Northern Pastoral

(Camel's Hump above the Winooski River. click for a larger version)

We drove back to Vermont today, through the glorious spring, and it enticed us off the highway and onto the  local roads that meander under Camel's Hump and along the Winooski ("wild onion", from the Abenaki), stopping often to take pictures and enjoy the light, the blooming trees, the feeling of warm air on our bodies. These roads are literally cut though the Green Mountains, and at one particularly beautiful outlook, toward the iconic summit of Camel's Hump, I became mesmerized by the rock wall to our backs, on the other side of the road. Water was sheeting slowly from high above over the slate face, painting large graphic pictures. I noticed clumps of emerald-green moss, topped with new fruiting spores, growing in the crevices; dead leaves plastered to the smooth rock and embedded now in a constant bath of water that was slowly dissolving them back to ribs and shadows.

(Homage a Rauschenberg, with a nod to Marja-Leena; click for a larger version)

And, as I learned from the spray and discrete drops that hit my face as I got closer, the sheets of water were accompanied by more delicate patterns of falling water, as single drops fell from considerable heights onto stony shelves to split and catapult outward, or form a mist from the mossy, ferny edges of the rock face far above my head. The whole outcrop was, in fact, a living sculpture, a fountain, a Rauschenberg abstraction worked on simultaneously by the water and the bright sun on the rock canvas, hot here, cool there. I could have watched it all day.

We called ahead and picked up Chinese food in Burlington, and then drove north to St. Albans and into Canada, slowing down and stopping, once again, to photograph the farmers in their huge, already dusty fields. It was mid-afternoon by then, and I sat on the edge of a drainage ditch while J. waited for a tractor to approach from the far reaches of the long field. A pair of red-winged blackbirds were nesting in some of the tall grasses in the ditch, and the female rustled her feathers nervously on a small shrub while the male took a few half-hearted flights in my direction, his epaulets fluffed red and fat, and then  decided to ignore me. The sun baked on my back as I watched the sparkling water flow over mud and grasses and listened to the calls of the birds and the wind rushing in the poplars that lined the roadside near the farmhouse. The field stretched flat and empty to the horizon, waiting to be split open by the first emerging shoots of corn. I thought, briefly, of Cadmus sowing dragon's teeth, and the warriors that sprang from his furrows, grateful these fields only yielded a fresh crop of rocks every year, before they turned velveteen and lush.

How little time we've had like this in recent years - time to meander, take the back road home, sit and watch nature paint her paintings and play her music. How good it felt. I think I'll stay there tonight, for a while, in that emptiness rich with possibilities.

Comments

[marja-leena]

It really is wonderful to take one's time and go the back road, to discover the hills and fields, the rocks and waterfalls (very Rauschenbergian indeed!). Glad you had this time, Beth, so good for the spirit!

[Kaycie]

Beautiful. I love the way you look at the world and then tell us about what you saw. That top picture is fabulous. I just want to crawl into it.

[beth]

Marja-Leena, I thought of you all the time I was staring at that rock wall - it seemed so alive with messages, even though none were petroglyphs!

Kaycie - thanks. It was a gorgeous spot on a perfect day - but that landscape must seem pretty different from where you are!

[marja-leena]

How awesome, Beth, I'm very touched that you were thinking the way I do when looking at rock! At the same time you were inspired by Rauschenberg in the neat way you manipulated the photo of the rock wall.

[P.E.A.]

'...emptiness rich with possibilities'....what a lovely phrase, and may you experience much more of that very creative state.

[beth]

No one who reads your blog could fail to be changed in their thinking about rocks, Marja-Leena! I've always loved them, and especially these sorts of road cuts and outcrops, but didn't connect them with art in the same way at all until I met you.

P.E.A. - thanks very much! So often it is nature that opens up that space for me, maybe for you too?

[dale]

(o)

[Dave]

I love rock walls like that. Good find!

[Robb Kloss]

Kia ora Beth,
"To sit and watch Nature paint her paintings and play her music", that really resonates with me. I have a favourite spot in the mountains here in New Zealand, and I love to just sit there and watch. It is never the same, and always beautiful no matter what the weather. Glad you enjoyed an excellent day - you make me a bit home sick for my native Wisconsin. Kia ora Beth.
Ka kite,
Robb