Yesterday was an interesting day. Grady and I went to the mountains of North Carolina for the day. Our first objective was to get apples from Granddad’s Apples. My personal objective was to visit as many waterfalls as we could fit into the day that did not require a strenuous or long walk. We went to Looking Glass Falls on Highway 276 and Connestee Falls.
A serene view of Looking Glass Falls surrounded by lush greenery in North Carolina.A scenic view of a waterfall cascading down the rocky terrain, surrounded by lush greenery in the North Carolina mountains. (Connestee Falls)
We also made a stop by St. John in the Wilderness Episcopal Church in Flat Rock. I spent about an hour walking through the cemetery (while Grady took a nap).
St. John in the Wilderness Episcopal Church surrounded by lush trees in Flat Rock, NC.
Stone is so permanent. The rocks along the falls and creeks have been there for millennia. These mountains will be here for even more millennia. Stone is lasting. In the cemetery, the stones have stood for almost two centuries, granite and marble monuments keeping those buried there in a kind of immortality. Yet, I was jolted when I found a plot with simple concrete crosses and field stones used as markers. Those interred under those markers were “known only to God.” They were the slaves and freedmen and their families who were members of the congregation. I am still sorting out what that means. How many people have been forgotten? Who will tell their stories?
Water is one of the essentials of life. While at St. John in the Wilderness, I went into the sanctuary. The baptismal font is in the middle of the central aisle and filled with water. I dipped my fingers into that holy water and made the sign of the cross on my forehead, remembering my own baptism (or rather remembering that I was baptized as an infant). I stood there in silence.
The waterfalls, the creek bank, the cemetery, and the sanctuary–these are holy places. There are stories to be told in each place, places of remembrance, and ultimately grace.
Yesterday, I opened an email from a Substacker (The Art of Noticing) about the National Writing Project’s (NWP) annual Write Out event. Begun in 2018 in partnership with the National Park Service (NPS), the event encourages anyone to spend time outdoors observing nature and then writing about those observations. Educators, writers, and park service personnel offer prompts for all ages, children and adults alike.
I’ve been interested in the idea of place-based writing. It’s an idea that has nagged at me for quite some time, but I haven’t pursued it. This may be the year to pursue it actively. I am working on an idea of combining my Kinship exploration of the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water through photography with writing. A prompt from last year’s Write Out comes from Poet Laureate Amy Limon: What would you write in response to the landscape around you?
This is not actually a “landscape” photograph. It’s really more a “portrait” of the great egret that visits the edge of the pond in the backyard. I came home from a book club meeting to see this:
Such a beautiful and graceful bird. It stood statue-still on the bank of the pond for at least ten minutes, or perhaps longer. The egret stood perfectly still in the same spot even after I left the car and retrieved the camera with the zoom lens from inside. I was able to creep up to the edge of the pond on the opposite side to take several pictures.
I am amazed by what I see in the landscape of that big two-acre pond (known to family as “The Big Pond”): turtles sunning themselves on the bank, fish darting through the weeds growing thickly in the shallow water at the edge of the pond, clouds reflected on the smooth surface. Clouds billow above. Deer creep out of the woods to drink from it and to eat the vegetation that grows there. Red trumpet flowers fall from the vines growing high in the treetops. Breezes ripple the water. Dragonflies dart from dandelion blossom to blossom. Cicadas and grasshoppers chirp, hidden away by the grasses, weeds, and wildflowers. Blackberries ripen to the darkest purple at the edge of the woods. White and yellow fleabane bloom as stars fallen to earth.
There is no shortage of beauty here.
If you’d like more information about the NWP/NPS annual Write Out, visit the NWPWrite Out page . Resources from past years are available.
The photography “challenge” for the Kinship Elemental Life practice circle has been to photograph what summer feels like. How do you capture the feelings of upheaval and unrootedness that I’m feeling this summer? What represents those feelings? How do you express feelings caused by destruction and dismantling?
