Tuesday, October 11, 2022

Telluride Science

 





Telluride Science


-for Sara



The air is wild with leaves

as gusts announce an early fall storm


Beyond the Valley Floor

lightnings’ silver filigrees thread

the darkening western weave

of massed West End nimbostratus


We sip libations to toast 

& celebrate the latest re-do

of the Rio Grande Southern depot

into a center of cutting edge science


Telluride’s 

untracked tourist-plus locomotive 

charging full-STEM ahead 

into a fact-based lane-changing 

interstellar panarchtopia


Thursday, October 6, 2022

Pandora's Amphora #4

 Original Thinkers Hosts Big Ideas



FILM ... I came to Telluride because of the festivals. First, it was the Film Fest. My seminary buddy Craig Chapot was involved, and I’d heard about some of the early classics balanced with cutting edge cinema. I was enthralled, having been a film buff in San Francisco – a regular at the old Canyon Cinematique at the San Francisco Art Institute ... Gradually, as I came to love mountain life more than Hollywood versions of reality, I got involved with Mountainfilm. I loved when Rick Silverman took the helm and moved the schedule towards more than just climbing films and extreme sports – herding us into social justice and the full spectrum of mountain life. For many years l emcee’d at the Mason’s Hall – an intimate venue with a dedicated crew ... I was sorry to see Rick leave the fest, but I loved the way David Holbrooke curated movies. He knew great filmmakers and brought a rich feast of film to Telluride. When he too left Mountainfilm, I was sad. But I was also getting disenchanted with the frenetic pace of both film festivals, where you were rushing from one theater to the next, waiting in long lines, always it seemed missing many of the films you wanted to see ... So, I was delighted when David pioneered a new kind of festival – Original Thinkers -- where you got to see all the offerings and had time to integrate what you’d seen, to discuss and take to heart big ideas.

STORY & COMMUNITY ... As one of my mentors told me early on, the poets of the time are our filmmakers. They create the stories and myths that inform our dreams, our conversations -- against which we measure our lives ... When I see a great film, I need time to assimilate it into my life. To reflect on it and discuss it with others. Original Thinkers allows exactly that. There’s only a handful of films. But not just films but great films. And there’s more. Yoga. Forest hikes. Tea ceremonies. Plenty of opportunities to make the stories one’s own ... It’s no mistake that Original Thinkers begins with a dinner for all participants. There’s no better way to jump-start community than eating together, turning strangers into a kind of film family. This year’s dinner was two long long tables in the Transfer Warehouse. I got to sit with two of the Janes who made Chicago history in the ‘70s illegally providing abortions for women at risk pre-Roe v. Wade. And I made fast friends with John Bates   -– trading his best-selling handbook on Ted Talking for my chapbook of Lone Cone poems.


BIG IDEAS ... So, for me, it’s the takeaways that matter most at festivals. What did I learn? What can I used in my life? ... Cancer kept me from enjoying many of the first few years of OT. But I remember one talk by David Quammen speaking of his New York Times bestseller, The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life that changed my understanding of biology. I bought the book, read about Carl Woese and Lynn Margulis, and came to see horizontal gene transfer as the biological game changer that it is. That big idea has stayed with me for years and now informs my understanding of how life has developed ... Of course, singling out one idea is almost heresy, as there are so many. But that’s the beauty of the event. You get to focus on the big idea that strikes you ... Free from cancer, I got to attend most of the programming this year. And this year’s smorgasbord of films and happenings took my breath away. But it was the first film that made the biggest impression on me, “Of Medicine and Miracles.” Ross Kaufman is a master director. And the documentary’s “star” was as humble as he is brilliant. By matching the life & death struggle of a young woman facing acute leukemia and a research physician driven by good fortune and intention to figure out a cure for this deadly disease, the audience rides a roller coaster of emotion – from sadness to empathy to hope. It’s a story that had me in tears more than once ... And I came away with the big idea that with persistence and good fortune, using non-intuitive techniques, like employing HIV virus to carry activated T-cells into the bloodstream of patients, cancer can be cured ... Of course, that’s only one small piece of web of big ideas, great films and energizing events that made up this year’s festival. Personally, I can’t wait until next year.


photo by Jonathan Thompson

DOLORES LACHAPELLE ... This Silverton wise woman -- author, independent scholar, deep ecologist, mountain climber with a number of first ascents, and a legendary powder skier named to the Ski Hall of Fame -- has been dead for over a decade. Because she wasn’t associated with any university or institution, her books are out of print and her name has faded into obscurity. But thanks to Jen Brill of the Silverton Ski Area and Ananda Foley, executor of the LaChapelle estate, held a mini-summit last month to try and revive Dolores’ legacy. A small working group of friends heard from Clare Menzel of Montana, who’s done a MA thesis on Dolores; Steven J. Meyers, author, fine photographer, senior lecturer in English at Ft. Lewis College and an old friend of Dolores; and Katrina Blair, author, founder of Turtle Lake Refuge in Durango, and another old friend of Dolores. 

