Jan

Best Way to Experience Yosemite?

by Eva Boynton on January 16, 2017

A view of Yosemite Valley, showing that to experience Yosemite fully all you need to do is open you eyes. (image © Sam Anaya)

Mountains of experience reach beyond the edge of the picture frame.
© Sam Anaya

Open Your Eyes, Take Home the Full Picture

Whenever I set foot in Yosemite, I feel the need to capture the grandeur of nature, extend the experience, and take it home with me. But, on this trip, I put my camera down and heeded a quote from Henry David Thoreau:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

A deserted cabin in Yosemite Valley forest, illustrating that to open your eyes to experience Yosemite may be beyond the camera frame. (image © Sam Anaya)

Is it possible to capture the intangible essence of an experience in a photo?
Or, do you just need to be there?
© Sam Anaya

How did I reach that decision? I found myself surrounded by other travelers engulfed in recording their experiences, one eye always shut as they looked through the lens of a camera. I came to realize that opening both eyes, without anything in-between, was my best way to experience Yosemite.

Snap-Snap-Snap

Yosemite is THE spot to capture iconic nature images. Early photos of the park were made by mountain men who experienced nature and weathered difficult conditions without modern conveniences to be there.

On tour of the vista points with my friend Dana Swarth, I observed that, nowadays, visitors experience a place through their cameras. They snap photos as frenetically as the White House Press Corps.

Two photographers crouching on the ground, showing how people try to experience Yosemite. (image © Eva Boynton)

Diving for photos
© Eva Boynton

A woman takes a selfie at Yosemite Falls, illustrating how you can forget to open your eyes and experience Yosemite. (image © Eva Boynton)

“I’m here!”
© Eva Boynton

On one stop at Yosemite Falls, I encountered—

A couple adeptly using a selfie stick to photograph themselves from every perspective.
A dad lying on the ground to find the perfect angle of his wife and kids in front of the scene.
An older man, smiling all the while, making a 180° scan of the “entire” view with his iPad.

Photography can be like a sport in Yosemite—a rugged solo expedition to get selfies or a race to the finish line by competitive clickers. The winner? The person with the most photos.

Yosemite Falls, a view to appreciate when you open your eyes and experience Yosemite. (Image © Sam Anaya)

Nothing can quite capture the towering Yosemite Falls.
© Sam Anaya

It was seeing the crowds hold onto their cameras for dear life that made me skeptical of my need to record my experience in pictures. People came and went without taking a moment to look with their own eyes.

What’s the Focus?

Whether it is a face, hand, or a single toe, too many photographers intentionally place some body part into the landscape to say, “Hey, I was here!” I watched a woman reposition her iPhone up and down, left to right, in an attempt to capture herself in the frame. She was the subject; Yosemite was the background.

A thumb's up in front of a mountain in Yosemite Valley, a selfie attempts to show how to experience Yosemite. (image © Eva Boynton)

Click. I “like” this mountain.
© Eva Boynton

Some articles reinforce this focus on self. “How to take a great selfie in Yosemite“ gives tips that include dividing your time between sites so as not to spend all your “selfie juice” in one location or hiking to Mariposa Grove where trees dapple your selfie face with light.

A selfie of three people in front of Yosemite Falls, people trying to experience Yosemite but taking the idea "Open Your Eyes" in the wrong direction. (image © Sam Anaya)

We were certainly there! But what was behind us is a little blurry.
© Sam Anaya

Amid the unparalleled grandeur of Yosemite, it seemed to me that the focus belonged on the experience. Sure, I could ensure a photo album of selfies and prove that I was there, but I decided to adjust the focus, make Yosemite the subject, turn around and see the real deal.

Dropping the urgent need to archive and record myself brought focus back on the raw experience. Thoreau had made the same discovery years ago. He processed his findings on time spent living in the woods by writing his experiences in his own hand. He focused on deliberate experience and awareness, lifting himself out of a snapped frame and into the woods.

Tall trees with the sun behind at Yosemite Valley, showing that if you open your eyes without a camera you might see a little more. (image © Sam Anaya)

Take a moment to feel small in comparison to the colossal trees of Yosemite Valley.
© Sam Anaya

Too Big to Frame

During our tour of Yosemite, Dana took us on a hike off the main tourist track. We sat perched on a rock, overlooking a valley with mountains as the horizon and a carpet of autumn-colored trees below.

We took in the scene with all our senses, feeling the cool spray from a waterfall behind us while the sun warmed our faces and shoulders. I began at the waterfall and slowly turned my head to the left, seeing every inch of the full picture.

