We are all Lichen on a Scholtzbos now.
After frequent reminders, my father brought me this dried ‘Karoobossie’ from the farm a few weeks ago. I prefer using dried Scholtzbos in my terrarium as the wood takes longer to decay, and it seems to lend itself to better moss growth than the dead wood I manage to find in these suburban parts. The best wood for mossy growth still remains Milkwood, but these are protected, and it wouldn’t feel fair to pillage the little forest I frequent in Hermanus. According to Karoo Veld: Ecology and management (Esler, Milton & Dean 2006) , Scholtzbos’s proper name is Pteronia pallens also known as "Aasvoëlbos or Witbas". It is indigenous to natural habitat of dry, rocky slopes, found in the Karoo regions of South Africa. The wonderful thing about Scholtzbos is that it’s dried out twisted trunks – (which resemble a kind of Native Bonsai, because they seem to be miniature versions of far larger and older trees) often act as shelter for smaller flora. During the winter, lush lawns of moss may be found underneath these dried, twisted dwarf-trees, even in the most arid regions. When my father gave me this one, his wife told me that it had still been green when they left the farm the previous day, but by now it had dried out. I couldn’t quite understand as the remnants had obviously been without life for quite some time – a few months at the very least. But I thought no more of it and propped it onto my studio shelf for later use. After more pressing tasks had been performed, I broke a small branch from the miniature tree on Sunday ( 3 days past at the time of writing). I placed it into a vacant terrarium along with some surviving moss I gathered from our home in Hermanus and a Rabbit-foot fern and 2 Hypoesthesia cuttings I have been nursing for months now. The increased temperatures in suburban Cape Town makes for tricky conditions as far as terrariums are concerned. The protective environment may quickly turn into an oven if not watched closely. This is the final term, and all mayhem is loose so close watching of fragile biospheres cannot at present be guaranteed. Therefore, I decided to leave the terrariums open for the next few months, and water them every second day. When I checked in on the new habitat yesterday, I was astonished to see living, bright green and orange, flourishing lichen growing on the dried Scholtzbos! Lichen is an organism consisting of algae living in a symbiotic relationship to fungi. Lichens are not parasitic but live on the plant’s surface as a substrate. They are slow growing and long living. The oldest lifeform on earth is the Arctic map lichen, which is dated at 8,600 years. Contrary to popular belief, lichen may flourish in new environments when moved from their location. They have been known to absorb air pollution and the soil crust species is said to be vital in replacing nitrate to depleted soil. Scott Gilbert, Professor of Biology at Swarthmore College, wrote a much-cited paper titled We are all lichens: How symbiosis research has reconstituted a new realm of individuality. In simple terms, what Prof. Gilbert were saying is that the assumption that we as humans are individuals are based in the misconception that our embodied experience along with consciousness, makes of us singular entities. Therefore, in biological terms we are all symbionts, because our bodies consist of a myriad of living organisms. The average human being carries about 100 trillion bacteria in their digestive system alone. Each of those are in every sense of the word alive! Do they possess consciousness? We don’t know. But they are certainly thriving, living, individual organisms colonising your gut. So, if we are all lichens what is our place in the environment? It is by now accepted fact that our biosphere is endangered. To quote Anna Tsing: We are living in precarious times. Perhaps we are like the lichens living on the dried out Scholtzbos – to all appearances dead to the world, clinging for dear life to deadwood, redundant worldviews, ill-informed misconceptions about the world and our place in it. Perhaps a shift in place, a new worldview may prove to be the resurrecting moisture we need to revive what little life we have left. Perhaps, by looking to lichen, we might find new ways of living in a dying world.
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A Grievable Life...
To live in this world You must be able To do three things: To love what is mortal; To hold it against your bones knowing Your own life depends on it; And, when the time comes to let it go To let it go ~ From In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver . I last visited the pond at the end of April 2022, I wrote a piece about how this body of water has become my Blackwater pond and posted a few photographs which attempted to capture it’s beauty. Amongst these milkwoods was my old acquaintance, the tortoise tree of which I wrote last year upon our happy reunion. (The Source). This place is at it’s most beautiful in mid-winter (now) when the arum lilies are in flower and the fresh green growth protrude through the marshy water. At this time all the old limbs of the milkwoods are draped in mossy velvet. Their idiosyncratic and sometimes cantankerous likenesses are rendered wonderous, and the stillness of this respite permeate the entire forest. When I left here at the end of April it was not without a sense of anticipation for the wonders I might find here on my return in winter. Today I went for a walk in the forest in the late afternoon. It soon became clear, that some work had been done, and were likely to continue. I wonder if they are going to build a boardwalk here, my daughter mused. I felt the hard egg of anxiety drop heavily. As I went through the entrance to the pond my heart sank. Heavy work boots had been through here. The arum lilies laid trampled. The canopy seemed thinned. There were very little green, everything seemed bleak and washed out. As I arrived at the tortoise tree, I realised that the overhanging limbs had been trimmed. The tree is still there, perhaps even a little relieved. The tortoise-like branch was not… It lay a little way to the side, dead, brown, discarded, not even a tuff of moss in sight. It had gone the way of all ephemeral things. The workforce had been there and with majestic efficiency had completed the municipal contract. They had trimmed overhanging, branched which could pose a threat to hikers’ safety. Men doing their work, to put food on the table. They had taken care to provide care. These trees are protected* and the dead and dying limbs must be trimmed. The best time to do this is in winter. The lilies will grow back. In time the canopy will close again. New growth will sprout from old branches. Yet my old acquaintance will not return. I have more than enough photographs of this branch. I could revisit the memory of the encounter at any time, by reading the piece I wrote. I know all things are ephemeral… Yet one question lingers. Can one grieve for a severed branch? What constitutes a grievable life? *This stretch of milkwood forest is part of the Fernkloof Nature reserve and is a protected area. This section provides a microenvironment rich in biodiversity. Special permission is needed to prune milkwoods in terms of the National Forest Act. Morning at Blackwater
