Previously: Energy Webs introduced my uneasiness about what makes a photograph rise to the status of fine art: it's not just a mastery of technique. I can make technically perfect pictures that bore me. What else gets in there? And what got to me on this trip?
"All houses in which men have lived... / are haunted houses," wrote Longfellow. He stipulates dying in the house as well, which I find incorrect and unnecessary. Buildings vibrate to the emotional energy in them. Sometimes enough of that energy remains without a death.
I'm antsy today. Quitting choir indefinitely while the formal and informal authorities battle over who's running the show means I have no mundane tasks joining creative drive with spiritual purpose. With no business meetings either, it's time for a road trip. Weather is iffy in every direction, so I ask the I Ching where to go, and it tells me, unambiguously, "South." Which is unusual for the I Ching.
Easel, paint, camera, etc. are packed and off I go, arguing with myself whether I need desert, lake, or sea. Desert's furthest and the most difficult, but I can't make myself want the sea. Higher chance of rain. Desert, then, and I plan to turn east.
The route takes me through little towns, some only 20 houses big, and bigger towns too. Ahead I can see blue patches of sky to east and west. The roads are so empty that I can freely stop to shoot things that I would otherwise sigh over as I speed past; I really miss having a driver.
I think about people who won't be photographed because that will steal their soul, and about how spirits of the land don't like still images. When I touch on what the spirit of the land I'm driving over feels about what has happened in it since the forests covered the mountainsides to the sea, I drop the thought. I swing east, and a few miles out of town my eye is caught by this.
View attachment 16278
Abandoned houses have attitudes. This one looks defiant, somehow, facing directly south to a two-lane highway. It must have been difficult getting in and out. I step out of the car, cautiously, shrugging at the NO TRESPASSING sign--I'm hardly out of the car, after all, and not ballsy enough to enter the house. I don't notice how easily I rationalize my own defiant acts.
View attachment 16269
A sign advertises several available acres, and I take that information down, too.
I climb back into the car and leave, still thinking about the choices I will need to make after I reach the scrublands, still a handful of hours away.
I enter the forest and enter the mountains through the Santiam Pass. A lone RV passes me going the other way. I am over halfway to the eastern edge, navigating by miles traveled since the cell phone signal disappeared nearly an hour ago. I glance at the dashboard; it's 47 degrees outside.
Hm. I'm in the snow zone. But I'm halfway there, it's only noonish, and I can take the desert highway home.
It's overcast now, and the road winds through rock cuts, past empty campgrounds and closed forest roads. The radio offers equal measures of song and static, and I turn it off. I hum to myself. It's 44 degrees outside now, and dark for midday. I pull into the slow vehicle turnaround to let a truck by and pull my coat on.
If it hits 40, I'm turning around. On the other hand, I should be past the halfway point by now--the end of the Pass can't be more than 40 miles or so.
Gray road, gray sky. Raindrops dot the windshield. The temperature drops to 41. I narrow my eyes at this, but push on. Minutes later, the wipers barely slough off the streams sluicing the car. Around a lengthy serpentine, I slow to 20 mph.
When I check the dash again, it's 36 degrees. What's hitting the windshield now are wet, sloppy snowflakes that melt on contact.
Stupid, to have no snow tires. Small bottle of water. Blanket, and plenty of gas. No cell signal. Desert is close, but the ground is still rising in front of me. No one knows where I am, but people do know I talked about a desert trip.
I see two futures in front of me, as if I stood outside myself. I don't like the way this feels. I dispense with logic, haul around, and edge back onto the road going the other way. As the snow falls faster, I drive more slowly, murmuring a prayer to ease my intensifying unease.
Two small trucks pass me going to other way. They have chains on.
It's 32 degrees. I've made it past the bridge, and I am focusing on a person I know of. I hold that thought as an RV rolls out of some hidden road in front of me, and I follow the RV down until it pulls aside. By now it's 36 degrees, freezing rain, and I drive down and down to the lake and safety at 40 degrees.
View attachment 16279
Lightning bolts strike at the lake's west end, but I don't wait to shoot it. The temperature is dropping again despite the clearer-looking air now showing to the east (above) and the tall blue thunderheads building in the west. I want to get out of the forest, now. And I do.
It starts hailing at the edge of town, needling me through my coat. I am shivering when I get into a coffee shop.
If I were superstitious (I am superstitious), I wonder about what happened here. Both today, and before. I feel as if I've passed through a thin place. And, perhaps, a bad one.