A drawing of Yosemite Valley in front of the drawn landscape, showing how a frame cannot open your eyes to really experience Yosemite. (image © Sam Anaya)

Yosemite without cropping
© Sam Anaya

I had followed my own advice, “Open your eyes,” and experienced Yosemite in full. Even so, I couldn’t resist recording some part of the experience. I took out my ink and paper and tried to etch the view into my memory.

As I lifted my finished drawing to the real thing, I noticed that the lines went off the paper. Oh, I see. The Yosemite experience was too big to frame. Living is already naturally panoramic.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Thank you, Sam, for your photos and, Dana, for the tour of Yosemite.

Check here for more information about Yosemite National Park.

Eva Boynton 7 Comments

Nature Discovery/USA

Jul

First, Dare to Be Wild

by Joyce McGreevy on July 25, 2016

The Art of Gardening to Save the World

A close-up prairie flower in Chicago's Lurie Garden reflects the trend toward wild gardening. Image © Joyce McGreevy

Up close, a wildflower is a world.
© Joyce McGreevy

Here’s what happens when landscape designers dare to be wild. Lavender hyssop, maroon prairie smoke, blue quamash, and frothy calamint run rampant in all directions. The work of creative problem solvers, wild gardening centers you in the heart of nature.

Native spiderwort flourish in Chicago's Lurie Garden, thanks to wild gardening. Image © Joyce McGreevy

Native spiderwort and wild grasses grow knee-high in Midwestern fields.
© Joyce McGreevy

A Wild Surprise

Now, look skyward. See the skyscrapers. You’re standing in the center of America’s third largest urban area. Welcome to Chicago, city of wild surprises.

Laurie Garden, Chicago, IL is the work of creative problem solvers who dare to be wild. Image © Joyce McGreevy

Meadows in an ultra-urban setting draw 4 million visitors
annually to Lurie Garden, Chicago.
© Joyce McGreevy

Wild in the City

The urban oasis of Lurie Garden is part of a cultural trend toward New Wave Planting. Inspired by wild gardening, this relaxed style makes plant design less controlled and geometric than conventional gardens.

As Lurie Garden expert Noel Kingsbury wrote in Planting: A New Perspective, “When people say they want some nature, what they usually mean is a particular vision of nature, one that looks nice, fitting in to a distinctly human-centered idea of what nature is or should look like…. The task for the gardener or designer is to create an enhanced nature… one that supports biodiversity and looks just a little bit wild.”

Wild Irish Dreams

Chicago is also where an Irish lawyer dreamed of wild gardens. Says Vivienne DeCourcy, “After 20 years in a Chicago high-rise, I craved the wild West Cork landscapes of my childhood summers.”

Lough Hyne, Co. Cork, Ireland inspires Vivienne DeCourcy, writer-director of DARE TO BE WILD. Image © Joyce McGreevy

Lough Hyne, Ireland’s first marine nature reserve. epitomizes
the beauty of wild nature in West Cork. © Joyce McGreevy

Meanwhile, she wrote 16 screenplays, each reflecting her longing to affirm the wild beauty of our fragile planet.

In 2004, DeCourcy returned to Baltimore—no, not in Maryland, but southwest Ireland, where the place-name originates. It’s an Anglicization of Baile Tí Mhóir, Irish for “town of the big house.”

DeCourcy’s home, nestled into a mountain that sweeps down to the sea, inspired visions of a wild garden that invited the outdoors in.

Vivienne DeCourcy's home in Ireland reflects her love of wild gardening. Image © Vivienne deCourcy

DeCourcy “pictured native plants articulated into the vast landscape of Roaring Water Bay . . .”
© Vivienne DeCourcy

Sunset above Roaring Waters Bay, Ireland, home of creative problem solver and filmmaker Vivienne DeCourcy (DARE TO BE WILD). mage © Vivienne deCourcy

“ . . . And a moated effect around the house that would light up the living room at sunset.”
© Vivienne DeCourcy

Tiny Seed, Big Screen

When DeCourcy finally found the one landscape designer who understood her vision, her dream of wild Irish gardens became a cinematic vision. The extraordinary life of designer Mary Reynolds inspired DeCourcy’s movie Dare to be Wild.

Irish landscape designer Mary Reynolds advocates for wild gardening . Image © Dara Craul/ Mary Reynolds

Self-described “reformed landscape designer” Mary Reynolds
urges gardeners to work with nature, not control it.
© Dara Craul/ Mary Reynolds

By the time production wrapped a decade later, it had involved several Academy Award winners: producer Sarah Johnson (Birdman), costume designer Consolata Boyle, and musicians Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (Once). Acclaimed Irish musician Colm Mac Con Iomaire composed the score.

