SIGN OF THE TIMES: BIG MOUNTAIN SAGEBRUSH,
July aspect (Artemisia tridentata) . . . [ click photo for next ]

Sagebrush is a much maligned plant. This is because it
does not provide food for cattle. Unlike, for example, the
Pronghorn antelope, which browse on it extensively, cattle
have not adapted to it. Neither have ranchers. So, by and
large, sagebrush is very little appreciated or understood,
even though it is a plant named for the virgin goddess of
the hunt and wild nature, Artemis. I think this is profound
mistake. Sagebrush has an amazing repertoire of techniques
which have evolved over thousands of years that address
climate extremes, especially intense heat and prolonged
drought. For example, notice the long, vertical new flowering
shoots. These appear after Summer solstice, and then slowly
open and flower much later, around Fall Equinox. This is a
signature rhythm of the Sagebrush steppe. Remarkably, this
year's "SUMMER FROM HELL" -- which is not yet over -- has
been too hot and dry even for this wise, dirt-tough,
incredibly well-adapted native. Many plants didn't produce
the flowering shoots this year. I see this as an import
sign of the Climate Crisis, the drama unfolding everywhere
in front of our eyes that we do not care to see. [NOTE: I
use Sagebrush like the NAVAHO. I burn the dried branches
as incense. Good to purify a space, and good for all those
digital darkroom computer headaches. Another, more personal,
sign of the times.]

On the road in the Northwest of America.

[ double-click to play text ]

ON THE SOUND OF WHITE-WATER
RUSHING—an appreciation

Just as the smell of freshly cut hay or just turned garden soil seems to
contain all other smells, so also the high sparkling sound of rushing
water seems to hold all other sounds.

The sound of the wooden flute, the violin and oboe is there. And the
trumpet and the human voice. Or the deep sound of skin drums, and
strings of tiny metal bells. All are held, it seems to me, in this mysteri-
ous rushing sound of flowing mountain water.

Perhaps that is why we sleep so peacefully in the sonic embrace of an
alpine stream. No other sound has such deep roots in our own natural
history’s story. Indeed, how could this be otherwise? For where there is
clear flowing water, there there is security of the very most basic kind.
The sound is whispering, as it were, a soothing reminder to someplace
deep in our common unconscious, that, like love itself, where there is
water, life flourishes.



POETRY HEALS . . .

We shape the world and the world shapes us.

Poetry heals. The experienced sound. The moved rhythm.
The deeply felt meaning.

You need but three things to find this out for yourself:

(1) A poem you resonate with strongly;

(2) The instrument of your own voice;

(3) A timespace filled with enough energy to get you on
your way, learning your poem forwards and backwards,
doing it over and over again, inside and outside, alone
and for friends, until you know it, as the expression goes:—
by heart.



AGAINST ENTERTAINMENT!

We shape the world and the world shapes us.

The problem with Entertainment is that it quickly replaces your
own unique experience of the world, our own unique voice,
with something merely 2nd hand. After a while, that is what
we ourselves become—merely 2nd hand, but empty containers
filled with another's self-serving idea of Culture.

Real Culture, like real Religion or spirituality, should liberate;
it should not put us in just another cage.

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w/ my black & white photography [opens in new window]

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Featured gallery, mountain water . . . .

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All Photographs & texts by Cliff Crego © 1999 -2012 picture-poems.com
(created: III.15.2012)