MASS MOVEMENT ... I had the good fortune to catch the Telluride Dance Collective's "Mass Movement: Rebirth" show at the Palm Oct. 6th. It was dazzling! I was completely blown away at the talent in our community. Wonderful choreography. Spectacular movement. By turns innovative, thrilling, funny. It even included outrageous aerial silk dancing ... Kudos to Kelsey Trottier and her whole troupe.

TALKING GOURD ... I’m not usually a poet who writes in form. I like the freedom to explore language without traditional boundaries. But Dolores always urged her students (which included Katrina Blair and I) to lie down under the aspen in the fall and look up at the sky through the golden leaves. We did this when we were in Silverton. And I found myself using a Persian poetic form of a praise poem:

Ghazal for Katrina


I profess the religion of love;
wherever its caravan turns along the way,
that is the belief,
the faith I keep
 -Ibn al-Arabi


For the love of the divine in everything
I lie among the golden leaves to sing

In the azure sky there’s no limits or endings
Our words like clouds obedient to the wind’s bendings

Sprawled with a friend among the aspen we sing
Our hearts wild as kites upon a string

Attached to fingers & toes of free mind at play
Praising passed friends and the passing day

On mats of leavefall that inspire what we sing
Lifting our voices like evening bells that ring

At dusk in Silverton to clothe the caldera in prayer
As we make afternoon ritual of the lyric air

With my sister teacher friend in contrapuntal witnessing
Honoring Dolores’ deepest gold as we sing





Wednesday, October 5, 2022

In Our Circle of Community

 


Essential

            —for Art Goodtimes
 
 
When I was clay,
was mud, was
slurry, was sludge,
he said, Fly,
beautiful bird,
high and low.
When I was
nothing, he said,
I am honored
to be your friend.
When there was
nothing to be said,
he sat with me.
We breathed in
deep sadness.
We breathed out love.
All around us,
the grass grew.
Inside, I felt it,
as if his words
were prophecy,
I knew it,
the possibility
of wings.

-Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Sunday, September 18, 2022

Goodbye Laurie James

Photo by Wendy Videlock

Ma Tana

Laurie James (1947-2022)

The last time I stopped at your Salida digs
jonesing for a Ma Tana hug
you were gone

As you are now
in a hospital’s ICU

Even as Dano, Wends & I made plans
for a lightning nomad poets’ lark
to hug & help you off into
that mystery 
that’s coming for us too

Denied a face-to-face
we can only call you up
in our dark hearts bright minds

A fearless gentle cantankerous kind
of mountain goddess
we held dear

Hold even dearer now
in death’s embrace

 

Sunday, September 4, 2022

Pandora's Amphora #3

 Ed Werner's Off the Wall Sculpture Show


OFF THE WALL ... Ed Werner was one of the first folks I met in Telluride. In fact, I held my first poetry reading in Telluride while house-sitting his and Lisa's rental in town on North Spruce Street. And later the old Telluride Writer's Guild put on a gala poetry event in Fall Creek at his home there ... 



But he moved to Ridgway when he and Lisa split up and has been living there for the last couple decades ... His sculptures have always been challenging pieces -- well made but full of irony and sometimes dark energies... 




His recent show at the Trace Gallery in Ridgway was no different. Less new pieces and more things he's pulled from his collection of pieces he's had in storage for many years. But nevertheless impressive.







I've always loved his work for his critique of American culture and his precision fabrication skills. For many years he did fine carpentry in Telluride and the region from his workshop in Fall Creek.  More photos from his show appear at the end of this column.


CHILE VOTES NO ... Itki was a sad day for progressives in Chile as the country overwhelmingly voted down a new Constitution to replace the one crafted by the dictator Gen. Pinochet and, unfortunately, still now in effect after this election. Read what the Guardian of Britain had to say about itki HERE.

QUOTABLE ... "My favorite definition of poetry has always been from Ezra Pound: 'language charged with meaning.' slightly repurposed from ABC of Reading; packing twice, maybe ten times as much into as many words as the party smalltalk line. A poet might use tropes and allusions to accomplish this, but ultimately the most powerful tool they can use is the musical sound of the words themselves" ... By Colorado poet Uche Ogbuji, from his newsletter, Loomiverse 

TALKING GOURD ... Found this lovely poem online at Silver Birch Press’s “How To Heal the Earth” series. Mistakes are how we learn and Mary McCarthy does both in a most moving way. We had a passionflower vine at one of the houses I lived at as a youth. It is a stunningly beautiful plant. Find out more about Silver Birch Press HERE.

