a couple hours online between bouts of wild(er)ness solo and with old friends. have a long conversation with a solo hiker up in Mill Creek this morning. Steve lives out of his modest Toyota RV, a retired engineer, spends 5 months a year hiking in the Colorado high country.

A rare Clarence without his sax at a gig with Bruce and the E-Street Band at McNichols Arena in Denver, Colorado sometime in 1980.

finished the rolling-over process from the travelog to this blog. pain in the arse! 2850 entries at this point, now the hard work of adding several thousand images along with much more audio, and other miscellaneous content in the next months. as acquisitions slack off, I can finally catch up.

in the same moment, I realize that personal communications with Others has dropped off precipitiously in the last, say, two years — hmmm, a direct affect of thesis-mongering? or merely life in this instance? unfortunately, few keep up with this blog, otherwise they would have some inkling of what has gone down in the last 24 months or so.

the other thing I realized was that I’ve been making far more images of roadside memorials (Roadside Memorials?) than of live humans. that’s a bit of a shock to the system to consider. when I’ve been encountering quite a number of new people in life. plenty of opportunities. it seems that it’s too intense to drag out the Nikon — it’s too much. either that, or the recent diving into archive has made the further acquisition of images — the continual expansion of the archive — to be a hopelessly perverse exercise. when so much of it has hardly been surfaced to any of the many represented in it. what to be done? there’s only so much time in a rapidly-passing life!

not to mention the greatest down-side of archive is the life-time/life-energy necessary to committed to maintaining it. an archive is all about order, and a carefully constellated archive — one where things may be found! — tends to dis-order the moment that energy ceases to flow into maintenance of that order.

portrait, Bruce Springsteen, McNichols Arena, Denver, 1980

digging deep into the 35mm archive, from 30 years ago now. 18,000 images. back from the time I covered around 150 concerts in two years, as well as being the photo editor for the yearbook, special editor for the newspaper, and doing some advertising photography — at the same time as slogging through one of the toughest engineering schools in the country, argh. hard days … but much fun: our motto was work hard, play hard. doing all that with good friends, what more can one ask?

this archive will surface in some form in this thesis project, possibly, and if not within that framework, it will simply surface as possible. the (life)-time required to do this is significant. and perhaps that time is short.

gurls, dogs, and Christmas lights on display. somewhere in California.

I join the panel Social Energy with Zita Joyce, Caro McCaw, and Sally McIntyre along with a Skype from Eric (Kluitenberg) from late nite NL, half-way around the globe. It’s funny to cross paths with him here, but appropriate in the sense of the networking practice.

There was one point in his presentation that I had a serious disagreement with — when he posited that the remote half of a connection (in this case, a tele-presence ‘wall’ in a working environment), was ‘fantasy’ in the sense that it wasn’t ‘real.’ If I understood this correctly, I would totally disagree. It is rather a situation of sensory attenuation — the ‘presence’ of the remote Other is real, but attenuated (by the communications protocols between here and there). And it is in this attenuation where the loss and alienation from remoteness (and ultimately the frequent dysfunction of online events like ElectroSmog) arises. We didn’t get into it too far as there were other issues to talk about in the panel, but this one really was problematic. When assigning a ‘fantastical’ label to a real techno-social deployment we remove any (human) agency from it and push it into a phenomenal realm where it does not rightly fit. What is implemented is an expression of a human techno-social system — manifestations of this system are never fantasy.

Many good presentations, especially the comments from Mike Poa, the founder of the One River project with the waka on the Whanganui River. It’s hard to hear of yet another river suffering from the typical exploitation/development which ends up wasting the life of the entire watershed and its people. But then the efforts to revive the river culture seem to be pretty successful. The Maori are by no means quitters, and their cultural strength is significant. A couple days ago I spent part of an afternoon talking with a group of Maori women who were reviving/continuing the tradition of weaving baskets, they said that there was a very positive engagement from the young people.

It’s over, so, cleaning up the space and trucking everything back to the Green Bench or the house at the end of the afternoon.

The day closes with another delicious barbie at Don and Ana’s place, with the slow and mild twiLight falling.

Can’t wait to get another dose of NZ!

Up early again, before all the girls are off to school, the morning routines are quite entertaining to witness. Compared to similarly-aged kids in other places (the US!), all the kids I’ve met here seem quite relaxed. Is it the culture here, or? There is a laid-back quality, but I haven’t been here long enough to see how it suffuses through the society. There have to be substantial social issues, with colonialism having left such an influence on things. The stack of histories of NZ that Kerry loaned me before traveling told of savage open conflict until around the time of the US Civil War which is quite recent. Though no longer in direct living memory, it is still quite close. It’s is obvious, from the clear-cut timbering alone, seen from the air, that there is an ongoing and deep conflict over land-use, with powerful development and/or exploitation forces. On the other hand, there are definitely strong voices for nurturing the environment (and human lives on the island) back to something more sustainable.

We take a visit to the waka (canoe) boathouse to check on things — there is a crew of young gals who are practicing waka racing for the national championship. A group of absolutely charming young women.

Mike, our main Maori host comes by, what a expansive and powerful spirit he has! Julian has really cultivated some amazing connections with people here. Everyone met so far has been friendly, open, welcoming, relaxed, ready with a smile, along with some challenging/enLightening conversations.

Hardly time to make any entries now that the road has come up to meet my feet, so to say. Prepping mentally for the symposium coming up in a few days. But there is still so much indeterminacy that I will really have to improvise, and simply go with the available and auspicious energies of the moment. Many stories are already told about energy and informatics.

Towards sunset, an impromptu picnic on river turns out to be a neighborhood gathering, yet another example of a relaxed bunch of folks. Such a (WELCOME!) contrast to Sydney!

Today is completely packed and busy: cleaning, organizing, and installing the show at the Greenbench for the gallery opening this evening. The title of the show is BURN and the show is obliquely or directly about hydrocarbons — plastics, production, consumption, distribution. Julian had tracked down a collection of oil samples from an early and now spent New Zealand (oil) field nearby (name?). I am surprised, oil — with the tectonic regime here, the foreshore of a plate boundary subduction zone. Ah, maybe the heat flow is actually lower when considering that because the immediate crust is double thickness with the subducting plate, so there is a lower heat gradient from the mantle. Shallow oil, guess I’d never thought of the genesis of such plays.

I use embodied energy to organize and clean the gallery kitchen for the opening, along with having numerous conversations with folks introduced from Julian’s extensive local network. He asks me if I will talk at the opening sharing some anecdotes about working in the oil business. Completely impromptu, though I had a minute to sit with a piece of paper before and write a five- or six-point list of things to remember to talk about. I am not the best story-teller, especially in such a situation, but folks politely listen to a few minutes of my rambling.

Later in the evening, raucous preparations over wine precede delicious dinner back at the house. Definitely some good cooks around!

The question for me becomes — how to keep track of the dialogues, and the warm humans encountered? Julian mentions there is an artist-residency possibility in town. It would be great to hang here for a time. Somehow, it reminds me distantly of Tornio, in Lapland, half-way ’round the world, literally, in the sense of it being a littoral backwater along a river in a small country, but the community here seems quite activated, and the differences between Finns/Lapps and Kiwis/Maori are complex and significant. Similarities do exist — it would be good to have the time to explore. It looks like there will not be any spare time in these 11 days for much autonomous explorations, although this is okay, as the people immediately surrounding Julian and Sophie’s lives provide a rich environment for encounter. And a site for the exchange of inspiration.

Up at 0400 to make the hugely early flight to eNZed. Had to be totally packed for the US as well, as I’ll have only another 20 hours back in Sydney, in transit between Auckland – Sydney – San Francisco.

A new country, a new place to visit. The national memorial service is happening when we land, so I manage to record a minute’s silence in the baggage claim. Some people were oblivious. People are watching the ubiquitous flat-screen teevees rather intently. The cost of extractives, but only the most obvious one.