There is a thistle in the front yard. Three weeks ago, it was in bloom with vibrant purple blossoms. Last week, those blossoms were white, fluffy seed heads. Today, those seed heads look bedraggled and stringy after the rainstorms of last week. The weather caused an upheaval.
Somewhere, though, in this weather event, there is a necessity. Those seeds need to spread to propagate. Nature does remain in statis.; it moves; it changes. There are natural upheavals: thunderstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions. Sometimes, they are gentle: the dandelion and thistle seeds blowing in a breeze. Othertimes, it is two twin tree trunks still standing in the midst of lush greenness, even though they are dead. One day, those trunks will fall.
There is an old hymn that begins, “Built on a rock, the church doth stand.” A few lines later, the hymnist wrote, “crumbled are spires in every land.” The world is not static, either; it is in a constant state of change, destruction, and rebuilding, renewing itself. Structures and systems crumble and collapse. William Butler Yeats wrote in his poem “The Second Coming,” “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” And sometimes, it seems that everything devolves into chaos.
How, then, do I find a place of “soft belonging” amid upheavals and uprootedness?
I look for beauty. There is beauty in the twin trunks of dead trees reaching up out of the lush green vegetation around them. Life and death coexist. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t have the heat and “fire” of summer without the chill of winter. Ice doesn’t exist without water; steam doesn’t exist without fire. The fire of upheaval may be necessary. “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” Maybe a new center forms. The seed head of the thistle gives way, and the seeds scatter, only to germinate somewhere else and form a new center.
Upheaval will give way to peace. Life will give way to death. Death will give way to resurrection.
Yesterday, I made a fast foray into the jungle of the front yard. It was a typical July day in South Carolina–hot and humid, though the humidity had not yet reached the level of “air you can wear”. Still, if I had walked all the way around all seven ponds and through the “back forty,” I would have been hot and sticky when I came in. I took out my older Canon EOS 7D with the Lensbaby Velvet 56 lens to make some images. I am out of practice with fully manual modes of photographing. I kept forgetting to check the exposure before pressing the shutter button. I had to make numerous post-processing corrections in Lightroom.
During our Kinship “An Elemental Year” practice circle discussion, we were given the question: what does summer feel like right now? Besides the usual responses of hot, humid, buggy, stormy, I threw in the word “upheaval.” This has been a summer of upheaval, especially regarding the status of my church. The question of disaffiliation and dissolution has caused a rift among the members (and families) that I’m not sure time will even heal or repair. My heart has gone beyond “broken” to “wounded.” The question I had after the practice circle is one of how I can capture those emotions in photography.
A subject that has caught my eye in the last several walks through the yard is the common thistle plant growing at the edge of the woods in the front yard. I have photographed it when it was in full bloom with lovely purple flowers and now when it is the fluffy seed head stage. Those seeds are ready to spread themselves in the wind. The yellow black-eyed Susans (or are they coneflowers?) are also in bloom now. I even catch the yellow jackets or honey bees or whatever insect they are on them. The bees belong on those flowers. The seeds are ready to leave the plant.
Belonging and upheaval. Stasis and movement. Longing and contentment.
It has been a summer of inversions and contradictions. It will take some time for me to sort everything out and find a sense of peace again. But I will continue to walk as often as I can with and without my camera. I will still look for the beauty in the world in the extraordinary and the mundane. It is cliche that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Yet it is true. There is beauty. I just have to look for it, even if it is the upheaval.
Last week was a bust as far as taking daily photos. The weather wasn’t very cooperative. Today, it was pleasantly in the 70s when I went out; the sun was shining. There was a light breeze, and the sky was blue with some puffy white clouds. My macro/close-up filters came yesterday, and I wanted to try them out. The camera battery was fully charged. I put on my socks and shoes, grabbed my gear, went back into the house for my hat to keep my hair out of my face, and set out for a trip around the pond.
I stopped to take this picture. I have my Tamron 75-200 lens on my Canon 7D and attached the close-up 4X filter. I snapped the picture.
