: the desert reveals itself nakedly and cruelly, with no meaning but its own existence. — Edward Abbey,

most of the texts that I have been absorbing in the last weeks deal with creativity as a discontinuous (non-cyclic) and anomalous event rising above the normal “level” of daily life. this view is an obvious artifact of materialist thinking that treats life as a linear (singular) trajectory and that the expressions of that living can be wholly reduced linguistically to various statements and formulations. accepting that this view IS true within its own limited framework (the history of rational thinking), a critique would have to deconstruct the whole facade of Western philosophy in order to make a substantive attack on the position. this writer is neither qualified nor interested in making such a frontal attack which would simply be tossed aside in the dumpster of academic discourse. instead, understanding that to even name a philosophy or a philosopher that stands supporting that edifice would only give power to a system that I believe is fundamentally flawed, I have chosen to proceed intuitively, and perhaps poetically, making enormous and possibly scandalous generalizations, leaving the normative conventions of the English language behind, and simply dive into thoughts that are reflecting through waters muddied by 42 years of thrashing around in a world that seems more intense and striking everyday. by this methodology, combined with a desire that these texts be only the opening for a dialogue with the Other who might come on it, here in the sea of hyperspace, I will begin.

not being a practicing Buddhist, it is dangerous to rely on the familiar and frequently mis-understood and mis-interpreted dialectic of East – West. however, buried in the residual mudflats of surrounding language, there are things that stick between the toes as one wanders between the tides.

tides return to smooth all things into harmonic ripples, the size and orientation of which are determined by the velocity, depth, and laminar deviation of the liquid flow and alignment of the planar particles of complex alumino-silicates.

there appears to be a fundamental difference in these flows.

there is lacking the recognition that with creativity (creation) there must come loss or destruction (decay). the suddenness of the creative impulse is mirrored (in time or not) by a natural tendency (of the Second Law of Thermodynamics).

suddenness, speed, quickening, all relate to special conditions being met in the movement of energies. humans are specialists in the dangerous play of resistance to universal flows. at the same time their energy-sensing systems are highly tuned to the movements of energy around them, their internal ego systems distort and filter. this dichotomy might be explained by the intervention of ego-forces which distort the reading or interpretation of the raw sensual mechanisms with often dire results. observing children moving through their lives, one sees a more or less direct line between sensual experience and reaction. age gradually moderates this.

results of this resistance are so manifold and compound that, well, what’s the point in exploring the obvious.

at any rate, this resistance to flows is also illustrated obliquely in natural systems where all processes are in fundamental movement, and there is simply scalar differences between different events. earthquake vs fertilization of an egg. while an earthquake is considered a precipitous event of violence, it is a result of continuous forces cycling on scales that are beyond human capacity to imagine. fertilization could be seen as an ultimate violence. or ultimate expression of the cyclic nature of energy movement. but there is never a resistance, only the expression of the true nature of the material configuration of energies.

Buddhist thought provides a more accurate model to follow. at least it makes sense as translated across the gap of language and culture. ego is the source of resistance. or there is something that causes us to resist. and construct complex mechanisms for justifying the resistance.

stretch and bend. images for nowhere. not finding. and so on. notes. undirected speaking at self instead of with Other. cleaning glasses. pick up sticks. associative words. not carving much of. and else-wise. activity. suggesting things. actions. or others. words the world of words. the other world. is it possible to bring what is expressed in words into practice? what is alluded to. what is suggested, instructed, what is dreamed. what of the world without images or words?

everything is potential energy.

short-timing yesterday, it was the Solstice

a pilgrimage made to a hill-mountain a hundred kilometers away to think for the sun to fall dormant

it never does but only hovers far above the horizon for hours and with full moon weighing the other horizon in a tense and perfect balance of gravity and Light that leaves us in wonder and burning with a quiet energy of sight and vision and being and each spinning a particular way within the self of body-walls Finnish tangos and arias and beers and drunks and dances and mosquitoes and the Light

the Light

fir trees and aspen-birch branches in full green leaf used for fans to keep bloodthirsty humming at bay from body

a tower to climb we occupy it for a time and time again with occasional tourists Sweden and Australia and Finnish lovers who I see twice, once at the top of the tower then in the Lappish teepee they crouch near the fire hands and bodies entwined loving the others presence and the night that was all the darkest in that teepee with reindeer skins on logs around the skirting and two reindeer out back moulting with pink blood-close skin on their antlers

I stare at the sun so long that it makes a hole when I look at the moon, lacing it with fire and spots while the chill north wind blows I make my muscles relax to allow pulse to travel to extremities to bring heart-warmth

then driving a Mercedes van packed with travelers who came to this place at this time to marvel at the sun-ring-rainbow sky dancing with cloud and Light and rain and a blue sky that reflects in the eyes of many here who look at it even the ones who hardly pause to let it all seep into head through the clear wet lenses the green leaves that just exploded in the change time of spring that is only a week happening like one morning and there it is with the birch trees an empty landscape only green from evergreens and then comes the green from the new things growing greening everything and the new flowers planted in the cemetery with the ravens above in the trees being harassed by the little birds afraid that they will devour their nestlings so that same cemetery around the quiet wooden church is noisy

old ladies filling watering cans and talking gently to the dead when no one is near

is it that old ladies inhabit these spaces naming the old names and the days when those names stopped being when they moved themselves to that part of us that is called memory and is that part of mind memory which drives us more to what we are than any other part of us when nothing else is left?