Tom Hughes and Emma Greenwell star in Dare to Be Wild, a film written and directed by creative problem solver Vivienne deCourcy. Image © Vivienne deCourcy

Emma Greenwell and Tom Hughes portray Mary Reynolds and Christy Collard
in the upcoming independent film Dare to Be Wild.
Both images © Vivienne deCourcy

A love story based on true events, Dare to be Wild has more twists than a corkscrew hazel tree. Ranging from the green hills of Ireland to the arid mountains of Ethiopia, it centers around London’s famed Chelsea Flower Show.

The Olympics of Gardening

This isn’t just any garden show, but the Olympics of gardening. In 2002, Reynolds, unknown and unemployed, became the youngest person in history to win Chelsea’s coveted Gold Medal for garden design. Among the finalists Reynolds bested for the prize was HRH Prince Charles.

Reynold’s “Celtic Sanctuary” featured hundreds of wild plant species, a traditional drystone wall, monumental stone chairs, and a fire bowl–all of it transported to England and built in three weeks.

A Celtic Sanctuary scene from DARE TO BE WILD reflects the film's focus on wild gardening. Image © Vivienne DeCourcy

Recreated for the film Dare to Be Wild, Reynold’s “Celtic Sanctuary”
shook up design circles with its iconoclastic style.
© Vivienne DeCourcy

Now Reynolds and DeCourcy are on a mission to protect the planet. Reynolds has authored The Garden Awakening: Designs to Nurture Our Land and Ourselves. The wild gardening book became an overnight bestseller in the UK and, with advance screenings of Dare to Be Wild, was rapturously received in Japan.

Fans of Reynolds’ book include Jane Goodall—yes, that Jane Goodall:

Wild Buzz

Meanwhile, DeCourcy is generating buzz. As a passionate advocate for the bees that nurture wildflowers and food plants, she wants people to rethink the conventional culture of gardening.

Irish filmmaker and writer Vivienne deCourcy is a creative problem solver with a love of wild gardening. Image © Vivienne deCourcy/ Dr. Michael Sheehan

“We need to throw a lifeline to the wilderness,” says DeCourcy,
echoing a line from her screenplay.
© Vivienne DeCourcy/ Dr. Michael Sheehan

“Only by experiencing the wonder of wild nature locally can we appreciate what’s at stake and be moved to protect wild nature globally.”

One way to do this, she says, is to replace conventional lawns with clover.

“The typical lawn is a matte green desert that guzzles chemicals. It cannot support a single bee—a creature responsible for one in every three bites of food we take.”

But a clover lawn is a habitat, where nature’s balance can thrive. “It supports a myriad of pollinators, only needs mowing once a year, and, being chemical-free, presents no toxic downside.”

The grounds of Lismore Castle, Ireland showcase the beauty of wild gardening. Image © Joyce McGreevy

At Lismore Castle, Ireland, one of DeCourcy’s favorite gardens,
wildness receives a royal welcome.
© Joyce McGreevy

A Wild Idea

Suddenly, a smile lights DeCourcy’s face. “Imagine your clover lawn, then a hundred of them, and then thousands, and you can see how easily we could create a sanctuary for our friends the bees.”

“Oh, I see”: The seed of a wild idea can grow into gardens around the world.

DeCourcy and Reynold’s wild ideas took root in Ireland, spread to Ethiopia, and flourished in England and Japan. Now they inspire gardeners everywhere. That’s what happens when creative problem solvers dare to be wild.

See the trailer for Dare to Be Wild here. Follow it here.

Meet Reynolds here and discover her gardens here.

Explore Chicago’s Lurie Garden here.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy 1 Comment

Ireland/Nature Discovery/The World's Art & Design/USA

Jan

American Cultural Heritage: Public Libraries

by Meredith Mullins on January 25, 2016

One-room green library in Allensworth, CA, one of the public libraries showing America's cultural heritage. (Image © Robert Dawson.)

Library built by ex-slaves, Allensworth, California
© Robert Dawson

The Art of Getting on the Same Page

Shhh. No talking. Let the books and walls and shelves speak for themselves. If you’re quiet, you can hear the sound of knowledge. The call to adventure. The whisper of imagination.

It all happens at public libraries—a part of American cultural heritage that has opened so many doors, providing free access to information and the freedom to learn.

“It is a space ship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you … and most of all, a gateway to a better and happier and more useful life.” —Isaac Asimov

An intergalactic tribute to books; The Main Library, Duluth, Minnesota. (Image © Robert Dawson.)

Open Doors

We all have memories of public libraries. Being read to during story hour as our littlest self. Checking out our first book as a child, proudly using our official library card, which seemed to give us instant status and new swagger to our step.