The jump flight from Auckland down to Whanganui reveals both sides of possible landscapes. Massive clear-cut forestry in the highlands, and intensive farming in the more level areas — both with the attendant geomorphology of erosion features marring the terrain. Much has changed since colonization, surely. Then there are the remaining highland forests which are not yet decodable, having not met them on the ground.

Finally get into Whanganui, Julian picks me up at the airport in their 1988(?) Honda named Buzzy Bee (?) — a vehicle with a history, too bad I’m writing this in far distant retrospect, or elsewise I could relate the story. It was funny. Great to finally meet Julian, and we immediately start up a substantial dialogue as I am dropped into the whirlwind of family life surrounding the community effort aimed at the Greenbench (Gallery space) and the ADA Symposium. I tell him that I am at his service, and that, officially, my workshop starts now. It’s all about energy, presence, be-ing, and raising these topics in whatever contexts that arise in the next ten days.

The evening starts with a rousing performance of Aladdin by the children of the Brunswick School located in the countryside near Whanganui. Julian and Sophie’s three daughters recently started attending the school. This was followed by some photo-ops — meeting more of Julian’s family and other folks in the community — in the playground, as the soft, mild summer twiLight closed in.

meander down to Roger and Neil’s place in Marrickville to observe the live Ethernet Orchestra network music collab that Roger is doing as a part of his thesis research. Neil whips up a delicious meal beforehand.

started down George Street on my way home late tonight, intent on doing some Halloween portraits, but got overwhelmed by the social noise only shortly after doing this first group portrait of these young Chinese gals. what more can I say?

Meet Mauri and Pia in Berkeley for a hike and lunch along with one of their colleagues, Phillip, at the Minerva Foundation. We head out to the Mount Tilden Park and climb through the invasive Sycamore (and poison oak!) to a view of the entire Bay area.

run by Todd and Amy’s place in the ponderosa: a full-on straw-bale home he’s been working on for the last year or so. a monsoon thunder-boomer rips through and drops enough catchment water from the roof to completely flush out the raw granite cistern — a fortuitous inch of rain in a few minutes. the house will be a great place, the straw-bale walls give it an incredible interior ambiance. I’m curious to see the final result … someday!

drop by Lynne’s and end up picnicking for the whole afternoon down at the Platte in downtown Denver. watching the constant stream of human drama passing by.

drop by EJ’s to get a group pix, but Bridget isn’t around, but after a round of some very fine Tequila with EJ, hanging on the back patio, I get Nora and Eliott to find a spot (Nora took the lead on this task, heading right up the tree in the back yard. Not surprising in Light of the memory of her shimmying up the 12-foot steel supports in the kitchen like a little monkey when she was, like, six years old.) Eliott is packing for six weeks of summer camp near Estes Park starting tomorrow, lucky!

Pick up the kids over at the Alexander Dawson School, meeting Craig Angus, their teacher for a wood-working course. Craig is a former student from my first years of teaching Master Black and White Printing at CU waaay back in the 1980s. He’s now the teacher with the most seniority at Dawson!

The kids made some pretty fine bedside table/cabinets that were still wet with polyurethane. Fortunately I had room in the truck to stash them safely for the ride home to Boulder.

long cycle ride with Bill first down the Ark which was partly over the bike path at one point. that made for a challenge going back up against the current in a foot or more of fast moving water — the river is definitely at spring flood stage! Then all the way back upstream to the Pueblo Dam which was open and blasting snow-melt downstream. pretty damn hot, but along the river in the shade of the huge cottonwood trees, all is chill. at the end of the ride, I was tuckered, but also impressed with the urban green-space development that Pueblo is undertaking.

Bill and I do a road-trip up to meet Rick, Sally, and Karen for lunch at Rita’s Place in Guffey. another instance of being on a road that I’ve never been on before: in Colorado that’s unusual anymore these days. it’s a nice drive, through Cañon City, then north on Route 9 a bit then turning off for Guffey and Rita’s. She’s got a nice little place to have a lunch stop when on a Sunday afternoon drive in the mountains. Karen had to leave early, but the rest of us take a slow wander around the ecentric little village. Then back to Pueblo for a few more days in the +100F heat.

dinner with John, Chris, Wendy, Harry, Jimmy, and Bill, all us old-time School of Mines guys. well, except for John, somehow he got tangled up with us, bully fer ‘im!

