​This blog entry has been bouncing around in my head for several days.  The essay you are about to read was written in November, 2016, and published in the December, 2016, and the January, 2017 issues of Borealis: The Monthly Journal of Northern Michigan Mensa.

                                           ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
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Traveling from Port Townsend, Washington into the Olympic Peninsula's rain forest is more of a cultural experience than you might expect.  This historic, artsy town is known for a uniqueness that attracts tourists, escapees from Seattle's congestion, and those who love boats and boating.  Its proximity to rain forest environments is certainly one of the highlights of any tourist's visit but other surprises will prove to bring the traveler back for other visits.

On my most recent trip to Port Townsend I had tea with Bill Porter whose mother came from Calumet in Michigan's Copper Country.  Having a Yooper for a mother is not exactly a claim to fame.  However, my having lived in Marquette for thirteen years struck a chord with him.  Bill's "claim to fame" is the body of translations and writings that he has created.  He is a widely read Buddhist scholar.  Most people outside Port Townsend know him by his pseudonym "Red Pine".  He was leaving his Port Townsend home for his familiar China in two days.  I'm not sure if that is the primary reason he invited me to his home the day after I wrote or if it was because we shared the same last name.  He mentioned both as relevant facts. 

Only a few days later I attended a book presentation and signing which was the featured event of an annual library celebration.   Speaking before an audience of 500 was a local hero who resides part-time in Port Townsend, Daniel James Brown.  His fame is the result of writing a book about a local hero of the past, Joe Rantz, and his teammates, members of the most highly acclaimed University of Washington rowing team from back in the day when rowing was the premier sport of private college preparatory schools and of universities.  Not only Brown’s writing but his understanding and popularizing of the cultural underpinnings of Joe’s and his team's success are now, as a result of his book, the talk of northwest Washington.  When the movie appears, the entire country will be aware of the back woods boys who stunned the elites of California and the east coast with their victory over Hitler's favored rowers in the 1936 Olympics.  An hour-long PBS special about the team aired earlier this year but aficionados are waiting for a movie about the Olympics to match 1981’s “Chariots of Fire”.  Brown was asked to write the story by Joe's daughter, not too long before Joe's memories were lost to antiquity by his death, except those captured in Brown's notable book.

These personalities and others, famous and not so famous, found in this area provide human interest stories within the context of an unusual natural environment.  Those familiar with the north woods of the upper Midwest would find the features of the nearby rain forest as intriguing as are the stories of famous local personalities.

Every Boy Scout raised in the Midwest has been told that moss grows mostly on the northern-facing sides of trees.  And that it is important to remember this if one's compass is lying on the table at home.  More often than not, in a rain forest entire surfaces of tree limbs and trunks are covered with heavy, thick moss.  More moss than a Midwesterner could imagine.  Nature magazines can't do the proliferation of moss justice because they cannot convey the aroma of pungent, damp moss.  The forests are thick and the skies often overcast so you cannot always see the sun to fix your direction.  You definitely need to stay on the many trails in the Olympic National Park and not leave that compass at home.

If one travels far enough into the rain forest west of Port Townsend, one can find their vehicle gaining 500 feet in elevation from US-101 while heading to the Sol Duc Hot Springs deep in the rain forest of Olympic National Park.  It's said that your nose will sense the strong smell of sulphur which will alert you to the springs' proximity but I visited in late October with the truck windows closed.  

Visitors don't actually sit in the hot springs.  Rather, refrigeration is used to lower the temperature of spring water which is pumped into concrete lined pools.  When I visited, the pools' water temperatures were set at 108, 102, and 94 degrees.  The fourth pool was set at a rousing 54 degrees because its water didn't come from the springs.  It was piped from the nearby river and cleaned in the process.  Approaching the communal pools you will find relaxed, swimsuit-clad bathers on even the nastiest of days.  On my visit there were several guests speaking Japanese when ice cold late-fall raindrops fell through 38 degree air hitting the tops of our heads.  Was I the only one wondering if these drops hadn’t actually turned into tiny icicles?  This onslaught of icy water hitting our heads while our bodies steamed in 108 degree water resulted in many shared laughs along with many acknowledging smiles and intercultural murmuring.