I repositioned for a different angle, pressed the shutter button, and pressed the button again, and nothing happened. The camera would not focus. I stood there for a bit, metaphorically scratched my head, turned the camera off and on a couple of times, reattached the lens, and even removed the close-up filter. Still nothing. There was nothing else to do but go inside and see if another lens would work.
My newer Canon T8i camera was “dead,” or rather the battery was dead, so I couldn’t test the lens on it. I plan to when the battery is charged. I put the kit lens (I forget the focal length other than it zooms to 55) on the 7D, and lo and behold! it worked! So, back out I went with the appropriate close-up filter and a determination to make some images.
I traipsed through the woods today. I tried the foundational exercises of listening for the farthest out sounds and expanding peripheral vision. The latter is difficult for me. I’m never sure if I’m supposed to move my eyeballs or not!
What caught my eye today, though, were textures and colors. The floor of the woods is covered with brown leaves, but there are pops of green all over–plants and moss in particular. There are fallen tree trunks and branches to step over and walk around. I had to be careful of the stump holes. And there were the pointed stumps of small trees the beavers cut down.
While it wasn’t the photo walk I intended, it turned out quite nicely.
I haven’t always given much thought to the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water, but the Kinship Photography Collective’s Call to Engagement has made me think. I’ve written some about it in my journal(s)–yes, I am one of those people who keep multiple notebooks and journals. I’ve decided that I’m going to make this engagement my year-long photography project and use the elements as a framework to explore my relationship to land, family-owned land in particular, but also shared, public land as well.
Dreher Island State Park (the original bridge)
Right now, two questions are kind of guiding me:
How do my images fit with my exploration of relationship to the land, both family-owned (generational) land as well as more public, shared land (i.e., public parks, state/national parks, etc.)?
How does being aware of the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water relate to that relationship between humans and land?
These questions relate to the notion of “sense of place.” We live in such a mobile society. Some people seem to move frequently and never establish “roots” in any one place. Other people live on land or in places that have been passed down from parents to children for generations. There is a connection one has makes that generational land feel like part of the family, and separation from it is difficult. I’m wondering if that feeling extends to the environs, the other bits of land that surround us. I hear people say, “I can’t imagine living anywhere else.” What makes us feel that kind of attachment?
Air and water: clouds reflected on the pond behind the house
I live in a rural area. I grew up on a working farm; my parents were subsistence farmers. We lived on “the hill,” which meant, in part, that we couldn’t see the neighbors’ houses, even though they were in shouting distance away. Our house was surrounded on three sides by pasture land and woods. That pasture supported a half dozen head of cattle and four or five horses at any given time. The barnyard held pens for the three or four hogs Daddy grew out for butchers, the meat destined for our freezer, and his hunting dogs. We had a garden that provided the vegetables that fed us through the winter. I can’t tell you the number of days my sister, brother, mother, and I spent shelling butterbeans and peas and stringing beans to freeze, shucking and freezing ears of corn (both on the cob and cut off the cob), peeling and canning tomatoes, and making jelly. Some days it was so hot in the kitchen that we had two fans going–a box fan at the door to the family room to bring in some cooler air, and an oscillating fan to circulate the air in the kitchen. (We did not have central air conditioning.)
I still live in a rural area, but without a pasture or garden. My meat and vegetables come from the grocery store, prepared by hands unknown. In many ways, that has changed my relationship to the land. I am not dependent on it for survival or sustenance as I once was. Of course, intellectually, I know that someone else is depending on the land where my food comes from, and they depend on the land for survival and sustenance.
Still, the land does sustain me; it grounds me in both the physical sense and the metaphorical sense. It gives me a feeling of spaciousness. I can stretch my arms out and not touch anything; I can move about freely. I can breathe (mostly) clean air. I can hear the sounds of nature–birds, insects, rustling leaves, skittering animals–even with the sometimes constant sound of the traffic on the road in front of the house (almost nonstop this morning–where are all these people going?)