Retreat from the high country, back to urban centers. Drop by at Jim and Dona’s place on the way back to Boulder.

A short drive and hike with Karen on West Fourmile Creek to Guffey Falls where we find some teenagers cliff-jumping into the very cold water. We then drive to a development built on the huge granitic batholith exposed below Cripple Creek. Place becomes, as seems usual, the backdrop for ongoing conversations, even the stars from the trampoline in the cold.

Morning starts when the hydrocarbon warriors fire up their mounts! Otherwise, for the rest of us, it is a slow and sunny day, and for me, a day of portraits. A longish bush-whack hike with mostly the ladies and gals in the late morning. I end up following my nose at the same time as leading a group with Natalie and a few others youngsters back to camp. When dead-reckoning brings us out of the woods about 50 meters from camp, they are surprised as, in the mean time, not following any trail, they have been a bit unsure about where they were and where I suggest we head. It’s high altitude, too. The maximum we hit was over 3200 meters — I can feel it in my lungs going up a steep incline across from Limestone Ridge to the south.

Pack up and head out in mid-afternoon. Head east towards the Puma Hills and Pikes Peak, tracking a road I’ve actually never driven in Colorado, CR 24 through Hartsel and over Wilkerson Pass, on to Florissant where I turn south to get to Karen and Ron’s place.

Working on paperwork, online most the day, take a wander towards downtown. Erica and Greg working all day and out for a dinner party at the university.

make it to the all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast at the Congregational church for once. have a chat with a native Arizonan originally from Winslow now living in Chino. we talked about water. then there is a chance meeting with John McCain before the parade starts. he’s there every year, it’s a tradition, especially this year, a re-election year in the Senate coming up. he looked old and tired. he was with a squad of Young Republicans. they did not appear to know what they were doing, but were doing that enthusiastically. or so. very glad that he is not president now. otherwise, this largely conservative town shows its patriotic and political fervor on a hot and sunny desert highland day.

deLightful dinner with the Dewey gals, nice to meet Kaolin after 18 years or so, and to meet Emery after the same. an after-dinner twiLight walk is shockingly intersected by a coiled rattler or so. my foot was only a meter away and ready to swing that direction. not a good place to plant the Self. the twiLight was dense enough that there was some doubt as to the reality of rattler-ness, no rattles were sounded and we didn’t press our luck. ‘nuf said.

off to Grand Junction to drop by the Laurita compound, make some collective images. then a slow drive back to Cedaredge to hang out with Bean until late in the evening.

cycle down to meet the Walker crew down at the pool for an all-day swim meet. Alex and Sonya are both in several events. lament that Loki never got to experience such activities.

a couple days of essentially hanging out and talking in the open airs of the Collegiate Peaks area not far from Buena Vista and Buffalo Peaks with Rick, Sally, Karen, Montse, Dave, Vera, Gigi, and Lulu. Dave and Gigi start things off on a delicious note with some fresh Dolly Varden trout from nearby and aptly named Trout Creek. Rick brings the motocross gear. and the wind blows. springtime in the central Rockies. the Collegiates are a cold range. St. Elmo got 18 feet – that’s almost 6 meters – of snow last winter. sure it’s Colorado champagne-powder, but it’s a tough range of peaks. so in the lee of the turbulence of the Collegiates now, corn snow, rain, deep and expansive wind, sunshine and cloud. springtime in the Rockies. full moon dis-sleeping under a huge Douglas Fir, gaping at the Aspen stand nearby in the Light of pale whiteness and complete dark. one of those weekends.