However, the most striking cultural phenomenon to startle and please me was something beyond these experiences.  It was listening to the radio while driving west on Highway 101 toward and past Port Angeles.  As one leaves Port Townsend, it is comforting to listen to the lyric mantra "KNKX, the new 88.5; YOUR connection to jazz, blues, and NPR news".  But the signal fades as you pass Sequim (pronounced Skwim) which is between the two Ports. Searching for another NPR station takes one to a stronger KNKX signal from a different tower, two dial clicks away at 88.9 on the dashboard’s digital screen.

Surprisingly, and before you realize it, you're not listening to "All Things Considered" at all.  Rather, you notice joyful foot stomping music reminiscent of the Cajun music found in New Orleans. It reminded me of great concerts in an old high school auditorium in Marquette featuring the French Québécois/Canadian musical phenomenon “La Bottine Souriante”.  Then all of a sudden NPR has returned after the twisting 101 takes you along the inner curve of one of the Olympic Mountains so that you again receive KNKX's signal.  When you pass the concave curve and emerge into an open convex expanse, rhythmic voices from the CBC station reappear.  This time there are repeated chants with a minimum of musicality.   My musically uneducated ear prompts me to label these chants……French rap?  The same refrain, over and over again.  First loud, then soft, then louder again.  You hear no discernible words or progressive melody line.

You are hearing this music beamed from Canada's Vancouver Island, just across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  Actually, it seems to be more rhythmic shouted mantras than it was the snappy, bright, harmonious music you were listening to six minutes previously.  Where did the La Bottine Souriante-like band go?  The 20 miles of slow speeds into and out of the sharp curves that follow the shoreline of Crescent Lake provide an unpredictable cacophony of French music alternating with NPR political commentary.  That is, until you get further from Port Angeles and closer to Forks, Washington and the cut off to the mineral springs, when the NPR station can't be heard at all.  You adjust to this and find that you actually prefer the French music.

The return trip to Port Townsend provides the same interposing of cultural disharmony.  Following the lengthy parboiling in the hot, mineral spring water, the French rap with its related melodic cousin fades into or away from KNKX’s jazz and blues which has replaced NPR news this late in the day.  This auditory pleasure occurs until you are almost to Sequim.  By that time, you find yourself being unable to draw any French at all out of the radio.  On to normal life with normal sounds, driving on sometimes straight roads back to civilization as you knew it before you began your adventure earlier in the day.

                                                                                           by John Porter,  November 9, 2016

Photo #1 above:  View of the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort within the Olympic National Park.
        https://www.nps.gov/olym/hot-springs.htm
  https://www.olympicnationalparks.com/things-to-do/mineral-hot-springs-pool-at-sol-duc-hot-springs-resort/
Photo #2 above:  Somebody beat me to my ideal entrepreneurial undertaking...in Forks, WA, just outside the National Park near the beginning of the road leading to the Hot Springs.  Featured at this business are "messages in bottles" dropped in the Pacific Ocean in Japan and retrieved from the Pacific Ocean coast, on the shore of the Olympic Peninsula.
Photo #3:  Moss proliferating in the National Park a few miles south of the Hot Springs. 

Except for the first two years of my life, and for six months in 1952, I lived in “Downriver Detroit” communities until I left for college.  In 1952 my dad was obligated to be active in strike activities due to his working as an electrician at Great Lakes Steel.  He couldn’t travel to wait out the strike like the three of us to my grandparents’ home in Omaha.
 
“Downriver Detroit” is in my blood.  This was brought “home” to me listening to my son Jeremy singing  “Downriver Song” on Short’s Brewing Company’s stage in Bellaire last weekend.  “Jeremy Porter and the Tucos” had a gig there on July 22 and another one the next night in Traverse City’s “warehouse district.”  
 
