THIN PLACES

I've struggled a long time trying to articulate a theme for pictures I take.

I take pictures of landscapes, but I'm not a landscape photographer. I take pictures of nature... but that's so vague, one might as well say, "I take pictures."

I take pictures because I want to be able to share what I've seen. And the pictures I'm most proud of are the ones that reveal something about how nature works.

If this fellow is re-productively more successful than his counterparts, might our descendants one day share earth with bipedal beavers?

An early candidate for a photography exhibition theme was a phrase that my friend Bernadette shared with me. She's a big fan of 'river dancing' but her enthusiasm for Irish step dancing, in particular, has gradually generalized to all things Celtic and the phrase she shared was, 'thin places'.

"Heaven and earth, the Celtic saying goes, are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter." (See the article by Eric Weiner, Where Heaven and Earth Come Closer)

Saturday I hiked in the snow along Cold Spring Creek with the intention of seeing Tamanawas Falls. I suppose I could get all poetical and pretend like I was enraptured with the spectacle of the world waking up from winter, or marvel at how snow sits heavy but tranquilly in surrealistic configurations, unconcerned about its inevitable demise, or surmise how the hydrologic cycle and seasons contribute to erosion on the sides of a strato-volcano...

...but really I was freaking out because, as usual, I had timed this hike close to sunset and the snow that had been melting on the way in was spitefully turning to ice, and the Yak-Trax traction devices that had (at first) served me well on the way in were rapidly disintegrating, their rubber components evidently long past their optimal flexibility.

Heaven and earth may be three feet apart, but here it was beginning to feel like heaven was as close as my ability or inability to make a snow-cave with my bare hands and survive overnight if it turned out I wouldn't be able to walk out of here before dark.

The golden shafts of light that had dappled the cold blue snow on the way in were long gone by the time I set up the tripod for this shot. The traction devices were wrapped around my shoes in a fashion unintended by their designers. I rushed to make some exposures before I grew too chilled. Sadly, the mist that correlates with most waterfalls quickly turned what was supposed to be a lens into something more like a special effects filter. Many of the images were unusable. 

And so, there behind my tripod, I briefly kneeled before a scene that I found both beautiful and threatening. I realized I was in a situation where one misstep, one unforeseen circumstance, one bad decision, could change a short pleasant hike into a really embarrassing way to die...  

...which counter-intuitively, made me somehow grateful, just to watch...and listen...

Announcing...

"Earth's Crammed with Heaven."

Showing at

The Academy Theater Lobby
during the month of July

7818 S.E. STARK ST. PORTLAND OR, 97215

See a movie for $4.00 and as a bonus,
see scott's themed exhibition...

This turns out to be pretty hard to do...to describe my photography exhibition theme.

Most often it turns out long winded.

So, in an effort to make it simple, I'm going to relate an experience that got me interested in photography in the first place.

Hiding in the tall grass at the bank of a channel connecting two small lakes, a friend and I lay watching an industrious beaver tow a dressed log through the water to the foundation of its growing lodge. My friend was so close - she reached out mischievously and gently grabbed the log, and held it in place... and for an instant an increasingly irritated beaver engaged unknowingly in a brief tug of war before identifying the unlikely source of its frustration.  Becoming wise it scolded us by slapping its great flat tail on the surface of the water. It disappeared beneath expanding concentric ripples. In the distance, its kin also slapped the water, telegraph fashion, relaying a warning in a similar expanding network.

Moments like these seem to be... worth sharing.

I had been privileged to witness the culmination of nature's marvelous handiwork. In this case, a particular species of rodent - slowly crafted over 75 million years - performing remarkable feats of engineering.

It led me to the conclusion that I needed to get a better camera.

Because sometimes, you just stumble into places... or moments, where the world is beautiful... where the Earth is crammed with Heaven, and even a skeptic like me can feel blessings and grace... and perhaps taste for an instant what the world can be.

scott dietz

Images and text copyright scott dietz 2013

BEAVERS: Next of Kin

She Who Watches Over - S.W. Washington - April 2004

Human representatives often pride themselves for their uniqueness among all animal species. But the very things that make humans unique are probably extremely recent developments. Huge egos, large brains, and the physical apparatus required for effective speech seem not to have appeared in hominids any earlier than 500 thousand years ago.

pictograph / petroglyph? / whatever - S.W. Washington - April 2004

The ability to use these physical attributes is even more recent so that language and speech and the propensity toward symbolic thought can really only be thought of as new evolutionary experiments.

Even so, metaphorical or symbolic thinking does seem to go hand in hand with a level of consciousness that appears to transcend common animal existence. Consequently vast segments of humanity have been led to posit an additional, supernatural, god granted element (often referred to as the soul) associated with the human body. No other animal builds complex cultures and civilizations and therefore it is reasoned that humans must hold a position at the apex of evolution/creation. This assumption is often suggested in humanity’s sacred writings.

Renegade Cows - Mt. Adams - S.W. Washington - Sept. 2007

Ironically, one of the benefits to owning a soul is that it makes it easier to justify eating animals that don’t have souls.

Or it makes it easier to make hats out of them.

