In this issue

1. My Print of the Week

2. Frontispiece

3. On the joy of living museums and a paean to Autumn

4. Waiata mo te Ata (Poem for the day)-Tree Song

My Print of the Week

For a time, somewhere in the early 2010s, I explored the idea of making works from composite images gathered here and there on my travels. I was already beginning to attempt to break away from a document of time and place, of saying: I stood here and photographed that. But, suddenly, to do that wasn't enough. I wanted to explore my own beliefs, to find a way to express those. In many ways, the message was becoming more important than the medium.

I was initially raised in the Christian tradition, specifically the Anglican Church. My mother was a devout Anglican, me not so much. While she was quite religious in her weekly attendance, I could be easily dissuaded by a warm bed or a need to sleep in, particularly as a teenager.

From a young age, I was fascinated by the mystery of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Yet, somehow the story I was being told in church, and religious instruction didn't gel with me. It felt too much like a party line, a comfortable assumption that shouldn't be challenged. Yet, there was a mystery here, something hidden under 1500 years of dogma beginning with the Council of Nicaea. It took me until the age of 60 to finally find an answer that made sense for me.

We travelled in Europe, visiting Berlin, Rome and Tuscany. We visited the Basilica and the Vatican Museum along the way. The latter left me angry and nauseated, furious at this vast collection of priceless art bought on the tithed backs of the poor and downtrodden. Yet, all I saw were cassock-wearing moneychangers in the temple.

Then, in Berlin, we visited the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, rebuilt after being flattened by the Allies in 1943. We walked into the interior, and I stared in awe at the towering walls made from blue glass bricks, and an ethereal Jesus suspended in space. Then to one side, in an alcove, I saw a small image of Jesus with a line from the Gospel of John. I gathered it up into my camera. Then, as we continued travelling, I collected the front door of the Cathedral in East Berlin, an Etruscan carving in the Vatican Museum and a small stained glass window in the mysterious Cathedral in Lucca, Tuscany.

When we returned to Aotearoa/New Zealand, the components of this work assembled themselves into something coherent.

The inscription, in German (John 1 5:4), can be translated thus:

Frontispiece

“There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same.”

Atamaarie e te whaanau:

Good morning and welcome to Easter 2022 and the Easter edition of the newsletter (without chocolate or Easter eggs).

A lot is going on at the moment, spiritually speaking.

For Christians, it is Easter, a celebration of Jesus' death and resurrection.

Muslims are in the middle of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting (sawm), prayer, reflection and community.

For Jews, it is Pesach/Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which commemorates the story of the exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt.

And did I mention that it is a full moon today/tonight? No doubt Wiccans and pagans are paying particular attention to that.

They all have in common that it is a time for going inwards, reflection, prayer and ritual.

Wherever we are on our inner journey, it is a time for tolerance, love and understanding.

And perhaps reflecting upon the following Hindu proverb:

On autumn

I love autumn here in the south.

I love the colours of autumn, as they rise to a crescendo before fading away. Suppose there is a piece of music that somehow encapsulates the wonder of autumn. In that case, it is the Polish composer Henryk Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, which begins quietly, then rises and rises to a glorious peak before softly fading away.

This week, with Elvis needing to leave the building, I went up to our local park, slipped off my footwear, and walked barefoot with my camera amongst the trees and the dankening wonder of autumn, with its rich, warm colours and soft cool shadows. All the work in this newsletter (my friend Jonathan S. thinks I should call it Weekly Insights-perhaps Weekly Inlights) is new work.

I've been having fun.

Herewith please find the Autumn Edition.

Again.

On the joy of living museums and a paean to Autumn

I finally had the opportunity to get out with my camera this week, put my concerns to one side, walk barefoot in the park near my home, and shuffle and slide amongst wet, dank fallen leaves beginning their return to Papatuuaanuku, to the earth that birthed them.

I love autumn here in the south because we have four distinct seasons. Now there is a beautiful sense of endings, of the year wrapping itself up before going into hibernation for a few months during winter.

The colours are at their most glorious; the maples, oaks, liquidambers and aspens are parading in their party finery.

One of Te Anau's best-kept secrets is tucked away on the edge of town, on the hill at the back of the motor camp. Ivon Wilson Park is well known to locals -and tourists not so much. However, it is the brainchild and passion of a Southland dentist who was determined to create a beautiful park for the whole community. His dream has provided something for us all to celebrate.

Last week I wrote about how photography came into being as a way of helping the Victorian era explorers travelling the world to make better likenesses of the places, plants and objects that they found.

Much of what they found ended up in museums, public warehouses that can be considered mausoleums to their kleptomania and hubris.

Botanic gardens have always fascinated me. It is like being at a ball where the guests don't know each other. Instead, they circle the room, looking for ways to break the ice and strike up conversations.

They are all dressed sumptuously, eager to impress. They stand there, clutching their gilt-edged invitations, uncertain what to do next but determined to make the best of it.

Walking through parks and gardens like this, especially barefoot, you get a sense of the tree roots reaching out, seeking to make contact and strike up a conversation. With their brash, brassy metallic finery and coarse perfumes, gum trees from Australia mingle with the delicacy and old-money restraint of oak trees and sycamores. Of course, the maples have dressed up for the occasion, especially when the ball is set down for April. The cypresses and pines do their best to fit in.

The immigrants dominate with their stiff-upper-lip colonial sense of superiority. The indigenous plants stay off to one side, colonised, huddling around the punchbowl lake, either somewhat shamefaced or with their backs disdainfully turned away.

You don't wear olive drab to a ball.