whups have to get a photo up for this, to be sure. I head south from Manitou to spend a day with Bill in Pueblo, after meeting for breakfast, we pick up the coffee table that he made for me from the wood that came from my childhood home in Clarksburg, Maryland. there was a sizable Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) tree next to an old barn. the tree wasn’t healthy and so my father wanted to remove it — a process that I helped with, digging down in some places more than six feet to the roots and cutting them until he was able to pull the entire tree down with the Willys Jeep and a block-and-tackle. after sectioning the main trunk with a chain saw, he had a guy come and take the sections to a lumber mill where it was cut into rough planks which were stacked for drying and eventually were transported to Arizona where they sat for all of 25 years. since Bill was doing some pretty high-end furniture-making, I got the idea of having him make a modest-sized and simple coffee table which he did do from the remaining wood, leaving only toothpicks leftover, as he said. it’s a beautiful table.

so, next on the day’s agenda was a road trip into the Wet Mountains west of Pueblo. living up to their name, we were in fog and rain much of the way up to Isabel Lake and the cloud cover really never broke the entire day. dinner at Puukaow Thai and meeting with Gan and Tassanee. then back north to Greg’s for a couple days of work.

whoa. 50% of the DA-40 Board. this crew in one place at the same time. look out. late night for some, not for others. thanks gents for a stimulating evening!

Prof. Fred Henderson III of Mount Princeton Geothermal, LLC, meets us in the late morning (thank goodness!) for a briefing on the geothermal development that he is overseeing in the area. the ultimate goal is a heat-exchange/re-injection power plant based on several high-flow wells into the hot spot that drives the hot springs. he then takes us on a two-hour tour of the area mapping out the geological regime and sharing some of the development info for the geothermal prospect. the major problem in the valley (of Chalk Creek) is the complexity of property ownership and the density of residential development. this entire area is carved up in relatively small lots with homes and is a very desirable location, so people will fight any drilling, piping, whatever is necessary for the plant, this, knowing it is an alternative energy source which will offset some of the coal-fired electricity production that the West is so dependent on. the coal plant that supplies them with electricity is out of sight, though, and there are sure to be a minority who will resist anything remotely industrial in appearance while the mountains fade into the growing coal haze.

the last stop is at a recently completed well that officially has the highest recorded heat gradient in the state of Colorado. I do a portrait of Frank and his wife there, it’s on her property.

(noting that the Chalk Cliffs for which the canyon is named are not actually chalk but rather hydrothermally altered Precambrian granite which in places will crumble in the hand, while those unaltered are hard as … rock!)

after the tour, a last slow soak with those rust-e folks still left, then reluctantly descending from the mountains, in conversation.

up to the hot springs with the rust-e crew on a business/pleasure trip to nail down details on the sustainable creative practices conference/festival next February. we have a substantial cabin to hangout in and passes to the Hot Springs pools. the resort hasn’t changed too much since the last time I was there twenty years ago or so. the weather conforms to the springtime-in-the-Rockies norm: changeable. with a tendency to unusually wet and cloudy which no one complains about. too much water is rarely even a nuisance in the West. the 14′ers, Mt. Princeton, and Mt. Shavano are mostly invisible, but when the peaks appear, there is plenty of fresh snow above tree-line. no motivation to do any serious climbing between the tight schedule of meetings and mandatory soaks in the hot water.

first we have an orientation meeting with the resort management who are really enthusiastic about the conference plans. to be sure, February probably isn’t the busiest month up there. there are a few ski areas within 50 miles, but weather conditions can be severe at any time, and the hot springs aren’t right on a major highway.

the afternoon is spent up in St. Elmo being introduced to the Ghost Town Guest House bed-and-breakfast with one of the owners, Sharon. along with her husband, they have just recently finished a fantastic place right in the town, and are currently the only year-round residents.

the evening starts with a long soak followed by a sumptuous dinner that leaves everyone ready to crash after suitable aprés aprés. Chalk Creek can hardly be called a creek this weekend, with all the snow-melt and fresh precipitation, it is raging and fills the moist night air with a power that erases all other sounds.

the day’s activities are interspersed with memories of trips to Tincup, over the pass from St. Elmo, and jeeping with Collin, Joe, Mike, Chris, Cindy, and the usual eclectic posse that would converge at Joe’s family cabin there. ages ago. another life.

