Eden is a Place: Passing Storms

Storm Passing

Storm.
Storm passing.
Storms come and go,
we are allowed to sleep.
And sleep.
Sleep.

-Mac


Storm Passing from Mac Wilson on Vimeo.
Picture of Bear River Bird Refuge that I took and modified (same picture of Blog Header).
Song is "MLK" by U2 from The Unforgettable Fire. Lyrics taken from U2.com:

MLK

Sleep, sleep tonight
And may your dreams be realised.
If the thunder cloud passes rain
So let it rain, rain down on he.
So let it be.
So let it be.

Sleep, sleep tonight
And may your dreams be realised.
If the thunder cloud passes rain
So let it rain, let it rain
Rain down on he.

Eden is a Place: Petition for Captions

Please provide a caption or a title in your comments for the
photograph of mine below:

12/18/08: the title/caption is a toss up:

"and we shall see that all is matter" / "Give said the Little Steam"

I think these two titles set the right parameters for what's going on here.

I'm glad that I have helped flex some creative muscle in some of you.

Eden is a Place: Eden is a Space

So I decided to create another blog, which I've named "Eden is a Space."


I have no clear-cut reasoning behind my apparent setup of a dialectic
between Place and Space, but I'm sure that future historians or my kids
or my ghost will be able to construct some sort of logic behind my fractured
thought. I'm pretty sure, however, that there is an inherent difference
between "Place" and "Space" and through my blog postings I will try and
discover this difference. I might post something on one blog, only to switch
it over to the other and I might double-post.
The most probable scenario, in any case, will involve me adding more captions
to more pictures.

Eden is a Space:

Eden is a Place: Light 2: Artificial Light

In a previous post I mention that I prefer natural light to artificial light when I am
taking a photo and that this is why I am attracted to photographing windows in
particular for their simbolism and function. I have found myself, however, fascinated
with 'moments' of artificial light. It seems that the contrasting quality of artificial light
- the clear contrast it can form with night - draws in my camera's lens.


Here are a few 'moments' of artificial light:

"Night Spirits "

- From an Asado that we had last New Year's Eve. I really like the play of
the quality of the image of the smoke with that of the hand. The shadows
within the smoke itself also creates an interesting image reflection.

"Night-Tanning"

- John trying to recover from a high bilirubin count. The strangeness of having
this artificial sun inside our home never really went away. Despite the
level of anxiety that such a device can cause a newborn-baby'sparents,
John seemed to really enjoy it. Needless to say that Lili was quite curious
about the sun-in-a-suitcase. I like the odd blue hue of this photo.

"Breakfast Under the Cover of Morning"

- In our last apartment in Provo I had to be very careful not to make noise or turn
on too many lights in the morning when I would eat breakfast because the kids'
room was adjacent to the kitchen. If I were to wake-up the children too early,
Priscila's entire day could be thrown off. The hyper-care I took to not make
too much sound or shed too much light caused me to enter into a faux solemnity.
For some reason I also becamevery attuned to the smallest details of light,
of sound, and even of smell. In any case, I would often turn only the oven
light on and my lonely tea pot would appear as if it were an idol on an altar
to the "god of solemn breakfasts."

Eden is a Place: Poetic Intertext 1: "Nothing Gold Can Stay"

"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

so dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Nothing Gold Can Stay:

Priscila and Sam

Lili
John
Convergence of Nature

Lili: The Decided Voter

Priscila: "¿Lili, quién querés que gane? ¿Obama o McCain?
Lili: "Quiero helado."

[Priscila: "Lili, who do you want to win? Obama or McCain?"
Lili: "I want ice cream"]

Andy Goldsworthy Art

On my birthday last Saturday, Priscila and I and the kids were going to go to an
outdoor art museum (Storm King) in upstate New York but the weather decided
that we weren't going to go and so we didn't. The reason I wanted to go to this
'museum' is to see a piece by Andy Goldsworthy.
I was first introduced to Goldsworthy's art by way of a class at BYU about the
Humanities and the Environment. We watched a sort of documentary about his
art, which I later purchased, and it still fascinates me to think about how he relates
his drive to create with his drive to relate to the physical world. Perhaps this is
because I too have performed similar pieces of art as I've 'doodled' with the objects
in nature, though I've never taken it to such extremes. Goldsworthy's art
however, isn't simple 'nature doodling.' His art shows me several important things
about art, nature, and about the artist with regards to nature: art doesn't have to
be displayable or even reproducible; art can be fleeting and spontaneous - in
harmony with nature (the inherent irony in my comments is noted: the artist's
'spontaneity' and the art's 'irreproducibility' are forever cemented and reproduced
in the documentary, not to mention this blog and perhaps many more commentaries,
classes, and discussions on the subject - but the point is that art can be the above
things); the artist must know his or her materials in order to push his or her art to
the point where it truly becomes his or her 'art.' And when this art has to do with a
relationship with nature as nature, the artist's knowledge of the materials takes on
a unique, even phenomenological dimension.