Willamette Falls @ Oregon City - Jan. 2006 (Click on the image to view a somewhat larger version)

We like to point to our technology as evidence for the power of our big brains, but don’t quite grasp that the end result is no better and often worse than what other animals accomplish with instinct.

Beaver dam @ Bybee Lake - Northwest Oregon - (Click on the image to view a somewhat larger version)

Beaver construction projects actually turn out to be beneficial to life.

For little mammals with no obvious language skills, beavers have an extraordinary list of engineering accomplishments. This dam is the first in a series of dams or locks that shape one of the inlets to Bybee Lake. This dam apparently controls the water level around the beaver’s home lodge (located in the upper right hand corner of the photo).

Below the dam, additional locks and secondary dams control the seasonal variation of water levels. Massive beaver dredging projects maintain an open channel to the lake, even in the summer.

Note how silt and sediments are pushed to the sides of the channels.

Beaver construction techniques utilize wood acquired from their extensive lumberjack operations as well as local mud and clay.

Beaver canal to the open lake.

Back door to beaver lodge.

Underwater tunnel system exposed.

Ambitious tree felling project

Tree harvesting.

Distribution of resources - overland and overwater.

Beaver infrastructure

Waterfront property.

It all raises a question. If a beaver can build homes, dams, locks, roads, tunnels and canals – if a beaver can harvest and transport timber – if a beaver can plan ahead and store food for the winter – if a beaver can safeguard his family from predators – how is it that a beaver isn’t actually conscious?

Maybe consciousness like our own is only a matter of degree – and not the divine impartation of a magical element.

Maybe one day, we will see clues that our fellow mammals are taking the first steps to human-like consciousness. Perhaps here we see evidence of the first beaver inkling of the ‘linkin’ log’ concept that will allow future beavers to construct log cabins instead of lodges.

Here we might see evidence for a developing sculptural sensibility.

The resemblance between this unfinished beaver sculpture…

…and this famous Egyptian sculpture is remarkable.

Possible beaver-made duck decoy.

Just screwing around, or are beaver scientists beginning to unravel the secrets of the double helix?

In Stanley Kubrick’s movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, a mysterious black monolith teaches a band of hominids to use tools. One of the hominids throws a bone ‘smashing implement’ into the air. The bone twirls up into the sky where it gradually morphs into a space craft. The whole technical evolution of our species is implied during the artful passage of a few seconds of celluloid.

Perhaps here in a similar fashion, on the bank of Bybee Lake, these implements mark the birthplace of beaver consciousness…

…as they struggle to come to grips with the ‘lever principle’.

Is this an example of beaver engineers using levers to raise rock obstructions out of their navigable canals?

Is this a beaver traffic signal?

Is this a beaver depiction (top left quadrant near the midline) of slumbering carp?

Is this a beaver rendering of James Dean?

Only time will tell.

Self-conscious Beavers

The way I understand it, we are all descendants of an original replicator. Our D.N.A. convincingly shows that almost all life is related. If we trace our ancestry through the evolutionary bush, it goes something like:

Initial mystery replicator – bacteria – sponges – worms – things with backbones – fish – mammals – beavers – primates – monkeys – hominids.

The inference here is that humans are simply animals, yet a resounding majority of humans prefer to think that humans must be much more than just animals and cite as evidence special human features like opposable thumbs, the ability to brew beer, self-consciousness, oral and written language skills, culture, and eternal souls.

Nobel laureate Francis Crick, in his book the Astonishing Hypothesis almost apologetically tries to explain that, “… “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” Mr. Crick knew he would have an uphill battle to fight in trying to share his ideas for a scientific search for what is often called ‘the soul.'

While researching chimpanzee social and family life, Jane Goodall has done much to cause a re-evaluation of what it means to be human. Unfortunately, there are not many wild chimpanzees in Portland to study, so I have had to make do with beavers.

As mammals, beavers and humans have much in common. We both change our environments to suit our needs (building dams for instance). The big question is whether or not either one of us do so consciously and with intelligence.

Cuneiform script. One of the earliest known forms of written expression

The rise of the first big human civilizations seems to be concurrent with the human capacity to communicate through the use of abstract symbols.

While not as refined as cuneiform script, this example of ‘incisor-scription’ (proto-beaver text) shows some similarity to Hebrew script (below).

Indeed, the beaver script is often found carved into long logs which very much resemble scrolls.

So far, I have had little success in deciphering the beaver artifacts available to me. This may be due to a possibly erroneous assumption that the 'incisor-scriptions' are an alphabet based system. Many examples of early human writing include systems based on pictograms.

When considered in this way, 'incisor-scriptions' provide tantalizing evidence that humanity may soon be sharing the earth with another conscious species.

Who can examine the central character in this phrase and not recognize the sensitive portrayal of ‘coyote’?

Skeptics may argue that finding meaning in the tooth-marks left by beavers is about as plausible as finding the face of Jesus in the patterns on a grilled cheese sandwich. We are after-all, pattern-seeking animals, often able to read meaning into situations that are bereft of meaning.

Still, the likelihood that other forms of consciousness may be hard for us to recognize doesn’t necessarily mean that other forms of consciousness are impossible. Would we recognize the evidence for alien consciousness if we saw it?

Beaver Totem at Smith & Bybee Lakes