I can imagine the great French landscape architect André Le Nôtre, the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France, and designer of the gardens of Versailles, wandering around, casting his critical eye over the placement and arrangement of trees and shrubs, of the position of plants and paths, tut-tutting to himself as he walks, and shaking his head at the sheer crudeness of the design and the architect's complete lack of aesthetic sensibilities.

"Amateurs," he mutters quietly to himself.

And yet the colonial enthusiasm and relative ignorance of the people who established the botanic gardens around New Zealand is quite joyous to behold. There is an exquisite sense of innocence and naïveté in the layout and design of the gardens. There is a sense of a rolling up of sleeves and "giving it a go".

So, while I wander through the botanic gardens in parts of Aotearoa, New Zealand, particularly in the autumn, there is a sense of participating in a dance much grander than we might have imagined it to be.

And indeed, that is enough.

Waiata mo te Ata (Poem for the day)-Tree Song

Two years ago, during Lockdown One here in Aotearoa New Zealand, I wrote Raahui, a book of poetry and pictures, which I later published. The physical copies are now all sold out, however, a digital version is still available. If you haven't seen it, you can get it here. This poem, from the book, is one of my favourites.  

Tree Song 

On day nine

feeling pinned,

an insect in a glass museum drawer,

I went to the park on the verge of town

to wander among the soft sigh of autumn

and an alien arrangement

of trees from other lands.

In fading festive finery,

thin black opera glove arms,

and the dizzying waft of foreign perfumes,

they huddled in awkward groups,

red-faced guests at an office party

not sure what to say, or if they should.

Yet, beneath the sun-striped grass,

in the deep, dank dark of the cooling earth

their tentative roots

reached gently out across the gaps

in silent supplication.

Fevered Mind Links (to make your Sunday morning coffee go cold)

The Ancient Math That Sets the Date of Easter and Passover — getpocket.com

Why don’t the two holidays always coincide? It is, to some degree, the moon’s fault.

The Zealandia Switch drove rapid global ice retreat 18,000 years ago. Has it switched to a new level? — theconversation.com

Earlier this month, we wrapped up the latest annual end-of-summer snowline survey over New Zealand’s South Island (Te Waipounamu), providing a birdseye view of how glaciers fared during the past year.

Beatrix Potter, Mycologist: The Beloved Children’s Book Author’s Little-Known Scientific Studies and Illustrations of Mushrooms — www.brainpickings.org

Beatrix Potter (July 28, 1866–December 22, 1943) is one of the most beloved and influential storytellers of all time.

The Art of Choosing Love Over Not-Love: Rumi’s Antidote to Our Human Tragedy — www.themarginalian.org

To become precious — that is the work of love, the task of love, the great reward of love. The recompense of death. The human miracle that makes the transience of life not only bearable but beautiful.

A Wooden Knife Sharper Than Steel? Scientists Say So. — www.nytimes.com

Knives are humanity’s oldest tool, dating back millions of years. A group of scientists in Maryland have produced a version made of hardened wood, which they say is sharper than steel.

Cernunnos: The History and Mythology of the Enigmatic Celtic Horned God — www.realmofhistory.com

Arguably the most visually impressive and rather portentous of ancient Celtic gods, Cernunnos is actually the general name (theonym) given to the deity ‘Horned One’. As the horned god of Celtic polytheism, Cernunnos is often associated with animals, forests, fertility, and even wealth.

A Rare Glimpse of Leonardo da Vinci’s Anatomical Drawings — www.brainpickings.org

Although Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452–May 2, 1519) endures as the quintessential polymath, the epitome of the “Renaissance Man” dabbling in a wide array of disciplines — art, architecture, cartography, mathematics, literature, engineering, anatomy, geology, music, sculpture, botany —

Black Achilles — aeon.co

Few issues provoke such controversy as the skin-colour of the Ancient Greeks.

How Kepler Invented Science Fiction and Defended His Mother in a Witchcraft Trial While Revolutionizing Our Understanding of the Universe — www.themarginalian.org

This essay is adapted from Figuring. A spindly middle-aged mathematician with a soaring mind, a sunken heart, and bad skin is being thrown about the back of a carriage in the bone-hollowing cold of a German January.

End Papers

I'm not sure how you celebrated Easter or if you did.

It is a time of self-exploration, reflection, and inner growth for some of us.

For others, it is an extended weekend, a chance to get away with our families for some downtime, to chew on chocolate or pig out on hot cross buns.

Perhaps we need both.

This weekend, The baches/cribs/holiday homes in Te Anau are fully occupied. The streets are lined with utes (pickup trucks) and expensive boats, with their owners no doubt hoping for fine sunny days and an opportunity to burn hydrocarbons while going up and down on the lake.

The first holidaymakers will start heading home today, and the rest will follow tomorrow morning (Easter Monday). Then relative calm will return to the town.

The nights will draw in, extending their reach into each end of the day, and the mists will begin to rise from the lake each morning, a sure signal that winter is on its way.

This morning I arose at 3 am, well aware that this week's newsletter was anything but finished. I love that time of the morning because everyone is asleep, and the world is at peace. A vibrating full moon spread blue-white light across the landscape, and only the boldest stars were visible.

It is a time when I can stretch upwards, beyond the farthest edge of the universe and feel the energy of the stars while simultaneously digging my bare feet down through the grass on the lawn to my mother beneath. Now I can feel the dense mosses of winter working their way upwards through the grass.

We have much to learn from the humble plants of the natural world and the deep silence of the earth below.

What better way to finish this newsletter than with a quote by the Sufi mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan:

May the coming week bring you love, light, health and good fortune.

Ka mihi arohaa nunui ki a koutou

Much love to you all