In any case, below I've put a clip of clips, which I took from Youtube, of the
documentary. Someone has taken snippets from the documentary (promoted
at the end of the video) and has put it to some electronic music but you still
should be able to get the point. The wall on the video that winds in and out
of trees and down in and up out of a pond is the piece that is at this 'museum'
in New York that I wanted to visit.

I should mention that Goldsworthy creates his art from things that are site-specific.
For example, what looks like red paint in the stream is actually crushed stone from
under and around the stream (the clip when he throws the clay into the air and it
splashes red in the stream shows this). The stone wall that he build was build by
taking stones that were there from the site where a older wall had existed previously.

Eden is a Place: Fall Color 3: To Blink; To See

To Blink; To See from Mac Wilson on Vimeo.

[I filmed this in a canyon near Causey Dam]

Eden is a Place: Fall Color 2: Time

[I took this picture from within my Parent's bedroom]

Eden is a Place: Fall Color 1: Color Fall

[I took this picture on BYU campus (bottom of ramp on the south side of campus)]

Where is home?

I'm writing from Eden; I'm missing my family.
Where is home?

Some images of my homes:

- Eden

Family:

Lili at SLCTemple

Sam asleep (again)

John

Lili and Mami

John and Papi

Lili Peek-a-boo

Sam

Reblogsponse to Silence

As a response to my good friend Ben Cluff's blog post of a quote from Sting
about the quality of silence in music, I post here a song by Atahualpa Yupanqui.
This song, "Vidala del silencio," is an instrumental piece but this particular
version has a sort of prologue to it wherein Yupanqui explains the origen of the
song:
"Once, in a morning surrounded by a landscape of blue mountains, I observed
several small clouds - the kind that seem to hang on to the rocks halfway up the
mountain. The air, absent; above, the sky blue; and below, the earth hard and
warm. Someone spoke to me with strange words referring to these small clouds,
perhaps already far away, that made the landscape beautiful. Someone said:

'What you are looking at aren't clouds, my friend, they aren't clouds. They are
forgotten Vidalas [a kind of folk song rhythm from the Andes regions of
Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile]. They are forgotten melodies that await
someone who will comprehend their silence, understand their words, and intuit
their song. A little while after that moment, which I can't translate lightly because
it is beyond my capacity to comprehend, this Vidala of silence was born.'"

My Mayflower Legacy

Inspired by the fact that this year Columbus Day has landed on Sunday,
which is the day that I work on my Family History (oh and the day of the
week that Columbus confirmed that land had been sighted), I'd like to
reflect upon my genealogical connections with the "encounters" between
the Old and the New world:

I am a descendant of a Mayflower passenger. Perhaps this fact should give
me some sort of patriotic pride but my ancestor, John Billington, didn't do
much in his life to inspire pride.

That's right, I am a descendant of the first Englishman to be executed for murder
in the New World.

I'm sure it was all hearsay and gossip that brought him to justice but I am
willing to admit that his status as the "knave" of the Mayflower group may
have some truth to it. And so, during Thanksgiving when someone makes
a toast to the Pilgrims who made their harrowing journey across the Atlantic
in search of religious freedom, I will toast John Billington and his family
who hopped the Big Pond in search of an escape from creditors.

By the way, I'm connected to Mr. Billington through my dad's side of the family.

Here's to Columbus and to you Great-great...grandpa!:

John: God is Gracious

John's a little under the weather today so I'm thinking of him.

God is Gracious, here you are

not for me, but for you.

Your first steps only now are

set to ever renew.

If given the eyes to watch

the light across your face,

I'll never deny the touch

of a fearless embrace.

God is Gracious, true to name.

