man & nature # 174 ~ wildlife on the Bog River

The eccentric but lovable Resort Canoe Lady & her handsome dog • click to embiggenAs is often the case when we are out on the Bog River, the eccentric but lovable Resort Canoe Lady and her handsome dog often paddle into view.

man & nature # 173 ~ making of it what you will

All 3 of today's pictures were made on the same short stretch - 10-12 feet - of the Bog River shoreline at our favorite wilderness canoe campsite. This tiny piece of shoreline is very out of character with the whole of the Bog River shoreline which is almost exclusively heavy vegetation right down to the waterline.

I have been fascinated by this little bit of wilderness real estate ever since I first laid eyes on it a number of years ago and, every time that we have stayed at this site, I have drawn to it picture-making wise.

As you see from this picture, Hugo was drawn to it other-wise.

ku # 614 ~ earth, water, sky

Roots, moss, grass, and water • click to embiggen

ku # 613 ~ hade and shibui

Submerged ripples in the sand • click to embiggenSomewhere in my meanderings around the web, I came across this as a comment on a discussion about beauty, photography-wise:

Some of the images I've seen that have a "wow" factor I do admire and love to look at for a while. But after that - well, I'm ready to move on. I couldn't live with an image like that on my walls.

But other times, when I see another image and go "wow" - it's an image that I know I can live with for the rest of my life.

So for me, the term "beauty" has different levels or depths. I like the Japanese concepts of beauty - there's the fresh gaudiness of spring flowers that probably we might not be able to live with comfortably all year long, as the brightness may tire our nervous systems - the stimulation is too strong and we need a rest. This is the concept of beauty they call "hade."



There are also stages in between hade and shibui, which to them and to me, represents the highest form of beauty - the kind of beauty that nourishes and sustains. It doesn't yell at us to notice it. It just quietly "is." Shibui refers to things that have survived all the hassles and gaudiness and have settled down into comfortable and enjoyable contentedness.

Against the background of shibui we can introduce temporary hade objects. But we always want to go back to shibui.

On those same meanderings, I also came across this from a NY Times Op-Ed by NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF titled, When Our Brains Short-Circuit:

Evidence is accumulating that the human brain systematically misjudges certain kinds of risks. In effect, evolution has programmed us to be alert for snakes and enemies with clubs, but we aren’t well prepared to respond to dangers that require forethought.

If you come across a garter snake, nearly all of your brain will light up with activity as you process the “threat.” Yet if somebody tells you that carbon emissions will eventually destroy Earth as we know it, only the small part of the brain that focuses on the future — a portion of the prefrontal cortex — will glimmer.

“We humans do strange things, perhaps because vestiges of our ancient brain still guide us in the modern world ...”

With apologies to Craig Tanner who thinks that I "have attacked enough straw men here to make me think you might have an issue with oats, wheat and barley", I hereby introduce an expanded definition (extrapolated from the above quotes) of my favored bogeyman - the ever-maligned "pretty-picture crowd" - to wit:

The pretty picture crowd who practice a koyaanisqatsi picture-making lifestyle - emphasis on hade over shibui - are exemplars of / advocates for the short-circuited brain way of living / thinking.

Koyaanisqatsi, for those of you haven't seen the movie of the same name, is a Hopi Indian word for the concept of "crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living". And I ask you - is there anyone out there who doesn't think that we (in the "civilized" world) are living a 'crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living'?

Now I am not placing a big part of the blame for our current koyaanisqatsi on the pretty-picture crowd, but, that said, I do believe that the near-pavlovian / near-exclusive emphasis that they place upon the making and adoration of hade over shabui pictures is both systematic of and encouraging of the idea of the short-curcuited brain - the now-and-wow over the later-and-greater.

Quite frankly, IMO, I believe that any activity that promotes rapid-response behavior coupled with shallow-emotional/intellectual content when practiced to exclusionary excess, is detrimental to achieving a cultural / societal "life in balance".

Does this mean that I am on a mission to eradicate hade from the face of the picture-making earth? In a word, "no". In 2 words, 'absolutely not". IMO, the commenter quoted above had it right when he opined that "against the background of shibui we can introduce temporary hade objects".

Hey, everybody should have a some "brain-dead" fun every now and again even on a daily basis. IMO, you'd go crazy without it. But, when it becomes the steady diet - the staff of life so to speak, as is so evident in our current economic state, koyaanisqatsi can't be far behind.

ku # 611-612 ~ it rained

Raindrops • click to embiggen
Raindrops • click to embiggenOur wilderness canoe trip was delayed by 1 day due to about 7 hours of severe thunderstorms on Saturday. Thunderstorms are not the place to be in a canoe. Due to the delay 3 people had to drop out so it was just the wife and Hugo and I.

Sunday was sunny and semi-warm although it was, as per usual this Summer, very windy. In fact, it was very headwindy so the paddle out was much more lengthy than usual. At one point, Hugo even suggested that we should have brought a sail. Smart kid.

Monday, as predicted, was cool with a daylong cloud cover and an extended period of rain in the afternoon. Not as predicted, Tuesday was the same although, on our paddle in, we avoided the rain.

This AM, now that we're back at home, dawned bright, warm, and sunny.

man & nature # 172 ~ waking up in the tent ....

...on my birthday • click to embiggen

civilized ku # 198 ~ camping gear we got

Getting ready • click to embiggen

ku # 610 ~ up a lazy river

Last evening ~ West Branch of the Au Sable River • click to embiggenBeginning tomorrow AM the wife and I and The Cinemascapist and Brandy and Hugo and the guy from France (and maybe Joe) are out of here for a much needed and eagerly anticipated 4 day wilderness canoe trip.

We may even luck out with the weather. Unlike the last 2 weeks which has been rain, rain, rain, the next 4 days are forecast to have only "scattered" showers. That said, we won't be experiencing typical (for there here parts) summer temperatures - daytime highs are expected to be in the 65-70˚F range with night temperatures around 45˚F.

One good thing about all the rain we've had is that we won't be scraping the bottom of the canoes on submerged rocks 'cause they're really submerged. Water levels are at near record highs.

I'll be back to my regularly scheduled posting routine late Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning.