The palmistry of mountains…
There comes a time…
when you see something that pretty much sums up everything,
when you are gifted a glimpse, ever so feebly, of your life from so broad a perspective you may as well be looking down from the moon,
when poet people from the past show up in today, and the past is changed, like time moves backwards instead of forwards (which it does sometimes),
and you know the place where you live so well that you can point to the exact spot, on a map with no road signs, no town names, no boundaries of any kind…but just fine black, delicate lines, tracing the wrinkles, like in a human palm, of mountain and valley, where water has had the audacity to rush and drop over rocks and sand, seeping into roots of willow, sycamore, and mugwort (used by local Native Peoples as the equivalent of holy sage.)
Tonight I pin-pointed exactly where I live, on such a map, offered as “art” in a 12 foot, or more, by 6 foot, or more, lithograph quilt of the Kaweah Watershed, “hung” on a gallery wall.
Headliners for the Kaweah Land and Arts Festival on November 6-8, artist Matthew Rangel and writer/photographer John Spivey are exhibiting lithographs and photographs throughout November at Arts Visalia Gallery, 214 E. Oak, Visalia CA, open Wed-Sat 12-5 pm.
Stronghold – Due East from Moro Rock, lithograph
©Matthew Rangel
John Spivey
“We are part of something so profound that to call it random acts of chaotic probability, or to alternatively call it God, simplistically reduces this profundity to a shadow of what it really is. The ultimate answer to this environmental question is that we all have to learn how to live in relationship with this profound nature of life.”
©John Spivey, from exhibit at Arts Visalia “Luminosity of Stone”
see also, johnspiveyfurniture.com
Spivey is author of The Great Western Divide, CrowsCry Press 2006.
“Is your mind abundant? How has it come to its present state of being? Is is full of the nuance and fluidity of life or is it rigid and barren, painful and lonely? It is never too late to come back to the fullness of who you really are, to come back to knowing. Are you willing to restore the abundant landscape of your mind, maybe restory it? Is there an original story, one without words, only just knowing? Put another log on the fire if you wish to go further into all of this. You need to stoke the fire a little for yourself.” page 45
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New work ©Elsah Cort one of nine images finished today
in the form of 5X5 inch cards in a series called Square One.
Digital collage
from original mandala painting
and photograph of Kaweah River at my favorite swimmin’ hole
at the home of friends who live on Dinely Drive in Three Rivers.
Elsah Cort 🌀 Artist 