This year, as I explore the “elementals,” as I begin with the focus on air, I realize I cannot separate one from the other. Without air, there would be no water, fire, or earth. We cannot exist without breathing and respiration. Fire cannot burn without the oxygen in the air. Vegetation cleanses the air of carbon dioxide and replaces oxygen. Each element is necessary for life.
Turtles on the log at Dreher Island State Park
Now, the problem to solve is how to document these ideas into images.
Well, so much for the April 30-day A to Z challenge. The weekend was busy: Holy Week services at church, preparation for the Easter Sunrise worship, and a family dinner kept me busy, and blogging was not a high priority. I’m not even going to try to play catch-up. I’ll just do the best I can.
Today is Earth Day. I went for a walk this morning in a local state park. It was warm and humid. A friend called the humidity we had this morning “air you can wear.” I think some storms are coming in the forecast. I haven’t been in the park since Hurricane Helene blew through last September. The park had closed for several weeks while crews cleaned up the debris and cleared the roads around the campgrounds. There were lots of downed trees along the side of the road through the park.
My walk was a mile and three-quarters and took just about an hour. I make 59 images. And, no, I did not stop every minute to take a picture, even though the number of images and the time suggest that I took a photo a minute. The turtles were out sunning themselves on the fallen logs in the shallow waters, and there were yellow irises blooming at the water’s edge in several places around the loop. There were also lots of folks biking, walking, and fishing. It’s a busy place! And it’s a place of beauty and peace.
The Kinship Photography Collective is beginning a year-long exploration of the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water, beginning with the element air. It was still this morning, although there were some ripples on the water. There is an openness over the lake, space to gaze, and space to breathe. Sunlight created trails on the water for the eye to follow. It is likely to be the “calm before the storm.”
This Earth Day, which follows Easter Sunday, I am reminded of the Resurrection and new life. Last September, a storm blew through to damage the island, but this spring, it has come to life. I have never seen the irises before, but I’m sure they must have been there. The turtles are out. Birds hopped away; squirrels ran off and scurried up the trees. There was plenty of life in the park this morning. It is renewing itself daily.
It has been a long winter. It’s been cold (even though some of the news articles I’ve seen have reported that the 2024-2025 winter has been warmer than usual); I have shivered and worn more layers than usual. Maybe it’s my age.
Regardless of the meteorological data, I am seeing signs of spring: the daffodils on the pond dam are blooming. The cherry, plum, and apple trees are in full bloom. A. E. Housman described the white cherry blossoms as “snow.” This is the kind of snow I like!
With spring comes the #100dayproject and the One Little Word month of developing a practice. I’m working on both of those this month. For the One Little Word practice for March, I have chosen to write “morning pages” a la Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way: three pages first thing in the morning. I confess that I find Cameron’s practice a bit restrictive, so I modify it to suit me. Sometimes, I write three pages; sometimes not. Sometimes, I write later in the day. I don’t want my practice so restrictive that I don’t do it.
The morning pages are just part of a larger practice for the year. My word for this year is EXPLORE, and one element I want to explore is self-expression through “art”–writing, photography, doodling, drawing, etc. So, my 100 Day Project will center around developing my photography skills. I have set up five ways to work on this goal:
Make photographs. Yeah, that seems simple enough. Just pick up the camera and go out and shoot. Or use my phone camera. I have a new Lensbaby, the Velvet 56, and I haven’t practiced enough with it to be “good.” That will certainly be one of my goals while making photographs.
Learn new photo editing techniques and develop Lightroom and Photoshop skills. One of the things I like about the Year of Creative Photography class is that each month, Lori introduces a photo editing technique. I plan to experiment with them throughout the year.
Post things in Cosmos. Kim Klassen introduced Cosmos in a short four-week class last fall. Unlike Instagram, there is no need to write commentary (although there is a way to post notes and text). It’s not so much a social media share-to-brag site as it is a gigantic vision board from which to draw inspiration. By creating clusters around topics, I can search for inspiration and add photos, quotes, and videos to use as reference.