My parents lived at 645 S. Crawford Street in the Delray section of Detroit, from 1946-1948.  This area is now being plowed under for construction of the entrance/exit ramp of the new bridge to Windsor, Ontario.  After the arrival of my sister in 1948 the four of us moved to a brand new WWII tract home in Riverview, 8 miles south of Delray.  My earliest memory in life, no doubt because it was such a momentous day, took place in 1948 traveling with my parents and new sister to the Lazy-Boy Showroom on Dixie Highway north of Monroe.  We were on our way to purchase a console television with an 8 inch screen.  As a two-year-old I loved watching the goldfish in the store’s indoor fish pond!
 
Ill-fated dreams of upward mobility (see the “Self Employment” article in the “Vocations” section of this website) led us with hope and promises to Grosse Ile in 1957 when I was in sixth grade.  My father, an electrical contractor, had done work for a bachelor, Southwestern [Detroit] High School teacher.  He was a philatelist, a stamp collector, of some renown with a secure walk-in safe containing his vast and valuable stamp collection in the middle of the Grosse Ile home.  Thanks to his hobby, I own a cane he gave me to start a collection.  The cane was used by President Grover Cleveland who was a personal friend of the postmaster in Trenton on the island’s mainland.  The postmaster in turn was a close friend of our stamp collecting predecessor. 
 
During the summer of 1964 I worked as a counselor at a boys camp near Alpena.  Only on the drive back to Downriver did my mother inform me that the family had sold our home on the island earlier that summer.  She, the matriarch of the family, had decided to move to Gibraltar where she could maintain, at this location legally, a small antique shop out of the home.  She was afraid to tell me of the planned move until the last possible hour because she thought I would hate her for her decision to move.  I understood all the financial reasons for the move.  Nevertheless, she was generally right about my emotional reaction.  Gibraltar is still “Downriver” but it is light years distant from the affluence of the residents and the opulence of the homes on Grosse Ile.  When I got back to campus that fall, I changed my official address during the registration for classes to my girlfriend’s address which was the address of the Alpena County jail.  That’s true, but it’s a different story. 
 
Jeremy sang his “Downriver Song” last week on the 22nd.  I had heard the lyrics before while listening to the band’s CD.  Hearing it live from the stage in the downtown of northern Michigan’s Bellaire sung by my son…had a huge emotional impact on me.
 
“Downriver Song”    
 
Well the story starts many years ago
The jobs came on as the river flowed
The foundry floors were stained with blood
And the boots were caked with river mud

And my old man worked his paper route
Because his old man couldn't be put out
He still goes back every now and again
To see what's changed, what's in the wind

He's not sorry that he left there
He's not sorry that he's gone
Downriver Song

The years went on and the jobs went south
The bars filled up, my old man got out
The streets filled up and they emptied again
They stayed alive when the cash got thin

They're not sorry that they left there
They're not sorry that they're gone
Downriver Song

They don't take to strangers well
They don't got a lot to sell
Oh the stories I could tell
The stories I could tell

Eventually I was on those streets
With a guitar and songs, not the foundry heat
I never passed any judgment there
Everyone I knew was always fair

My old man returns now and again
To see what's changed, what's in the wind
And I make it back myself, sometimes too
And I call `em my streets, tried and true

I'm not sorry that I'm left there
I'm not sorry that I'm gone
I'm not sorry to have my roots there
I always felt like I belonged
I felt like I belonged
Downriver Song
                            
             Written by Jeremy Porter    (Lyrics found at:   http://www.thetucos.com/lyrics.php#cDR)

​My homes in Detroit, Riverview, and Grosse Ile.  “Downriver” is one of those words that has morphed from an adjective, i.e. “downriver Detroit”, into a noun.  See Wikipedia.

​Photo #1:  Facebook post image by Jeremy Porter
Photo #2:  Photo by Noreen Porter
Photo #3:  Photo by Kristen Porter
Photo #4:  Photo by Jeffery Gower

​Sometimes I’m asked how to have one’s photographs or scanographs considered for exhibitions.  A clearinghouse for exhibition sponsors exists in CaFE’:  www.callforentry.org.  Anyone can request periodic emails announcing fine art competitions that will be received well in advance of entry dates.  Directions are found at the CaFE’ website.  This system is used for all kinds of art competitions offered by small, nonprofit organizations, by exclusive, private galleries, and even by cities and states.
 