On the way home, a square of rainbow shines brilliantly behind me. In the east.
Edited for additional images and some fact corrections.
"All houses in which men have lived... / are haunted houses," wrote Longfellow. He stipulates dying in the house as well, which I find incorrect and unnecessary. Buildings vibrate to the emotional energy in them. Sometimes enough of that energy remains without a death.
I'm antsy today. Quitting choir indefinitely while the formal and informal authorities battle over who's running the show means I have no mundane tasks joining creative drive with spiritual purpose. With no business meetings either, it's time for a road trip. Weather is iffy in every direction, so I ask the I Ching where to go, and it tells me, unambiguously, "South." Which is unusual for the I Ching.
Easel, paint, camera, etc. are packed and off I go, arguing with myself whether I need desert, lake, or sea. Desert's furthest and the most difficult, but I can't make myself want the sea. Higher chance of rain. Desert, then, and I plan to turn east.
The route takes me through little towns, some only 20 houses big, and bigger towns too. Ahead I can see blue patches of sky to east and west. The roads are so empty that I can freely stop to shoot things that I would otherwise sigh over as I speed past; I really miss having a driver.
I think about people who won't be photographed because that will steal their soul, and about how spirits of the land don't like still images. When I touch on what the spirit of the land I'm driving over feels about what has happened in it since the forests covered the mountainsides to the sea, I drop the thought. I swing east, and a few miles out of town my eye is caught by this.
View attachment 16278
Abandoned houses have attitudes. This one looks defiant, somehow, facing directly south to a two-lane highway. It must have been difficult getting in and out. I step out of the car, cautiously, shrugging at the NO TRESPASSING sign--I'm hardly out of the car, after all, and not ballsy enough to enter the house. I don't notice how easily I rationalize my own defiant acts.
View attachment 16269
A sign advertises several available acres, and I take that information down, too.
I climb back into the car and leave, still thinking about the choices I will need to make after I reach the scrublands, still a handful of hours away.
I enter the forest and enter the mountains through the Santiam Pass. A lone RV passes me going the other way. I am over halfway to the eastern edge, navigating by miles traveled since the cell phone signal disappeared nearly an hour ago. I glance at the dashboard; it's 47 degrees outside.
Hm. I'm in the snow zone. But I'm halfway there, it's only noonish, and I can take the desert highway home.
It's overcast now, and the road winds through rock cuts, past empty campgrounds and closed forest roads. The radio offers equal measures of song and static, and I turn it off. I hum to myself. It's 44 degrees outside now, and dark for midday. I pull into the slow vehicle turnaround to let a truck by and pull my coat on.
If it hits 40, I'm turning around. On the other hand, I should be past the halfway point by now--the end of the Pass can't be more than 40 miles or so.
Gray road, gray sky. Raindrops dot the windshield. The temperature drops to 41. I narrow my eyes at this, but push on. Minutes later, the wipers barely slough off the streams sluicing the car. Around a lengthy serpentine, I slow to 20 mph.
When I check the dash again, it's 36 degrees. What's hitting the windshield now are wet, sloppy snowflakes that melt on contact.
Stupid, to have no snow tires. Small bottle of water. Blanket, and plenty of gas. No cell signal. Desert is close, but the ground is still rising in front of me. No one knows where I am, but people do know I talked about a desert trip.
I see two futures in front of me, as if I stood outside myself. I don't like the way this feels. I dispense with logic, haul around, and edge back onto the road going the other way. As the snow falls faster, I drive more slowly, murmuring a prayer to ease my intensifying unease.
Two small trucks pass me going to other way. They have chains on.
It's 32 degrees. I've made it past the bridge, and I am focusing on a person I know of. I hold that thought as an RV rolls out of some hidden road in front of me, and I follow the RV down until it pulls aside. By now it's 36 degrees, freezing rain, and I drive down and down to the lake and safety at 40 degrees.
View attachment 16279
Lightning bolts strike at the lake's west end, but I don't wait to shoot it. The temperature is dropping again despite the clearer-looking air now showing to the east (above) and the tall blue thunderheads building in the west. I want to get out of the forest, now. And I do.
It starts hailing at the edge of town, needling me through my coat. I am shivering when I get into a coffee shop.
If I were superstitious (I am superstitious), I wonder about what happened here. Both today, and before. I feel as if I've passed through a thin place. And, perhaps, a bad one.
On the way home, a square of rainbow shines brilliantly behind me. In the east.
Edited for additional images and some fact corrections.