Research other photographers. Again, the Year of Creative Photography has case studies of various artists and photographers in each month’s lessons as guides and inspiration for things to try. I will research other photographers as well to learn from them as much as I can.
And, most importantly, work on the photography classes I signed up for. I have a bad habit of starting an online class and then giving up half-way through. So, I want to make follow through part of my practice.
I made a tracker for my planner to note by progress. I use reading trackers in my book journal, and I have a 31-day tracker in my OLW album to track my month-long practice of writing in my journal.
There is something to be said about putting one’s intentions out there in the world. If one announces it publicly, then there is a certain commitment to completely the things. So, I’m putting myself out there in the world. Day one has begun. (But there is also something to be said for every day being Day One. If I falter, I can always pick it up and make today Day One.)
By the way, I can color in my 100 Day tracker for gathering elements for the AYCP–Water cluster in Cosmos. I hope this gives me some ideas to try when I take out the camera later today.
Just a portion of my cluster for AYCP–Water cluster of images.
My husband and I spent the last three days in the mountains. We stayed at the Great Smokies Lodge in Seiverville, Tennessee. It was a nice getaway! So my “thankfuls” center around this trip.
I am thankful for the beauty of God’s creation. The leaves in the Great Smoky Mountains were at peak, or nearly so. So much orange and gold and red. It was amazing to see how differently the same colors looked in different light. While I didn’t see a bear (rats!), I did see elk while we drove through the Cherokee National Forest.
I am thankful for the absolutely gorgeous weather we had–sunshine, blue skies, and comfortable temperatures–not too cool and not too warm. The highs were in the low 70s every day
I am thankful for the time I was able to spend with my mother, who went with us. She is 88 years old and in excellent health. (She does not act like she’s 88 years old!)
I am thankful for the family stories Mama shared with me and the family history she passed along. We are planning a cemetery tour of the ancestors sometime in the near future as well as a tour of the state parks! After all, I have the all-access pass for the state park system. We might as well use it!
One of the things Mama shared with me was family history. I have an ancestor, a great-great-grandfather, named Jasper David Crocket Lever, who was an officer in the Confederate Army. He was wounded three times in three different battles, first at Sharpsburg. later at Chickamauga, and lastly possibly at Fisher’s HIll. I had not heard this story though I did know that three of my great-great-uncles on the Wessinger side of the family fought in the Battle of Gettysburg and were killed or wounded there. I even have a many times great-grandfather who was an officer for the colonists during the Revolutionary War! HIs name, I think, was John Adam Summer. I made quick notes in my travel journal to research later on. There may be a novel coming out of these stories. . . . who knows?
I am thankful to be at home. I love to travel and see new places, but it’s always good to be back home
When I return to the classroom, everything else seems to fall by the wayside—writing, playing/practicing piano, housework, even photography and other creative outlets. This past week, I did return to the classroom for one class a day with six students (yeah, can you imagine that?). And I have kept up with my Picture Spring class that began on Monday, and the project I started on May 1. Even my mini-album is up-to-date with prints!
My writing, though, has lapsed. Even today, when I have the house completely to myself, no interruptions or distractions, I have not written anything except my daily morning pages, and even then I wrote only two pages.
What I have been doing, though, is soaking up the Word of God, and watching the little birds—house finches—come to the bottle feeder outside my window.
They may not be as flashy as the cardinals that feed at the larger feeders, but these are beautiful birds, too.
I wish the gold finches would come back. I know they are out there. I’ve seen them!
I think, since my words are few this morning, I will just give you a collage of images from this past week’s Picture Spring prompts. As usual, I’m using the collage maker at www.befunky.com. It’s an easy to use online photo editor. (I wish they would add a print button!)
Day 1: Beginnings—blackberries, bottom center
Day 2: Stepping Out into Spring—thirty steps, left
Day 3: Morning Rituals: beginning with the Word, center center
Telling Stories 