Gulf Fritillary on Passionflowers (Photo by Gwillhickers).

MY MISTAKE


When an army of hungry

orange and black caterpillars

stripped bare half

my passion flower vine

almost overnight

I saw nothing but

their ravenous appetite

their warning armor

of black spikes.

I pulled them off

one by one 

the way I would pluck

big green hornworms

from my tomato plants,

and crush them with

a booted foot.

Too late I learned

these were the larva

of the Gulf Fritillary

butterfly, a beauty,

and passion flower vine

not merely its favorite

but its only host.

How could I refuse them

their necessary food

after planting milkweed

for the monarchs,

shunning pesticides

and fertilizers,

learning to love

those humble plants

whose virtues go unnoticed

because they are not showy?

I had no excuse

for extermination,

doubly wrong

because even this hungry army

can only curb, not end

the rampant growth

of its chosen host

limiting its kudzu ambitions

enough to allow recovery–

While my murderous efficiency

could upset the essential

balance, worm and vine,

lives so absolutely

intertwined.

Mary McCarthy is a retired Registered Nurse who has always been a writer. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, most recently in The Plague Papers, edited by Robbi Nester, The Ekphrastic World, edited by Lorette Luzajic, the latest issue of Earth’s Daughters and Third Wednesday. She has been a Best of the Net and a Pushcart nominee. Her digital chapbook is available as a free download from Praxis magazine.




Meredith Nemirov facing camera and her artist partner Jorge  Roberto Anchondo on the far right  were among the many attendees at the Trace Gallery for Ed Werner's show during Ridgway's First Friday Art Walk.


Thursday, September 1, 2022

Make America Normal Again


 






MASKS






No one in Norwood, even in the clinic

(except the dentist & her whitecoats)


still wear masks, though probably itki’d be

safer if we all did that, but God forbid!


We’re mask-weary Americans, hardly be-

leaving the other end of the titter-tottering


urban bread & rural water. But ready to be

at least normal again, as if we ever could


be wise be wary be aware or not to wear the

questions that come tumbling down, circling


round & flooding our cautions. Thinking the Herd

Elections. Abortions. Nothing to hide us from


eye to eye, facing off

with each odd other


____________________________________________________________________________________






Saturday, August 27, 2022

Pandora's Amphora #2

 WE LOVE MUSHROOMS!

SHROOMFEST42... A marvelous year. Everything came together ... The afternoon monsoons started in early July amidst a record drought and haven’t stopped yet. Warm days heated the soil at altitude ... Britt Bunyard gathered a wonderful group of presenters. Festival staffers (calling themselves Team Cooperation) Ashley Smith, Matt Guertin and Teal Stetson-Lee got operations under firm control for the smoothest production in years. The Telluride Institute’s Team Mushroom provided decision-making oversight. Over 500 people bought passes ... 


Sunny days alternating with late day rains made perfect foray weather. The lectures were extraordinary, particularly those of Mark Plotkin, Giuliana Furci, Tradd Cotter and Irene Dubin, as well as John Michelotti, Peter Hendricks, Lauren Czaplicki, and Bryn Dentinger, Louie Schwartzberg’s new film “Gratitude Revealed” had many of us crying in our seats, awed by the beauty. The MycoLicious MycoLuscious MycoLogical Poetry Show had itkis audience riveted to the performances. John Sir Jesse and Katrina Blair had very successful dinner specials. The vendors brought a whole new level of myco-surprises and delights. My favorite was PACT -- a toolkit for pooping in the woods: visit there website HERE...


Riitta Ikonen offered a delightful costume playground (aka “workshop”) pre-parade. The parade was spectacular and the djembe drum & dance circle in the Town Park was ecstatic thanks to West African master Etienne Tolno with Skyler Hollinbeck and his crew of locals ... And that’s just some highlights. The entire week was magical with many other wonderful people, events and interactions. Kudos to all.

PAUL STAMETS ... Our great Fungophile sent a wonderful video to this year's event from his home in British Columbia and honored me with this short segment.

TONY CORBIN ... is the son of the legendary John Corbin, entheogenic grower extraordinaire, who was a core of the festival in itkis early years. Here’s what he had to say about this year: 

“I can't express to you all how much it means to me that you keep the TMF alive (and thriving!) As Rick Hollinbeck said (and to paraphrase/mirror his words), to many of us, it is as much a giant family reunion as it is a festival. I am closer to so many people I see in Telluride once a year than I am to many people I see almost daily. There is some bitter sweet for the people who are no longer with us but their legacy that you all keep alive brings me literally to tears of emotion when I think about it (yes, my vision is blurry and my cheeks are wet as I write these comments). So from me, and so many others, to every one of you and your volunteers and everyone at the Telluride Institute, THANK YOU! from the bottom of my heart and soul.”