For example, the longest operating art fair in Washington is the Kingston Arts Festival.  Kingston is a tiny community on the Puget Sound.  It is best known as one of the few ports offering ferry boat service to Seattle.  Wait times during busy summer weekends for vehicle transport can reach two hours.  As with other ferries, “walking on” is easy but if you want or need to take a vehicle, that’s a different matter. 
 
I had two photos juried into Kingston’s Art Festival during two successive Festivals when I lived on the Olympic Peninsula.  Neither photo sold but that is not uncommon for this particular art fair.

​“End of the Line” is one image I captured through an Amtrak window.  It is one of my favorites.  After seeing the scene for the first time just west of Shelby, Montana, I was determined to have my camera ready when it came into view on the next Amtrak trip through Montana.  Actually, I captured images the next few trips going east and going west.  On my last trip, I was saddened to see age and weather had taken their toll on the structure and the structure had become merely a pile of boards.  I suppose this was bound to happen so felt gratitude that I was able to capture the scene before it became impossible.

​When I first visited Iargo Springs years ago, there was a vertical dirt path to the Springs that presented quite a challenge.  Since then the U.S. Forest Service has installed a 294 step stairway down to the Springs.  (https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/hmnf/recarea/?recid=18990)
The stairway makes it a cleaner journey but just about as difficult.  On my first trip down the stairway to the Springs I kept reminding myself that the exertion necessary on the return trip to the parking lot would more than double the effort of climbing the 134 steps to the tallest lighthouse on the Great Lakes that the public can climb, the New Presque Isle Lighthouse in my home community.
 
At the bottom of the stairway, landscaping borders and a log wall engineer the descending water to fall in such a way that erosion is minimized.  This area is about thirty feet from the bank of the famous AuSable River into which the Springs empty.  The “Iargo Springs” image juried into the Kingston Art Festival has been significantly cropped.  This adds to the visual effect of capturing “one moment in time” as the swiftly moving water falls in front of the stationary wall.
 
The Iargo Springs have been revered for centuries by indigenous groups.  It offended my sensitivities to see someone walking within the man-made waterfall barriers near the AuSable in order to fill plastic jugs to take some of the water home.  But who am I to judge?  Many consider this water emerging from behind the earth’s surface to be pure and holy.    

​My first books were tiny…about 1-2 square inches.  Using leather for covers, stitching for bindings, and poetry for text, they met my intention to express visually the feelings I expressed less formally.  They were given away as sentimental gifts, eventually never to be seen again…like those who received them.  I should have taken photos…of the books! 
 
After I moved to Traverse City I met a “Renaissance Man”.  He was so named by media personalities who covered him and his “Deep Woods Press:  books with exquisite design and intaglio printing” (deepwoodspress.com).  Chad Pastotnik became a friend and co-steward with me of Michigan Nature Association’s “Cedar River Nature Sanctuary” which is located across the river from his home and studio. 
 
A book binding course offered by the Jordan River Arts Council (on Main Street in East Jordan, Michigan) taught by Chad was fascinating and engaging.  We created three different books using different binding techniques, Japanese binding techniques as I recall.  They were such works of art I never added text or images to them.  They are very much appreciated but still sit unused in my bookshelves until I find suitable contents for their interiors.
 
Fast forward to 2018 when the Bainbridge Artisans Resource Network (on Bainbridge Island, across the Puget Sound from Seattle) offered an “accordion book” class.  With all the resources of the Book Arts Studio (later to be combined with the Printing Studio) readily at hand, it was a pleasure to explore this advanced book creation challenge.  I created one accordion book without images or printing inside and began another. 
 
Both books were completed earlier this year, at my home in Michigan.  What motivated me to finish the books was a lingering, overdue promise of a birthday gift.  That renewed effort prompted me to check out the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center.  Wow…amazing place.  In April 2021 I took a “Book Blackouts as Meditation” class offered virtually by KBAC which I hope to replicate at the Grand Lake Library in the future.  In August, I took a “Diamond Fold Book” virtual class from KBAC.
 