Seeking a cool spot on a hot summer afternoon or warmth during a winter snowstorm. Listening for the seductive sound of the approaching bookmobile. Wondering if we could ever, in our life, read all that the library had to offer.

A trailer library in Death Valley National Park, California, one of the public libraries of America's cultural heritage. (Image © Robert Dawson.)

Boundless Opportunity

Libraries are not just a democratic haven for reading. They are also community centers, temporary shelter for the homeless, cathedral-ceiling reading rooms and research hubs, tables full of accessible computers, literacy centers, and a place for people to learn and neighbors to meet.

Reading Room at the Main Library, Philadelphia, PA, one of the public libraries that shows America's cultural heritage. (Image © Robert Dawson.)

They exist in cities of millions and in a town of one person (Rudy’s library in Monowi, Nebraska.). They are one-room shacks in the middle of nowhere, brightly colored storefronts in shopping malls, and multiple layers of steel and glass in modern urban centers.

They are transformed from banks, hospitals, jails, churches, railroad stations, fish markets, gas stations, and nightclubs

The Ralph W. Yarborough branch library, Austin, TX, in an old theater, one of the public libraries that shows America's cultural heritage. (Image © Robert Dawson.)

Inspiration for Imagination

They tell stories—from a history of George Washington’s overdue books checked out from The New York Society Library (returned 221 years later . . . not by George) to the vision of Kentucky librarians on horseback carrying books in saddlebags to rural areas.

They provide fuel for imagination and innovation, as a cast of dedicated founders, patrons, and librarians parade through history and as the libraries of today expand their collections to music, films, seeds, and tools.

First Carnegie Library, Braddock, PA, one of the public libraries that shows America's cultural heritage. (Image © Robert Dawson.)

A Creative Vision of Our Heritage

Where did I learn so much about America’s public libraries?

From photographer Robert Dawson, who brings public libraries to life in his book The Public Library: A Photographic Essay. He found their past and their present in his 18-year journey across America, learning their secrets and capturing their essence.

Interior, Evansville, IN, one of the public libraries that shows America's cultural heritage. (Image © Robert Dawson.)

He photographed hundreds of the 17,000 libraries in the U.S., traveling to 48 states. His odyssey confirmed his belief that libraries were symbols of democracy, and also were “great equalizers, tools of social justice to lift the poor and to provide equal opportunity.”

He clarifies his focus as “not just a study of architecture. It’s a look at the uses of libraries and their places in society—portraits of communities through the lens of the library. The public library in each of the places we visited spoke volumes about who we are as a people.”

Small library in Roscoe, SD, one of the public libraries that shows America's cultural heritage. (Image © Robert Dawson.)

The library in Roscoe, South Dakota, was built in 1932 by a group of civic-minded women.
It was one of the smallest public libraries in the nation.
© Robert Dawson

Through Robert’s photographs and thoughtful text, as well as the essays that are included in the book (including words from Barbara Kingsolver, Anne Lamott, Isaac Asimov, Amy Tan, Ann Patchett, and Bill Moyers), I came away with a renewed appreciation for this enriching part of our cultural heritage.

Yellow Queens Library Bookmobile, one of the public libraries that shows America's cultural heritage. (Image © Robert Dawson.)

I would especially like to see a sequel featuring the dedicated librarians. Anne Lamott describes these central characters as trail guides, capable of teasing out enough information about what someone is after to lead him or her on the path of connections.

Looking to the Future

I also came away with a commitment to making sure libraries don’t disappear. Robert saw much of this danger in his travels.

“I have always thought of public libraries as beacons of hope, and it saddened me each time I came upon a library that had been destroyed, either through natural disaster, neglect, or local economic collapse.”

Smallest library, now closed, Hartland Four Corners, VT, one of the public libraries that shows America's cultural heritage. (Image © Robert Dawson.)

The reality is sad. Libraries are suffering from budget cuts every day, and many are closing. As librarian Dorothy Lazard says in her essay in the book, “libraries are the last outpost of community space.”

Although the lessons (and memories) were many for me in exploring the vastness of the public library system, the importance of public libraries in today’s society remains clear. My true Oh, I see moment was best summarized by T.S Eliot.

“The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man.”

We should not let this valuable part of our cultural heritage die.

Here is more information about The Public Library: A Photographic Essay and Robert Dawson’s other photographic projects. To learn more about the authors who contributed to this book, see websites for Isaac Asimov, Barbara Kingsolver, Anne Lamotte, Bill Moyers, and Amy Tan

The Library of Congress has acquired all of Dawson’s public library photographs as a historic record.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Meredith Mullins 4 Comments

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