Photo by Heather Stella

SALZMAN AWARD ... The Salzman Award is given to those who’ve done so much to keep the Shroomfest alive for going on four decades now. This year we awarded the Hollinbeck family – Rick, Marty, Mesa, Amy, Sky – for all their work behind the scenes...

The kids have grown up with the festival and Rick & Marty have been with us since day one. Congratulations to my Norwood homies.
LINCOFF AWARD ... The Lincoff Award goes to someone who has contributed greatly to the world of mycology, and Laura Guzmán-Dávalos of Mexico certainly fits the bill. Her work and her graceful presence was a huge boost to the festival this year and the world of mycology internationally. 


FASCINATING FACTOID ... According to the brilliant Dr. Bryn Dentiger of the University of Utah, what we have started calling Boletus rubiceps may be an incorrect name, and what we actually have is a variety of B. edulis after all. Taxonomy is perhaps the most confusing of all disciplines in the mycological world ... However, Bryn is no dogmatist and suggests we call mushrooms whatever we like, depending on the context we’re in. So, in the field, if not in the lab, I’m calling one of my favorite mushrooms the redhead, taxonomists notwithstanding.






77 ... Itki was my birthday during the fest (a lovely blessing) and I turned 77. That’s a very interesting number, besides being on the very cusp of old age (the body knows that, though the mind often forgets). 77 turns out to be the sum of the first eight prime numbers, the atomic number of Iridium, and the boiling point of nitrogen (in kelvins). During World War II in Sweden at the border with Norway, "77" was used as a shibboleth (password), because the tricky pronunciation in Swedish made it easy to instantly discern whether the speaker was native Swedish, Norwegian, or German.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON ... I subscribe to this excellent historian’s daily reports on what’s happening politically in this country. Here’s a sample from a recent post: “Denying enslaved Black Americans access to education exiled them from a place in the nation. The Framers had quite explicitly organized the United States not on the principles of religion or tradition, but rather on the principles of the Enlightenment: the idea that, by applying knowledge and reasoning to the natural world, men could figure out the best way to order society. Someone excluded from access to education could not participate in that national project. Instead, that person was read out of society, doomed to be controlled by leaders who marshaled propaganda and religion to defend their dominance. Lincoln argued that workers were not simply drudges but rather were the heart of the economy. “The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him.” He tied the political vision of the Framers to this economic vision. In order to prosper, he argued, men needed 'book-learning,' and he called for universal education. An educated community, he said, will be alike independent of crowned-kings, money-kings, and land-kings.”

INDIGENOUS CRITIQUE ... Graeber & Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021) – easily the most important historical treatise I’ve read since Dolores LaChapelle’s Sacred Land Sacred Sex Rapture of the Deep (Finn Hill Arts, out of print) – documents the fascinating argument that itki was the Indigenous North American critique of Western Civilization, as was encountered after Columbus, that led directly to the Enlightenment and the American and French revolutions. A must read ... If you don’t know the Wendat Philosopher-Statesman Kandiaronk as described by Louis Armand, Baron de Lahonton, in the early 1700s in New Voyages to North America, read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass to learn what Indigenous Wisdom means.

THE TALKING GOURD
[Ed. Note: Going back to the tradition of having a poem at the end of my column as I’ve done for decades. This one is about Hesiod’s story of Pandora by my dear friend, Arvada poet Cottonwood Kate]

Last One Out 

She was the last one out of the box 
(well, the jar, really; bad translations
aside boxes were not always square 
in ancient Greece. This one had a lid 
which Pandora screwed open). She 
lingered there beneath the lip, did Hope 
(real name: Elpis). 

Some say she stayed inside. Maybe that’s why 
we’re slow to take her in. She’s hard to see. 
Some don’t believe in her at all—brag that they 
never have. Though, examined more closely, 
their own lives might reveal her quiet presence 
in a dusty nook or unopened cupboard. She doesn’t 
boast, show pride of place or being. Her way is more 
like that of feather’s drift, or the river beginning in 
a snowstorm, or a four-hundred-year-old oak riding 
home as an acorn in the pocket of a child. Not that she 

is childlike necessarily. Older hearts, softened by all 
else unloosed by Pandora (yet another woman made 
from spare parts—a rib, flowers, clay, whatever’s close 
at hand) have learned to shelter her. Even those hardened against her can ignite by a spark, sometimes struck in a flame held close by another. I’ve seen her face, settled with 

the same look in the eyes of a newborn as in one leaving the world. She can delight with the deft touch of a dragonfly or sting us into her self-same praise. 
Forgotten? For her sake and ours, I hope not.

-Kathleen Cain