In November 2021 the KBAC issued a “Call for Entries” for an exhibit in 2022 entitled “The Illustrated Accordion [Book]”.  I could not ignore this call and entered “Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore – Haiku”.  It is one of the two accordion books I began in Washington and was selected for the exhibit.  It features pages which collapse as do the pages of accordion books.  The pages also include the intriguing feature that they rotate.  On one side of each of the eight pages appears an image of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (that appear on various tourist publications) and on the opposite side of each page is one of eight haiku poems I wrote while backpacking in the National Lakeshore in 1997.
 
The KBAC photos of my book follow.  To see all the accordion books displayed during the February-April exhibit, go to:  https://kalbookarts.org/events/2022illustratedaccordion/.

This blog entry provides further rationale for focusing on a sense of place in constructing a memoir and is a follow-up to the July 14 blog entry.  This “A Sense of Place” is adapted from my anticipated memoir introduction to LABYRINTHINE JOURNEYS: AN AUTOGEOGRAPHIC MEMOIR.

​“He not busy being born is busy dying.”
              - Bob Dylan in “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”

My first exposure to the labyrinth was at the Dominican Sisters’ convent in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  I was attending a workshop led by Don Goergen, O.P., a friar who was living in a Dominican ashram in Wisconsin at the time.  A canvas labyrinth created for indoor use was introduced as a part of the workshop.

 The first time I experienced an outdoor labyrinth was on a short vacation to my in-laws’ winter home in Delray Beach, Florida, where I also experienced a Tea Ceremony for the first time at Morikami Gardens.  Since then, I have “walked the labyrinth” (the colloquial expression for labyrinthine practice) in at least ten other locations, all outdoors. 
           
The labyrinth in Presque Isle, Michigan is very close to the home where  I  live.   During   winter months for a few years, I watched over the Episcopal boys camp where I had been a camper for four years and on the staff for three.  I enjoy walking the camp’s labyrinth, especially when the campus is empty of people, when one hears only sounds of nature.
           
It was only after I began researching the history of labyrinths that I began to seriously consider the metaphorical meanings of labyrinthine walking.  I spoke with one of my community’s resident Episcopal priests to obtain insights that led to more research and to today’s focus on labyrinthine walking as symbol for life’s various pursuits and experiences.
           
Labyrinths are quite different from mazes, although the general public often confuses the two.  Mazes have dead ends, labyrinths do not.  And since I have not yet hit a dead end in my life (except in a corn maze!), I find labyrinthine walking a more fitting metaphor than a maze would ever be for my life’s journeys.  This life’s journey has been dominated by various and sundry pursuits and like labyrinths has entrances and exits.  It has been characterized by searching, learning, finding, processing, and transforming. 
           
This [autogeographic memoir] will document those various life pursuits which in retrospect seem most significant to me now.  Each has different levels of intensity, with different routes toward and away from explorations at different times of my life and in different locations.  These pursuits have provided many opportunities for “being born”. It will be apparent to the reader that eight platforms of discovery and learning…eight categories, each with distinct places and notable events, provide the context of geography as an influence on my life and my life as an influence on selection of those geographic places.
​
                    Places of work             Places of luge involvement
                    Places of residence    Places of natural resources preservation and protection
                    Places of learning       Places of Indian subjugation – reservations
                    Places of art & craft   Places of exploration, introspection, and intention –
                                                                       botanical gardens
 
For using geography as a focus for one’s memoir, I owe a debt of gratitude to Rob Sullivan, retired geography professor from UCLA, who leads a City of  Port Townsend Library workshop about autogeography from which I benefited greatly.  
           
The use of map pins on each category’s map(s) might illustrate that “place” has an enormous influence on events in one’s life.  However, the places marked on maps herein will indicate only the “what”, and “where” of life.  The equally significant back stories behind each pin provide the “when”, “why”, and “how”.  I found these stories emerging from my memory and my subconscious by the placement of each pin.  The stories, some already published while others rest in my imagination, will provide the grist and substance, the emotional underpinning, of the significance of place in my life.  

