Thursday

Natural Magic



20. Life of the land

Perhaps its that I only recently departed Las Vegas, or perhaps its that I'm rolling solo, but I'm finding the desolate quiets of empty parklands & pubiclands to draw my interests or my insides more than most anything. The art museums and institutions have their awe-ing highlights of course and the roadsides have their charm and human fingerings, but the less road and light and plastic, the more I'm convinced of a shared reality, a sensible cohesion between the land and its beings. In the human world, we each perceive so differently, rationally and irrationally, that any kind of shared understanding or vision becomes more complicated. I guess I'm finding it easier to grab the natural rather than art or human life.

When I think of natural magic I consider the cycle of things, the connectedness and harmony. Unseen forces performing visible actions. The seeming breathing of a forest, the hazy flickering mirage of hundreds of thousands of bats whirling out a cave mouth at dusk, a swarm of insects, the singing Kelso sand dunes of the Mojave--readily appreciated occurrences with no thought of logical calculations.