Thursday, October 25, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Time is of the Essence
Cold sweat collects between my shoulder blades pressed against the light weight of the navy blue backpack I carry with me through the Gulch. Within are the few essentials I will require to spend the remainder of my weekend here. A collection of foodstuffs, 4 liters of water, sleeping bag, and writing utensils. I wear a pair of worn leather boots, tan synthetic pants, green wool coat, and bright yellow rain jacket. I carry in my pockets one small blade, a compact multi tool, lighters and matches.
I squeeze my clumsy, backpack exaggerated profile between bold, noble oak tree, cedar adorned with curving hairs, over ornamented nandina, short lived rattlebox, and fountain like yucca shrubs clambering for prestige beneath the calm shadows of their elders, through thorn vines stretching desperately from the uppermost balconies of the gulch toward the flowing waters below like a babe who reaches instinctively for a mother’s aching teat. The persistent density of life here seems almost to enfold me in physical embrace.
Perhaps half an hour has passed, and my destination looms before me in contest between decay and hospitality. The abandoned cabin is a curious eruption sprouting from the floor of the gulch. I step inside from the collapsed porch and shrug off my backpack with a creak onto the splintered wooden planks of the cabin floor. The structure is not a sizeable affair. Squalid congregations of leaves sprawl lazily on the floor having glided through the space where, presumably, a roof once lounged.
This is escape. Escape from the city and its plump children with sweaty teeth, from the coarse deposits of perfectly constructed angles, from the grinding gears of the grid that greedily swallow the last tender mouthfuls of untamed land.
Here, natural chaos reigns. Dead leaves crawl like crabs over the humpbacked land splashed by plummeting rain. The guttural howl of thunder and wicked bright blade of lightning threaten in their primacy to rend a deep crimson wound upon the helplessly exposed sky suspended above. The intoxicating, haunting hum of rolling water sprints down the valley like the cold steel of an involuntary shiver that lunges with flexed toes across your spine. Water droplet trembles down the limestone slopes of vertical cliff face like whiskey bathing the throat of an unshaven drunk. Chaos. Hushed, instinctual chaos.
The rain has stopped, and night descended. The sun slumbers, leaving the moon-luminous custodian of the night-silvered command over the stars.
I stand looming, transfixed by the waters below me. Watchful eyes hide in these tides. Numinous moon flake winks impulsively from the shifting balconies of sinuous water wrinkle. The shallow flux flirtatiously winds through stamped, tangled rock and noodled root of the gulch’s maw with the sure stroke of an old lover. The untidy tropics of the heart become fluent in the bloom of moon breaking water.
Between rising waves of wind and wake are heard the rapturous spasms of a well-bred fire that beckon me easily back to the cabin. I listen to my fire pop, crack, and groan, and I am sure that only one more effort must be needed from the conflagration to spurt forth a low, wood sweet voice to harmonize with my own. Silken spark and hiccupped ash peer through flexed, hooked cords of flame engaged in wild rehearsal. With each fresh log the blaze clenches, squeals and arches its back with satisfaction in a display of lyrical improvisation. I nod off to sleep gazing through fire. There is something of trouble and strain splintering within the sensitive flexibility of the concluding flames as they shrink, clutching ever dearer to mother ember.
I wake to the happy flit of birds chirping, and soon have 3 eggs sizzling over a tall fire. Smoke rises to greet the restless, sun echoing foliage above. The leaves dance quietly in whispered mirth as they are traced by the quivering stride of cascading mist. The simple mind of the fire cultivates a voyage through strange seas of thought in my evening rest.
A potent impression exudes like dark molasses through the cold dark mud in the depths beneath my consciousness. The opening of awareness dawns from the nakedly twitching head of the forest chuckling. Time seems a haze. It lurks the cobblestone streets of my mind’s grey wrinkles. It is morning mist: a cloud that in bleary eyed torpor tripped on a slippery patch of sky and fell weightlessly to earth. We remember the past, imagine the future, and least of all, we live in an ever changing present. I am an undistinguished occasion in this valley’s verdant history. Were I to live patiently in this abandoned cabin until my hair grays and I perish, my spirit would slide away with no sound of splash. There would be only darkness received, like a ripple in velvet, the final happy sigh.