​I was captivated when I first saw a scanograph.  My partner and I spent a lot of time at the secluded Lake Michigan beach at the base of the Port Oneida area of Leelanau County.  The closest community center was Glen Arbor, a vacation destination unlike any other, in my opinion.  We visited Glen Arbor whenever visiting that hidden beach, seemingly a world away from Traverse City.   
 
“Synchronicity” seemed to be the most intriguing art gallery in Glen Arbor.  On one visit scanographs created by Kim Kauffman (https://www.kimkauffman.com) were on display. We communicated with Kim and arranged that I would pick up the exact piece desired at Mackerel Sky Gallery of Contemporary Craft on M.A.C. Avenue in East Lansing when I was in the area on business.
 
My interest in scanography took off from there.  Kim provided basic information and I couldn’t resist taking one of her workshops at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts.  I created two scanographs at that workshop which were exhibited in the halls of the KIA and both of which have subsequently been juried into photographic exhibitions or fine arts exhibitions elsewhere.  One of them is a visual memoir of two trips to the Dachau Concentration Camp near Munich.  It is perhaps my most complex scanograph and for that reason probably my favorite.
 
To create a scanograph one uses a flat bed scanner.   Flora, found objects, paper shapes, really anything that is not too heavy for the scanner’s glass plate are gently placed on the scanner’s glass plate.  Because of my admiration of Kim’s early work, all my first scanographic images were of flora like hers were.   I usually gathered these items for scanography at my cabin near Mancelona.  Because they would have wilted rather quickly during the two hour drive home in the summer, I had to transport them home in a cooler.  However, one of my favorite images, called “Impermanence” shows exactly the wilting effect summer heat can have on flora.
 
If a heavy object is to be used in the image, one places a separate, stronger pane of glass above the scanner glass that rests on something other than the scanner.  This presents a photographic challenge because the further away from the scanner glass the objects are placed, the blurrier the image will be.  Any distance more than 3/4ths to an inch away from the scanner glass will show gradations of blurriness.
 
When the placed objects seem ready to scan, a cardboard box larger than the scanner’s glass is placed over the scanner.  If one can find a cardboard box with dimensions the same as the scanner glass’ frame, it is ideal.  If not, a larger box will suffice and portions of the sides are cut away so as to leave corners as “stilts” alongside the scanner.  The inside of the box will have been spray painted flat black. 
 
One clicks “scan” to create the image.  Easy enough!  But rarely does the image on the monitor screen appear exactly as one imagined it would look.  At that point the items that are resting on the glass are rearranged and a second image is created.  One continues to rearrange the items until the resulting image is worth clicking “save”.  Naturally, sometimes this is with the fifth “scan” click, or the tenth, or the twentieth, or….you get the idea.  Creating an image that is acceptable whether it is what you expected it to be or not, takes patience and expertise and luck and a willingness to explore aspects of an image never envisioned.  

​Photos 1 and 2: Optional box arrangements for use in creating scanographs
Photo 3:  "Quillwork", is a scanograph image that was temporarily on display at the KIA showing porcupine quillwork that I created.  I was taught quillwork at the Intertribal Center in Newberry about 30 years ago and from additional native teachers after that initial training.
Photo 4:  "Leaves from a Garden" is an image constituting a visual memoir of two trips to Dachau Concentration Camp near Munich that was displayed in the KIA.  This image is actually composed of four separate scanographs which were layered onto and into each other.   The zen garden shown in the photo is located in the famous "Englischer Garten" of Munich, only 21 km (13 miles) from Dachau.  The contrast of peace and tranquility one feels at the garden compared to the horror one feels at Dachau is unavoidable. 
Photo 5: "Impermanence", scanograph of wilting flora

​It might be appropriate to begin to link some of this website’s Category and Topic subjects together at this point. In my opinion, one’s life can reflect the most spiritual integrity if there is continuity within its disparate parts rather than appearing to be a series of compartmentalized life events.   
 
