As I look upon the hills on Sahaptin land, I wonder how to photograph them in interesting ways that will appeal to my audience. Mounds, I tell myself, even the vermilion colored mystical ones before me are only as interesting to others as I make them so. Of what value can these rounded prominences be if they aren’t presented in imaginative ways, with unfamiliar perspectives and compositions? Of what value is my creativity if it cannot find contemporary narratives, fresh truths no one has mined before?
I recently watched a panel in which several excited, privileged, and purported geniuses repeatedly stated that the key to solving all of our problems would emerge from innovations in technology. Hope was to be found in medicines, collective data, and digital advances unimagined to our century. Molecular engineering, outer space exploration, genetic manipulation would be our messiahs.
I laughed. I was the only one. I laughed because I was thinking about how foldable smartphones had not prevented a glacier’s demise. I was thinking about how implementing the internet of things had increased polluted waterways and extinct species. I was thinking of how even as we were tracking the complete DNA sequence of apples, we struggled to break outdated stigmas around health and wellness. I got the joke and so I laughed. But I understand why no one else did. I’m still falling under the spell of ‘let’s start over and it’ll all work out this time…buy my magic potion and it’ll get rid of all your troubles….’
There’s a fable I grew up on where the gods built us a paradise. For awhile we lived inside it in harmony. Then the seeds of discontent were sown into our idyllic garden (insert your demon of choice here) and we became enemies to one another, to our Elysium, and the gods. As our world spiraled into disappointment, the deities destroyed it to construct another better one. Each version continued to survive for a short time until it inevitably fell apart. Then, yet again, the dismayed creators would have to come in and reset matters, ad infinitum. Do you know this legend?
There are some ancient truths which keep cropping up no matter how vehemently we avert ourselves from them. They’ve been spoken by many famous and forgotten people through the centuries: be self-aware, love one another, take care of the place in which you live. Yet, they are so difficult to practice that we avoid them, looking for alternative utopias, radical solutions, new narratives which can bring us the happiness and belonging we all seek. We couch the warnings and the advice in modern slang, wrap them in shiny packages, rearrange the words in the belief that this time they will catch on and we will fix the system.
Back to those blood-red hillocks I was perusing. A mother and daughter passing by asked how much farther the route was which segued into a pleasant chat about lignite and laterite soil deposits. When they left, I returned to studying the terrain from the top. I slunk on my stomach to examine the surface. I leaned in to investigate details. I trudged the trail through them once, then again; began at its end to return to the beginning. I stopped halfway to contemplate the ridges.
The painted hills became alien to me. A landscape I couldn’t comprehend, a history beyond my reckoning. I could’ve been on another planet or an alternate reality. Yet, they were the same rusted prominences, I was the same small human.
Then, I sat on a bench and simply stared unseeing into the distance. My mind wandered to the two strangers I’d met. My senses roamed over the undulating topography. I conversed with the sedimentary strata, reflecting on their birth as slow layers in a former floodplain, their metamorphosis as they built up and were eroded, changing shape, changing color, changing history.
The exercise restructured the painted hills in my brain. They no longer were separate from me. They evolved into part of my experience. Their wrinkled textures became my skin. Their memories were what I saw when I looked at my photos.
So, here they are. Nothing ground-breaking. Nothing cutting-edge. The painted hills as they’ve been for millennia. The way you’ve seen them in others’ paintings and depictions. You’ll have to do your own work to determine what they become to you. You’ll have to dream them in your imagination. And I’ll have to return to the old tales, the ones our ancestors told under the stars — about suffering, loneliness, and death — to find my way. I’ll have to keep covering the well-trodden territory until I too have learned those inescapable lessons.
TRAVEL NOTE:
Don’t Hurt the Dirt! If you’re visiting, please stay on trails and don’t remove ‘souvenirs’ so the hills may continue their story. Protect the unseen wildlife by keeping accompanied pets on a leash and picking up after them. Maintain the soundscape by not operating your drone.
This was a trip taken before the outbreak of coronavirus. Let me know how you’re coping with quarantine in the comments below. If you have published a post about it, include a link to it as well. Wishing everyone a safe April! Take care.
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Hello Atreyee,
I agree with Tanja – and I appreciate your message and beautiful photos 🙂
All best,
Takami
Thank you Takami!
I’ve been working from home for three weeks now. And in the middle of the second week, there was this holiday celebrating a Balinese Hindu festival of silence. On that day, I decided to watch Avatar again, a movie that through its otherworldly scenes teach us that miracles can be found if we reconnect with nature. The relationship has been very detrimental to the latter during Anthropocene, but in the grand scheme of things it is actually a big loss for mankind. Our loss. Mother Nature will still be doing her miracles regardless of which species dominates the surface of the planet.
I so agree. The planet doesn’t need us to survive, but we sure do need it and every complication within its complex system to sustain us. It’s a lesson we’ve been failing to learn so far. So happy to hear you are safe and thankful that you are able to keep working remotely. Wishing you well.
The photos you have chosen for this post are beautiful and very timely.
Thanks Amy! Isn’t it funny that while I was there I spent a considerable amount of time wondering if any of the shots I had were worth posting? Take care of yourself!
It reads like a meditation, Atreyee. I wonder how much this pandemic will shift the way we are in the world. Stay well.
Thank you Jolandi. I too wonder what changes will come about after this. Take care of yourself.
Crazy times we live in! I keep hearing stories about gratitude—for our friends, neighbours, our homes, our incredible natural environment like the one you’ve shown in this post. I hope we’ll retain some of this when we’re on the other side. Gorgeous photos. I had no idea that a place like this exists in Oregon. I must visit when it’s safe to travel again. All the best to you!
