This field of swiss grain above Lake Constance is a good example of the kind of conversations humans have with the earth. This represents technology brought from Asia to Europe and used […]
The World as a Decorative Object
Willow, Lake Constance Formal gardens transform the earth into a system of social arrangement. Relaxed gardens, the English gardens of the 18th and 19th centuries and their heirs, recreate this social arrangement […]
Nature and the Grave
Nature is a grave. That is an important point of Christianity, but not of the intermontane cultures of the North American West. What is in the grave is another matter. That is […]
What is Nature?
Stein am Rhein It is not to be confused with the Earth or the biosphere. That is to continue the white shaming of the earth that plagues North America. Sometimes “nature” is […]
Open and Closed Air in Indigenous Switzerland
In Zurich, this is nature. A sobering thought. Or, rather, it is a school sports field. Note the tree. It is placed where there is room. Note as well the aesthetic, architectural […]
A Summer Home for the Family, On Earth and in the Sky
Here we are in a community garden in Stein am Rhein, Switzerland, an old roman fortress, and before that a 4000-year-old settlement where Lake Constance becomes the Rhine. A shaded picnic bench […]
The Power of Trees
Dead trees contain as much power in the grasslands as live ones. They are a map not drawn to depict space.
Okanagan Spring Colours
Rose, dogwood and grass have recorded the winter sun and now, as that sun gives over to a spring one, release that knowledge. With this wisdom of grey, red and yellow the […]
The Land Speaks and We Listen
When the land presses energy out, it makes a trail. Water can follow that trail, or that trail can be picked up by shrubs and lifted to the air, as in the […]
And Yet People Complain About Winter. Huh.
Why? Isn’t it beautiful? Maybe they should leave the north and go home. I feel so sorry for them. They have to endure this: And this: It must be very hard. I […]
Okanagan Okanogan 