This belief was brought to my consciousness most poignantly during discussion with a Buddhist priest following zazen, a Zen meditation session. I’m pretty sure she has no memory of the significant lesson she imparted to me because the discussion was casual and not part of dokusan.  Dokusan refers to a private session between a Soto Zen priest and a zen practitioner that occurs between sessions of zazen.  I was the only practitioner who showed up for that scheduled session of zazen so we had almost unlimited time to explore a few topics.  For some reason the topic of Zen retreats arose and she probed the intentions I had expressed in that regard.  I’m sure the term “taking meditation to a higher level” escaped my lips…OR…..was contained in a question she asked.  I am sure there was reference to a trip I made to the southwest when I was lay ordained into the Zen Peacemaker Order and formally became a Buddhist in 2000.  That lay ordination could be seen as roughly equivalent to a confirmation ceremony in an Episcopal church which I had undergone 45 years before our discussion.
 
In my opinion, most lessons I received in Christian churches took the form of a person in authority preaching to me.  This would include subtle and overt directions as to what to believe and how to behave.  On the other hand, the Buddhist lessons I have received from several different priests have never included preaching.  Rather they have taken the form of a series of questions, the progression of which focused their importance on the procession of my own spiritual formation experiences.  This priest’s questioning led me to realize that the Buddhist “Four Noble Truths” and its “Eightfold Path” should not be compartmentalized into different levels of devoutness.  The observation of the Eightfold Path should be embodied in one’s everyday life events and not necessarily “heightened” during zazen or even sesshin, a term for a Buddhist retreat.  Each day this lesson imparted to me reaches my consciousness and that likely would not have happened without the questioning by that priest.  I probably shared one full hour of my life with this priest, likely no more or no less.
 
Therefore the formation of this aspect of my consciousness was dependent on my making the effort to participate in zazen at a small Buddhist center in the middle of a residential area of one of the Midwest’s largest cities seven hours distant from my home.  I simply, but with intention, filled the morning time between my airport motel residence and that afternoon resuming my duties as a Michigan Delegate to the National Presidential Nominating Convention of one of our country’s political parties.
 
Autogeography is predicated on the fact that one’s history is intertwined with, and is determined directly or indirectly by the places one lives temporarily or permanently, while the places one lives temporarily or permanently are somewhere between influenced by or determined by one’s history.  The outline of my memoir embodies the autogeography perspective.

Locations of my practice and/or sesshin participation, 1998-present

​My first formal introduction to photography skills was provided by a couple from Omena, Michigan, who formed the organization “Saving Birds Thru Habitat”.  The classes took place in 1998 in the Art Center across the street from my office in the five-story State Office Building at the Traverse City Commons.
 
The most memorable thing I learned in those classes is now obvious to me.  Readers of English text read from the upper left hand corner of a page to the lower right corner.  A visual tracking of visual art, such as a photo or a painting, that follows this direction will generally be less interesting to a viewer than a photo that draws one’s attention in the opposite direction.  For an example, look again at the photo of the Hurricane Ridge Trail on the Introduction page of this website.
 
Ten years later when I was a few weeks from retiring in 2008 I attended a photography lecture by Wayne Pope.  It took place in the Leland [MI] Library, as I recall.   At the conclusion of his talk, Wayne encouraged those in attendance to participate in a several day workshop in Presque Isle across the state.  Wow.  This was exactly the location where I was to move in a couple weeks.
 
It proved to be a fantastic workshop and I learned more than I could have hoped.  Further, Wayne has become a personal friend and a great photography mentor.   I might have remained a photography novice were it not for Wayne’s encouragement and advice. 
 
Before I began learning from Wayne, I had become aware of scanography.  This is the art of creating digital images using a flat bed scanner that I will explain in a subsequent blog post.  When one of my earliest scanographs was juried into a Besser Museum Fine Arts Exhibition in 2009, Wayne was there to capture the moment.  It was the first time a photo or scanograph of mine was publicly recognized. My gratitude for Wayne’s photography assistance and his friendship is beyond measure.  