Golden High School graduation at Brooks Field on the School of Mines campus on what starts off as a dreary and chilly morning with uncharacteristic clouds sticking to the foothills. Holly is the Valedictorian. the weather clears up by the end when Montse and I head back to the house for final party preparations. I take the opportunity to get the whole Williamson Clan together for a group portrait.

fourteen hours later, celebrations finally end with a round of toasts for the graduate.

Dear Holly. What a pleasure to be here to celebrate this time with you! The teacher who spoke at graduation is precisely right that whenever two humans cross pathways they are both changed in ways that are not (always) immediately apparent. This is a powerful principle of life: when we realize and take to heart that this occurs, we may intensify the outcomes of these encounters through open, honest, and unfettered engagement. This engagement should be attentive, concentrated, and focused. Through this, any other human encountered becomes a collaborative partner in a dynamic creative process that is the essence of life. As is taught, the next person you encounter may be the Buddha, and thus, how you engage governs the potential for enLightenment. I wish you all the best in your near and far future; that the pathways you walk will be full of those transformative encounters; and that the transformations bring the breath-taking inspiration that makes life joyous. Life is a phenomena! You are phenomenal! At any point you have questions, answers, observations, or discoveries to share, I am happy to give you my attention. Thank you for being you! oxoxox jh

day starts in a noisy campground, packing up, rolling out, the ritual stop at the Center of the Universe where there are further changes — someone has brought in a larger iron tank for the artesian well and an even larger one sits next to it. they have changed the flow of water such that the artesian flow is saturating the ground, making a significant area that is salinating the surface soil. the weeds are cut close to the ground. the two large wooden posts that I used to sight through the windows are lying on the ground. change. I expect that someday soon the Center will be destroyed. what then? as with all documentation, that which is documented passes away. on to the Sand Dunes Swimming Pool (aka, the Hooper Pool) to get cleaned up before returning to civilization. it’s way too hot to do any laps, that and along with a couple school buses full of elementary school kids. end up having a long conversation with an elderly Latina woman baby-sitting her grand kids, a local to The Valley. I catch a group photo of a group of students from La Jara Elementary School.

on down to the low-lands, Golden. the big event, the main reason I schedule the trip for this time-period, Holly’s high school graduation (and Party!) approaches. I arrive at the house late in the afternoon to find Natalie and Cassie making brownies for the party. they promptly head off to a sleep-over, leaving me to watch the oven. Holly gets home, and then Sally, and Rick. Montse comes by as well. much work to be done prepping food. another trip to Costco accentuates the challenge. then the task of making two large salads. it’s a team effort late into the night, and I’ve never quartered or halved so many cherry tomatoes before.

I join Joanne on a half-day excursion to Verde Springs at the headwaters of the Verde River. she is an old acquaintance from the mid-80′s when she and Mike led biology and geology field trips at the local community college — I was on a memorable week-long one to Death Valley in the winter of 1985. the hike today is part of local Earth Day activities, although she has been leading these monthly for the last year as part of the public awareness campaign that the Center for Biological Diversity is mounting in opposition to the plans for massive groundwater mining by the towns of Prescott, Prescott Valley, and Chino Valley. a representative of the Nature Conservancy was along as well to introduce the land that they recently bought protecting one of the most sensitive areas of the riparian headwaters. there was an eclectic group of folks from a thirteen-year-old to several couples who’ve retired to Prescott.

we started out at the 100-year-old Sullivan Lake impoundment in the middle of Paulden which is fully sedimented and the dam itself is crumbling. it sits at the head of a 20-meter deep canyon cut into a late Cenozoic basalt flow that forms the immediate subsurface for much of the immediate area. Joanne gave a brief overview of the issues that are threatening the Verde headwaters. the primary one being the construction of a huge pipeline by the Prescott city government that will tap into the Big Chino Aquifer, spur rampant development, and have a major impact on the springs that feed the Upper Verde.