I squeeze my clumsy, backpack exaggerated profile between bold, noble oak tree, cedar adorned with curving hairs, over ornamented nandina, short lived rattlebox, and fountain like yucca shrubs clambering for prestige beneath the calm shadows of their elders, through thorn vines stretching desperately from the uppermost balconies of the gulch toward the flowing waters below like a babe who reaches instinctively for a mother’s aching teat. The persistent density of life here seems almost to enfold me in physical embrace.
Perhaps half an hour has passed, and my destination looms before me in contest between decay and hospitality. The abandoned cabin is a curious eruption sprouting from the floor of the gulch. I step inside from the collapsed porch and shrug off my backpack with a creak onto the splintered wooden planks of the cabin floor. The structure is not a sizeable affair. Squalid congregations of leaves sprawl lazily on the floor having glided through the space where, presumably, a roof once lounged.
This is escape. Escape from the city and its plump children with sweaty teeth, from the coarse deposits of perfectly constructed angles, from the grinding gears of the grid that greedily swallow the last tender mouthfuls of untamed land.
Here, natural chaos reigns. Dead leaves crawl like crabs over the humpbacked land splashed by plummeting rain. The guttural howl of thunder and wicked bright blade of lightning threaten in their primacy to rend a deep crimson wound upon the helplessly exposed sky suspended above. The intoxicating, haunting hum of rolling water sprints down the valley like the cold steel of an involuntary shiver that lunges with flexed toes across your spine. Water droplet trembles down the limestone slopes of vertical cliff face like whiskey bathing the throat of an unshaven drunk. Chaos. Hushed, instinctual chaos.
The rain has stopped, and night descended. The sun slumbers, leaving the moon-luminous custodian of the night-silvered command over the stars.
I stand looming, transfixed by the waters below me. Watchful eyes hide in these tides. Numinous moon flake winks impulsively from the shifting balconies of sinuous water wrinkle. The shallow flux flirtatiously winds through stamped, tangled rock and noodled root of the gulch’s maw with the sure stroke of an old lover. The untidy tropics of the heart become fluent in the bloom of moon breaking water.
Between rising waves of wind and wake are heard the rapturous spasms of a well-bred fire that beckon me easily back to the cabin. I listen to my fire pop, crack, and groan, and I am sure that only one more effort must be needed from the conflagration to spurt forth a low, wood sweet voice to harmonize with my own. Silken spark and hiccupped ash peer through flexed, hooked cords of flame engaged in wild rehearsal. With each fresh log the blaze clenches, squeals and arches its back with satisfaction in a display of lyrical improvisation. I nod off to sleep gazing through fire. There is something of trouble and strain splintering within the sensitive flexibility of the concluding flames as they shrink, clutching ever dearer to mother ember.
I wake to the happy flit of birds chirping, and soon have 3 eggs sizzling over a tall fire. Smoke rises to greet the restless, sun echoing foliage above. The leaves dance quietly in whispered mirth as they are traced by the quivering stride of cascading mist. The simple mind of the fire cultivates a voyage through strange seas of thought in my evening rest.
A potent impression exudes like dark molasses through the cold dark mud in the depths beneath my consciousness. The opening of awareness dawns from the nakedly twitching head of the forest chuckling. Time seems a haze. It lurks the cobblestone streets of my mind’s grey wrinkles. It is morning mist: a cloud that in bleary eyed torpor tripped on a slippery patch of sky and fell weightlessly to earth. We remember the past, imagine the future, and least of all, we live in an ever changing present. I am an undistinguished occasion in this valley’s verdant history. Were I to live patiently in this abandoned cabin until my hair grays and I perish, my spirit would slide away with no sound of splash. There would be only darkness received, like a ripple in velvet, the final happy sigh.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
The Overlook.
360 on 360: The Overlook
The mechanical snake that slithers up the highway eats at the forbidden fruit that is nature. One slow bite into the ozone at a time. Pennybacker Bridge connects the North to the South, arcing over the river like a rainbow constructed in a scrap yard.
And as night falls, the traffic creeps down like a glow worm in the dark. Raised on a pedestal, sitting on 360 all I can do is overlook the world as nature overlooks me.