​Notes on seven archived photographs appearing under the FINE ARTS title   
 
1.  I visited John Lopez’s studio in Lemmon, SD on a return trip to Michigan from Portland, OR.  What a fantastic experience!  Definitely off the beaten path, Lemmon is 90 miles southwest of Bismarck, ND (as the crow flies) and 125 miles northeast of the Black Hills in South Dakota.  This little town has a fine small museum (with includes examples of Lopez’s metal art) and enough “Old West” photography subjects to last a couple days.  Maps are available which direct visitors to the many locations of Lopez’s art in the outdoors of the West. 
 
2.  Andy Goldsworthy is my favorite artist!  I was glad to see one of his arches at the Frederick Meijer Garden.  My personal favorite work of art created by Goldsworthy is “The Wall” at the Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, NY.  I am still looking for my photos of it taken several years ago.  There are hundreds of them displayed on the Internet. 
 
3.  I have visited "Chihuly Garden and Glass" in Seattle several times.  You will not regret making a journey to wherever in the country his work is displayed.  And while you’re in Seattle take advantage of reduced fares if you choose to take an elevator to the top of the recently renovated Space Needle while also visiting Chihuly’s gallery on the same day. 
 
4.  ODS, the Olympic Driftwood Sculptors……what a fun group in which to belong!  Members reflect all ages, all ability levels, and all motivations for belonging.  Take a class from the group’s leader and certified “Driftwood Sculptor”, Ms. Tuttie Peetz!  It is interesting (to me, at least!) to note that the Seattle area has  ~TWO~   Driftwood Sculpting clubs.  The expected protocols are quite different between the two groups.  For examples, one group insists on using only wood bases for the art while the other group permits use of any material, including metal and stone.  One group allows inlays of substances, e.g. ground coral, for decorative purposes while the other group finds this anathema to a more exclusive wood-only art.
 
While on a visit to India, Washington’s Lt. Governor presented to the Dalai Lama one of Tuttie’s sculptures as a symbol of Washington’s dynamic arts communities:  https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/news/from-sequim-to-dalai-lama-tuttie-peetzs-driftwood-gifted-during-international-trip/.  I had the honor of attending two of Tuttie’s classes and assisting with the ODS’ annual "Art Show" conducted in Sequim, WA, in conjunction with the Sequim Lavender Festival.  My driftwood sculptures……ahh…..uhh……not yet completed. 
 
5.  Port Townsend has been named the “Paris of the Pacific Northwest” by Sunset Magazine.  Residents and tourists agree!  It is a mecca for learning, creating, and exhibiting fine arts of all types.  An example: memoir writing.  Rob Sullivan, retired geography professor from UCLA, teaches a six week course in “Autogeography” at the City of Port Townsend Public Library.  I attended this course and it jump started a memoir using a model different from the usual autobiography forms. 
https://ptpubliclibrary.org/library/page/create-your-own-autogeography-six-week-workshop

For a few years I spent one month in Port Townsend twice per year and I long to return. 
 
5.  I have been intrigued by moss ever since I learned that the Boy Scout premise that moss primarily grows on the north side of trees is a myth.  A visit to Olympic National Park where the rainfall in different parts of the Park varies from 40” per year to 140” per year proves that moss can grow prolifically and completely around trunks and limbs of trees.
 
My go-to expert is “Mossin’ Annie” Martin, author of The Magical World of Moss Gardening.  I consulted with her while in Brevard, NC, south of Asheville, a few years ago.
 
How are Chinese gardens different from more well known Japanese-style gardens?  Visit the "Lan Su Chinese Garden" in Portland and find out.  While at it, visit the "Innisfree Garden" in Millbrook, NY which combines characteristics of both Chinese and Japanese gardens.  Is the green in this photo moss or algae?  

I'll never forget my visit to the Lan Su Garden.  I have carried a Chinese coin I bought at its gift shop in my pocket every day for the last nine years.  
 
6.  Black and white photos are not usually published in calendars.  The Presque Isle Calendar of 2013 included my photo of the huge maritime chain on the February page.  A color photo of this scene was giving me a great deal of conflict.  That is, until I consulted one of my photography mentors.  She took one look at the color version and suggested B&W.  I Photoshopped it and that’s the way it has stayed ever since!