WESTERN PEONY—April leaves (Paeonia brownii), Eagle Cap Wilderness

WESTERN PEONY—April leaves (Paeonia brownii), Eagle Cap Wilderness, [ click photo for next . . . ]

The name Peony comes to us from the Greek. Paeon was
a prize student of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing and
medicine. Evidently, poor Paeon was a bit too talented of
a diciple. As the story goes, the god of gods, Zeus,
intervened to save Paeon from his teacher's jealous
wrath by, as gods do, turning him into a flower.

Western Peony is a member of the transition zone between
dry sagebrush steppe, and the wetter and higher Ponderosa/
Doug-fir forest. [The photo above was made at 1450 m.
along the ecotone of such a transition zone. It is a
perennial, its strikingly earthy rusty-red leaves emerging
straight up from the wet soil directly after spring snowmelt.
The dark maroon of the Western Peony's flowers are equally
noteworthy. It flowers relatively early, and then enters
a long period of dormancy as the heat and dry soil of
montane summer approaches.

The Ohlone people of present-day California used the roots
of Western Peony as part of an herbal tea for gastrointestinal
discomfort.

WESTERN PEONY, two
months later,
flowering . . .


On the road in the American Northwest.



THE POET'S LYRE?


Between the pegs

of Nature,

and Culture,

I span my string.








AGAINST THE SCOURGE OF RUNAWAY
ABSENTEE OWNERSHIP

If Freedom and Democracy are to thrive, the rights of land ownership
must not only be protected, but also strictly limited. In the absence
of limits, the acquisition of land, just like money, inexorably accrues
exponentially. This hoarding of land—by far the most essential natural
resource upon which freedom and democracy depend—undermines its
just, reasonable and equitable distribution.

Inherent in this, is that we must beware and protect ourselves against
the implied metaphysics that money gives one the right to do anything
one likes. Clearly, Laws and the Constitution give one rights, not
money.

Responsible, ethical limits on the ownership of land might be: One
has the right to no more land than one can work; no more land than
one can care for; no more land than one can protect. And, most impor-
tantly, these rights may only be asserted by one’s actual presence on
the land.

At present, as wealth goes to wealth, land goes to more land, creat-
ing a world-wide growing underclass of citizens who are permanently
forced below the threshold of ownership. As this division grows, as
it now as a matter of imbalanced systemic necessity must grow, the
resulting gross inequality builds a pressure which will eventually
lead to instability and collapse.

I would strongly argue here, that the way of non-violence must seek to
redress imbalance and injustice with bold and fairer laws, which in turn
will insure as no force of arms could ever do, the ongoing stability of
the rule of law itself.

| If you're interested in philosophy and the general background
to the present crisis of perception, culture and consciousness,
please preview my little book, THEATER OF THE NEW. |

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Please visit my picture-poems.com MOUNTAIN WATER print gallery Above is a set of recent flowing water images. (Mouseover for TITLES & CONTROLS!)

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

I would not want to work any other way . . .









All Photographs & texts by Cliff Crego © 1999 -2015 picture-poems.com
(created: VIII.3.2008)