we then proceeded to the parking at the Little Thumb Butte Bed and Breakfast where we hiked down to the river at the confluence of Granite Creek and the Verde (not until I did a before group portrait). upstream of the confluence the Verde is blocked by the influx of sediment from Granite Creek and forms a turbid still water lake that is cut into the canyon sediments — clearly the Sullivan Lake dam silting up has deprived the river of its normal sedimentation load and caused heavy down-cutting of the pre-existing flood-plain (which now lies about 8 meters above the current water table). this has largely destroyed the riparian environment above the confluence. I would suggest the first thing to do is to begin to cut the dam down, slowly, so that there can be a incremental release of the 100 years of backed up sediment to bring back the former water-table level and reclaim the upstream riparian environment. this solution is likely impossible given that the upstream watershed feeding Sullivan Lake has significant human development of the huge watershed area which covers Paulden, Chino Valley, and much of Prescott as well as the entire Big Chino Basin.

there are many significant Hohokam archeological sites in the area, structures and petroglyphs alike: the ancient ones were here in force. and disappeared as they did elsewhere in the region. suddenly, in the mid-1300s. unfortunately these are minor sites compared to other more spectacular places, so often petroglyphs are chipped and defaced, and certainly the areas have been thoroughly cleaned of movable artifacts. it is illegal to disturb any findings, but the laws are almost never enforced.

we wander upstream to a wide but now down-cut and parched floodplain with large and elaborate (and inscrutable) petroglyphs chipped into the desert varnish that is present on basalt boulders fallen from the cliffs. then we head back below the confluence where the canyon transforms into a rich riparian environment with the river simply appearing in the midst of the gravels first as a stagnant trickle. as we go on further downstream it grows rapidly with the influx of numerous springs coming in from the north side of the canyon through some fractured limestone (and ultimately from the Big Chino Aquifer. I spot a long gopher snake lounging on a branch in the riverbed. the fish increase in size as we move down stream. evidences of beaver activities are everywhere. we lunch at the Nature Conservancy segment, wade in the creek a bit, head downstream another fifteen minutes and then wander back to the cars in the hot afternoon sun.

Joanne has taken many tens of people on this hike and rightly assumes that once people have experienced the richness of the riparian environment they are more likely to be able to imagine the consequence of its potential loss. as everywhere in the West, and increasingly, in the world, water becomes an object of contention — to some an economic commodity, to others merely another extractable resource, and to the entire ecosystem that depends on every drop, an indispensable ingredient of life.

access to the area is somewhat restricted (much of it privately owned), but the headwaters area that is managed by the Arizona Game and Fish Department as the Upper Verde River Wildlife Area is open to the public. highly recommended!

I learned about Ava’s middle name this morning, Miao Shan Ying which comes from the legendary goddess Guan Yin (Avalokiteshvara in Sanskrit). Miao Shan was the goddess’s name in her previous incarnation as the daughter of a cruel king. it means wonderful goodness. good call! here is the princess making pancakes on Saturday morning.

turns out the HyVee (not the Schnucks) grocery store has Breyers Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream on sale for just $2.73 for 1.5 quart, uh-oh. that and sadly, Henry the rockin’ horse is ill, but Ava poses for a picture anyway.

well, 22 years later… from the kitchen series. for six months, I only photographed in the kitchen of 1417 Mapleton Street in Boulder. E.J., Peter, and Stefan, here, and another 15 or so, unscanned. 4×5 negatives, the 16×20 prints are quite nice…

anonymous online life. Plaxo. another online social networking site that makes people look (and feel!) like this… empowered, eh?

winter storm comes, one of those Pacific storms rolling from the west, from California, tracing little rain shadows across the desert. the first wave comes with thunder and dense, dark clouds, air temperature dropping 10 degrees (C). that passes to the east, blackening sky, followed by a double rainbow that plants itself into the scraped earth of the developments on the next range of hills. Granite Mountain is wreathed in scudding shreds of vapor. I can recall the sky four thousand feet lower in the low desert when these storms roll through. but most of all the complete saturation of the air with that wetted-earth smell. everything eight weeks dry. in late summer early fall sunshine.

got overwhelmed by the flood of responses from the class of 1976 regarding the images I finished uploading. maybe people are more nostalgic as times pass. it’s been interesting to hear from folks, though, after all this time. but still nothing solid to comprehend about why memory is so powerful. persistence of recognizing flows. evolutionary, yes. recalling what is dangerous, what is nutritious. but externalized memory, images. as the image-maker, eye hidden behind layers of amorphous silica distortion. seeing. (did I miss high school behind this glass?). am I replaying what was missed?

anyway, a selection of responses, so it goes.