Oh I too hope we’ll retain some of that gratitude and kindness! If anything this pandemic has taught us just how connected we are…every…single…human…being. Wishing you well!
https://lynettedartycross.com/2020/03/25/staying-apart-together/
https://lynettedartycross.com/2020/03/23/flying-above-the-underside/
I did two “virus posts” although I did write about it quite a bit as I was overseas and trying to get home before the door slammed shut. I am now at my work-home and self-isolating.
I love your post and couldn’t agree more. I have long wondered if something might come along to make us stop and scratch. I don’t know if there will be much of a long-term effect though.
Thank you for the links Lynette! I too wonder whether we’ll learn any of the right long-term lessons from this. Happy to know you are safe and able to work from home. Wishing you well.
I hear the lyrics of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” by U2 after reading this beautifully constructed piece and seeing the miracles of nature you so eloquently captured in these photos. It’s a priveledge to walk on such precious grounds, will we ever learn this? Be well and may we find our way.
Oh, how wonderful! Now that song is running through my head as well. More than ever I have been grateful to be able to have explored so much of our planet and to have been able to cherish so much of its precious resources. Sending you hugs and kind thoughts as you shelter with your bears.
Lovely. I hadn’t heard of this location before. Something to remember for that time when we can freely leave home again.
Indeed! For those of us who love to explore the armchair planning continues. 😁
Exactly. I love your thinking. It is as if you are looking into life itself. We try and complicate things yet life is simple.
Now, ii’s as if the Earth is telling us it is time to refresh, renourish. We cannot keep taking the natural resources without putting back. For every action there is a reaction …
It is as if we have been given this time to re-evaluate what is important. We need to grasp that opportunity. Stay safe. Think of others. Care for our plants, our animals, our rivers and oceans, our landscapes.
Thank you! Hopefully we will learn these lessons and enact them permanently into our future lives. Wishing you well.
Such a beautiful post, so full of truth and the folly of being human. We’re a contradictory bunch aren’t we? We know what’s right but need constant reminding and still don’t get it. Except perhaps briefly now and then. I understand why you laughed. It is not science that will save us, but presence, which is the last thing the mind ever wants.
You looked at those hillocks long enough that you found a way to share the truth of them. Beautiful.
Alison
Thank you Alison for such a wonderful comment. You’ve so lovingly summarized my thoughts while I was wandering the red hills! Hoping this finds you well and safe.
Painted hills.What a lovely name… And so virus free.
I hope you are all right. The figure for the US are alarming. Better take more precautions than less. I’ve heard of contamination chains that were a tribute to human stupidity…
This is only the beginning.
Stay safe. 🙏🏻😷
I’m well, thank you so much for asking. I’ve been extra-cautious and, thankfully I am one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to be on the front lines of this. Wishing you good health, as always.
Thank you. Likewise. Those are trying times. But patience will prevail. I sometimes think bloggers have an advantage: we’re used to spend time on our computers, and we are in contact with great people all over the world. Opens many windows in those confinement days. Where are you located? You’re in the US right? Be careful, the numbers are bad. Put travel on hold. For a little while…
Stay safe.
I agree…we definitely have an advantage when it comes to working remotely…self-isolating…having digital access to resources and human connections. Yes, I’m on the west coast and currently safely in isolation.
West coast is being hit hard. But confinement should break the curve. So the (right) doctors tell us… 🙂
I love the title of this post, and the inner and outer journeys you’re taking while bringing us along. The summary of the legend you mention reminds me of Westworld (what little I’ve seen of it). It’s such a strange time of reflection but the constants within and around us — nature, life, love — could surely show us the way if we would only listen and learn. Thanks for this post.
Thank you! I’ve yet to watch Westworld, but am intrigued both by its premise and that to learn that it follows the pattern of my legend. Wishing you well. Take care.
Hiya hon. I don’t know these hills but I’m happy just to look over your shoulder. 🙂 🙂 It’s a strange world right now, isn’t it? The Algarve is closed in an attempt to minimise the impact of the virus. It will be the strangest Easter. A time of year I love here. I hoped to visit my son in the UK first. Instead I will be walking our lanes and gazing out to the beaches I’m forbidden. But I guess I’m still lucky. Stay safe 🙂 🙂
Hello dearest Jo! So happy to hear you are safe in your little pocket of the world. It is a very bizarre time and something I’ve never experienced before, but I’m taking strange comfort in the fact that these things have happened before and also finding inspiration in how so many are moving through these moments with kindness, determination, and hope. Wishing you and yours well. 🤍
I was struck by the contrast between your title and the obvious miracles in your marvelous photos.
Also by the way in which we look for miracles outside our terrestrial existence, when Mother Earth holds all the lessons we need. Yet instead of listening to her and her wisdom, we ignore the lessons she teaches–at our own peril.
I hope you are well.
Kind regards,
Tanja
😊 How perfectly you understood what I wanted to get across in my post! These crazy times have got me thinking about our desire for miracles and where we search for them and how we look to have them rescue us. Thanks so much for your lovely words. I hope this finds you safe and healthy! Take care, Atreyee
I’m glad I understood you, and I can completely relate. Thank you for the good
wishes. We are “hanging in there” and are hoping for the best.
Take care, Atreyee.
Tanja
Great pictures. I especially like the road in the very orange hills en very blue sky. Beautiful!
Thank you so very much Peter! I hope this finds you safe and healthy wherever you are.