Vessel from root to stem,

John, your fathers' tale, the same:

God's grace, eternal lend.

-Mac

Eden is a Place: Light 1: Windows 1

My last post reminded me of how much I like to rely on natural light for my photographs.
For the pictures I take indoors, this means light that comes through windows. I have always been
fascinated by the character that windows give to light. Windows are already photographs in
that they frame a specific view and, in a way, they work like photographs because they provide
a level of
protection, some would say a barrier, between the viewer and what is being viewed. Though I'm sure
someone has written extensively on the symbolism of the window in art and literature,
I'd like to think that the experience of seeing and feeling light through a window (either the
stark, bright light that completely contrasts against a wall or a floor, or the diffused, even
undefined light that tempers the colors and shapes of inside life) holds something outside of language,
something that only the experience itself can communicate. This experience is a combination of time,
space, place, and weather. And so I continue to try to capture these moments when I can.

Sometimes I find the image of the window itself enough to convey the moment, but often
I include objects or even people within the moment to give it a place.

The three photographs below represent, at least chronologically, my interest in taking pictures
of window light.

The first photo: "Windows: Easter Homecoming" is really my first picture of this moment
of light. I took it when I got home from my first real independent camping trip to Southern Utah at
the tail end of spring break during my Junior year in High School. The quality isn't that good because
it is a scan of an already beat-up copy but I think it at least communicates the kind of melancholic
nostalgia that I was feeling at the moment.

The second photo: "Windows: Lili's first Winter" was taken while we lived in my Grandmother's apartment.
I took quite a few pictures of this window because of its south-facing position. Lili loved to peer
out from time to time.

The third photo "Windows: Shades of Piscataway" is one that I took a week ago when it was raining and
light was scarce. I thought the contrast between the natural, blue light outside and the artificial,
yellow light of the lamp was a beautiful way to appreciate the difference in quality and color of the
two. And, of course, John is there filling the gap in the window's reflection which suggests how we
as humans are reflected in natural light and not in artificial light (this is the literary critic
in me speaking).

I will probably include some more pictures of this series in later posts but for now I
will leave my "Windows" at these three.

Lili the Gypsy

Lili the Gypsy, la gitana.

Always moving por allá

y por acá.

And then you stopped

to watch the sun

through the rain.

And then I stopped

to watch you.

- Mac

Eden is a Place / Beginning with Atahualpa

Though there are a myriad of reasons for the title of my blog, rather than list them, I'd like to play them out through the blog over time. As far as where I got my title, however, I took it from a poem that I wrote/write, which is at the base of my blogging impetus. In any case, I am using this blogging space as a space to whittle my thoughts to a point without poking any eyes out. I imagine that most of my posts will deal with my current existential headaches - all of which have to do with my investment in literature and philosophy. There are other more profound reasons for this blog (trust me, there are), but I'll leave that up to the weirdos who have read this far.

A beginning: The slide show below (if it works) contains photos from my research trip to Northwestern Argentina during the boreal summer of 2007. Below the slide show I have included a link to one of my favorite Atahualpa Yupanqui songs: "Nunca Jamás" (update: this link no longer works, sorry) I include the lyrics below and the English translation is mine (so blame me if you think it's less than excellent).



Nunca jamás

De loma en loma has de ir
y mi rastro buscarás.
La huella de las vicuñas,
eso sólo encontrarás,
pero a mí nunca jamás.
Pero a mí nunca jamás.

Hasta mi choza has de ir,
purita piegra no más.
El viento zumba que zumba,
eso sólo encontrarás,
pero a mí nunca jamás.
Pero a mí nunca jamás.

Al antigal has de ir,
y mi tumba buscarás.
Silencio de la alta sierra,
eso sólo encontrarás,
pero a mí nunca jamás.
Pero a mí nunca jamás.

-----------------------

Up and over the hills you’ll go
And you will look for my sign.
The tracks of the vicuñas,
is all that you’ll ever find,
but me, you will never find.
But me, you will never find.

Out to my place you will go,
nothing but all stones outside.
The moaning voice of the wind,
Is all you will ever find,
but me, you will never find.
But me, you will never find.

To the burial ground you will go,
my tomb you’ll try to divine.
The silence of the highest hills,
that’s all you will ever find,
but me, you will never find.
But me, you will never find.

The Last will be the First

There is no Away: a clarification of where I am throwing my thoughts.