Holly Brook 3-step, Hidden Lake, Eagle Caps

ON THE ENERGY OF CONTROL

There's something about what I would call the decidedly
masculine energy of control that loves the crisp, clear,
straight line of a bullet's trajectory. Think of it:—straight
walls, straight pipes, straight roads.

O Pity the time when women no longer cry out that life is not
only a matter of the shortest, most efficient route between
points a and b, but that there is more, that life is from another
perspective, essentially round. And that time itself is not just
an arrow flying fast and furious to its ultimate goal, but also a
mysterious rhythmic pulse of wheels within wheels that comes
round with the miracle of each new birth.

Pity the time when women acquiesce in their silence and
become at once both sad imitators and tragic victims of this
one-sided, extraordinarily powerful, but oh-so-incomplete
straight-line universe of men.

Broken Bridge Camp,
Eagle Cap Wilderness,
Oregon, X.29.2008

Please visit my picture-poems.com LIVING WATER
print gallery. Above is a set of 37 recent images.
(Mouseover controls.)

I might just mention here, following the ethical principle,
First, do no harm, I never use cars or snowmachines. I
do everything on foot, bike or ski. I think this in a
deep and direct way affects my work, and how I see
the world. So all the photos above were approached
on foot, including all the in between spaces, sometimes
involving journeys of weeks or months.

I would not want to work any other way.