by Mary Oliver It's almost dawn and the usual half-miracles begin within my own personal body as the light enters the gates of the east and climbs into the fields of the sky, and the birds lift their very unimportant heads from the branches and begin to sing; and the insects too, and the rustling leaves, and even that most common of earthly things, the grass, can't let it begin - another morning - without making some comment of gladness, respiring softly with the honey of their green bodies; and the white blossoms of the swamp honeysuckle, hovering just where the path and the pond almost meet, shake from the folds of their bodies such happiness it enters the air of fragrance, the day's first pale and elegant affirmation. And the old gods liked so well, they say, the sweet odor of prayer. Since starting my day with a poem, sometimes two or three by Mary Oliver, I have felt, growing in the space where my heart should be, but where for the past couple of years a hard egg of anxiety resides, this warm glow of gratitude. I’ve recently ventured onto google earth to view Blackwater pond from above, and from afar, and realised that, the pond is a particularly small body of water, compared to other much larger ponds in the same beech forest. And yet, this body of water has served as the origin (read: inspiration) for this magnificent body of work Mary Oliver, produced over 5 decades. This unassuming yet absolutely exquisite body of water led to works of such profound beauty and capacity that it has forever changed the way we (many of us) see and experience the world. Oliver said: “My work is loving the world” and she did wildly, fiercely and abundantly so, and she has inspired me to do the same. I realised that his spot, here on this picture, though likely far smaller than Blackwater, but no less significant, no less beautiful, is becoming my body of water – although it is sometimes just a piece of fenland during the dry season, it does provoke in me the same love of the world, Mary Oliver speaks about. In know every one of these milkwoods, intimately, I have, to date, drawn parts of them 7 times over and will likely do so many times more over the next decade... This is my body of water, the source of my life’s work. My way of showing how much I love the world. My humble contribution to showing the world how much I love it. This is just the beginning... The milkwood forest is nestled in this liminal space between ocean and neighbourhood, like Oliver’s beech forest it is close to the ocean, and close to man made structures but simultaneously wholly elsewhere, it is a window into Gaia, into what reciprocity with the world could and should be. To walk here is an act of loving the world which will go on perpetually across time and space and for which I am profoundly grateful. The Source
At the start of this year, when the need for illicit swimming drove us to the cliff paths, the coves and the forest, I happened upon the strangest of trees. On that day in January, I photographed many mossy logs, fallen trees and majestic towering old milkwoods. These photographs became the genesis for the Ephemeral Nature of Things series which currently occupies, and are likely to keep occupying my thoughts, dreams and work for some time to come. Since then, I have been back to the forest at least once every 2 months, I have been searching for this particular tree, the one I have come to name the tortoise tree in my mind. The initial photographs were manipulated in a number of imaging software programs, and I knew that this tree very likely didn’t resemble the photograph I had since studied first in photoshop, then in charcoal and now finally in oil on canvas. Yet he/she/they called to me, and I went in search of them first one weekend in February , again in March, April, in June and again in August, I walked the length of the milkwood forest, often with dogs and /or teenagers in tow, to no avail, this tree was not to be found. I have since happened upon all the other logs, and mossy trunks, and as I visited more and more, we became acquainted with each other until we moved through familiarity to a quiet ongoing becoming with. Today I took my daughter and her friend to the beach, they swam while I walked the length of the beach first up and then down, grounding myself. Nothing locates the soul in the grand scheme of things like ice-cold seawater and sand beneath the feet. As I strolled back to where the teenagers were swimming and felt the pull of the forest, I had to go for a walk, but I knew that it had to be a solitary walk. I entered through the main boardwalk, exactly as I did the day before, past the bubbling brook and up the path, past the older bigger trees where the wider path covered by a boardwalk wind through the forest. I pressed on to my favourite most secluded spot, where I had photographed my daughter earlier this year emerging from an illicit swim in a dark stream. As I entered this section I suddenly laid eyes upon the tortoise tree, I know for a fact that I must have walked past them every single time since I took that first photograph. What was even more remarkable though was that in that moment, I was certain that the tree recognised me too, It was like running into a long-lost friend. This time I told them how I have been busy studying them I showed them the photographs of my work and asked if I might take some more. I gently laid my hand against the moss-covered bark. Peter Wohlleben says that trees are social beings, I am not, well not so much. None the less I was glad to make their acquaintance now again, properly for the second time. It was an emotional reunion, and since listening to Robin Wall Kimmerer’s advice I thanked them for being, and asked permission to enter into reciprocity with them, might I photograph them for my work, may I show them to the world, could we enter into an ongoing becoming together? I have no idea whether I went about the introductions the right way, it certainly felt right, it felt like a meeting of souls which defies all reason. No, nothing was spoken out loud, it was a quiet being together in that time and that space. Today I had a meeting with the most special of trees, and I am much better for it... |
AuthorLaurette de Jager is a Visual Artist working with the Ephemeral Nature of Things, in the hope of finding new ways of existing in a dying Archives
October 2023
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©2022 by Laurette de Jager
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