Hi John, I can’t believe you put this all together after all this time. Great job on the photos. What a fabulous collection. It was great fun looking at them. It really took me back. Where do you live now? I still live in Maryland with my husband and son. Our daughter is a senior in college majoring in Biology. I would love to hear from you. Thanks again. God Bless. — Sharon Hill (Warnick)

Hi John, Thanks for the photos. My wife and I always hang out with her friends from high school, here in Los Angeles, and when I hear about how people still hang out with high school friends in Gaithersburg, I always wonder what it would be like to live there and see you all too. My mom and dad still live in the house we lived in when these pictures were taken, but they’re talking about moving now. Getting too old to keep up the house. When they go, my physical connection to Gaithersburg will finally be severed. It’s pictures like yours that keep it all alive for me. Thanks! — Chip Bolcik

john, I really enjoyed the pictures. I am not sure who found my email address, but I was grateful. Think of you often as I have been commuting through Clarksburg, which has gone through changes, as I am sure you have heard. Don’t know if you remember me or not, but wanted to say thanks for the photos. — Debbie Hokanson (Lorenz)

Hi John, Just wanted to thank you for all your hard work getting the photos from high school on your web site. I loved you website and glad you were able to continue with Photography. I’m sure that was time consuming, but certainly worth it. I think That 70′s Show should look at it so they could be more authentic. Hope you make the next reunion. Take care — Sharon Niemann (Hartley)

Absolutely fabulous photos! Had a great time reminiscing. Thanks for sharing! — Karen Harvey (Warnick)

Fantastic job, John! What a fun memory trip for a sunny southwest Florida afternoon. — Susi Martinsen (Sue Merkling)

Dear John… wwwwwwwwwwwooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwww YOU HAVE DONE A GREAT JOB!!! I thank u for the time and specially for the devotion… in this wonderful project… — Zulma Urrego

Hey John, Nice job!!! Great memories. Thanks! — John C. Henriksen

day starts with French toast, frisbee a bit later, things that Loki and I share over the history of sporadic presence. cut my hair off last night, making a pile in the middle of the living room floor. clean it up. clean up the kitchen, and other details. so it goes.

make a museum tour as well to the National Museum to see the new Steina Vasulka installation which is monumental and fits the space perfectly. then on to the Kjarval and the Hafnarhusid as I discovered as of February this year they are free to the public. the Martha Schwartz I Hate nature / ‘Aluminati’ installation in the courtyard of the Kjarval is a nice critic of the horrid environmental degradation happening at the hands of Alcoa and corrupt government officials who are selling the landscape to make aluminum smelters and the dams which are necessary to power them.

also wander down to the harbor to take some photos. observing with irony that the whale-watching ships are docked immediately across the pier from the whaling ships — a fact which no doubt escapes most tourists as the signage is not easily interpretable. anyone from Greenpeace would know. (heh, Simmi tells the joke, my favorite meal is whale meat with green peas…)

managed to get over to Seltjarnarnes to visit with Edda, Stefan’s mum, who now has a flat in the same place that Jón and Helga lived some years back.

not much interesting to write about here. haven’t gotten many of the sound files that I have picked up over the couple weeks online yet. as usual, behind the flowing times. months, years behind on all this — picking up, accreting material observations, when to start the reverse process to dis-engage with this acquisition obsession? rhetorical questions. to scatter into a text of frequent error and mis-apprehension.

over for a visit with Sara. and her sister, Cecilia drops by — she was Loki’s art and design teacher last year.

big news here are the armed marines guarding the HMS Exeter docked in the main harbor, here for a conference on the Arctic Convoys (from WWII). police do not carry weapons on a regular basis in Iceland and the country basks in a peaceful idyll interrupted only by the influx of immigrants which are routinely tabbed with a variety of crimes.