-Drew Plant, Jonathon Bird, Gabi Taylor, Emmy Sura
-Drew Plant, Jonathon Bird, Gabi Taylor, Emmy Sura
West Texas Story
A Trip out West:
A Narrative of a Trip to the Terlingua, Brewster County Texas
All of us, Greyson, Emma, Alex, Ashley, and I, Will, have decided to come together and produce a podcast about our experiences together in the vast swath of the Chihuahuan desert that scrapes the Terlingua area of West Texas. We got to experience the clear, dry desert air, the beautiful sunrises, and the joy of getting off the grid and feeling what it is like to be a child again.
A Narrative of a Trip to the Terlingua, Brewster County Texas
All of us, Greyson, Emma, Alex, Ashley, and I, Will, have decided to come together and produce a podcast about our experiences together in the vast swath of the Chihuahuan desert that scrapes the Terlingua area of West Texas. We got to experience the clear, dry desert air, the beautiful sunrises, and the joy of getting off the grid and feeling what it is like to be a child again.
Ballad of This Land
And there's a bible on the table,
Cause He bleed for what we have,
And that’s the ballad of a southern man,
I guess that’s something you don't understand.
My first rifle was a .243,
Papa gave Daddy and Daddy gave to me.
Cause He bleed for what we have,
And that’s the ballad of a southern man,
I guess that’s something you don't understand.
My first rifle was a .243,
Papa gave Daddy and Daddy gave to me.
In 1864 a homestead was given to a young man from Germany. His family name was Trautwein. 128 years later, the same name hangs on the gate, and maybe a lot has changed. But there is so much more that is the same. The things this rural family hold dears do not waver as does the grass they walk through. They do not yield like the animals they raise. A family of stubborn thick headed Germans still believes in a few simple thing just like the first Trautwein. This is just a small piece from the bond I share with those who walked here before me. Just like the horse is still the best way to work cattle, we still believe working hard is the only way to reach heaven. That is if we aren't already there.
Through the Looking Glass: A Fantastical, Melodramatic Podcast in Nature
"The Jungle is dark, but full of diamonds"
-Arthur Miller
Medina, Texas: Where Time Is Irrelevant
“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.”
― Albert Eistein
― Albert Eistein
"Pond"ering Nature
The Pond
My observational adventure took place only a few hundred yards from my house, although this podcast concerns water conservation statewide. Everyday, during my commute into Austin and back home, I see once green fields turning brown containing what used to be cattle ponds. This is only a small part of Texas's water issues (especially regarding the Colorado River), although it accurately represents what is happening on a larger scale. The large lakes in Central Texas, including Lake Austin, Travis, and Buchanan, are at some of the lowest levels in their dammed history, and the use of water by large cities along the Colorado River interferes with the needs of rice and other produce farmers closer to the Gulf Coast.
Water is essential for the existence of all life, and it makes more sense to take preventative measures to conserve water than to have to face the consequences that will inevitably take place otherwise.
Adam B.
The Horse Ranch: The Threshold of Humanity
As we turned off of Highway 79 onto the gravel road leading to the ranch, it was as if we had stepped across a hidden portal to another world. The cacophonous, screeching noises of humanity’s constant rush began to subside, replaced by the plaintive cry of a black hawk, surfing the currents of air through the ripe, ocean blue sky. Time itself was lost in the golden orange leaves and the whoosh of the creek faintly murmuring a sweet melody. I looked behind me and saw the harsh, angular lines of the highway, mauling the pristine skin of nature, stretching into the horizon for eternity, a march towards death and time. Across the threshold of humanity, we walked in the lush, curvaceous arms of the pasture, watching a fairy tale white horse dance to the rhythms of the wind. As we waded through the grass, our feet made a “shh” sound, whipping the grass back and forth, as if our feet were instructing the landscape to remain silent, to let nature take over completely. As we neared the creek, hidden behind a luscious layer of green bush, poison ivy, and a myriad of crisp twigs, the sound of the water crescendoed into a vibrant, childish melody, the sound of rocks tumbling into the water a natural staccato. The grasses at the bank lay flat on their spiny backs from the force of the flowing water, a sea of dead green soldiers peacefully at rest under the ocean of sky.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)