Petroglyphs carved into marble in the now of millennia. Peoples living, moving, north south east west. In the eastern shadows and waters of the Sierras west of Death Valley. Many carvings destroyed in the white settler era by mining the marble stone. Thought gestures of exacting desire — carving, mining — an extraction, intention, abandon. Dust and starry skies prevail.
Rock Art Oregon
Considering contemporary landscapes and our visible surroundings with an eye to the invisible: rock art, signs, murals, markings, expressions, and random impressions.
13 February 2025
25 January 2025
TUFA
Tufas, like mineral flowers, emerge, protrude, and fragment as a lake recedes. Bud, blossom, seed, left high and dry. Tufas congeal in crenate patterns, constellated, crystallized, caverned, calcified froth.
The petroglyphs on this boulder appear as emblems of desire, as invocations, perhaps entreating sexual fecundity, necessary replenishment. In these landscapes as marvelous, saturated dream-space, I am reminded of Max Ernst’s frottages and textured paintings. The boulders' location is proximate to the justly famous, oldest dated petroglyphs in North America, also carved on tufa. Those dated petroglyphs look to the east over Winnemucca Dry Lake, east of Pyramid Lake - both remnant lakes of pluvial Lake Lahontan. The Winnemucca petroglyphs were determined by Larry Benson and associates in 2013 to date to at least 10,500 years ago.
CODA
We all belong not just to our present moment, nor to the place in which we find ourselves at that moment, but to a far greater system of changes which have occurred throughout Earth's history and will continue to occur long into the future. The present convulsions of the planet are the result of the whole Earth system trying, in response to terrible pressures, to shift itself, often violently, into a new set of alignments, and we are part of those changes. We are the weather, and the water; we are the lionfish, too, changing our environment as we are changed by it. This realization can be humbling. and it can be hopeful too. We belong to the whole timescale of history. —James Bridle, from Here Come The Lionfish, Emergence Magazine, Vol. 5: Time (2024)
Below: Max Ernst: The Gray Forest (1927)
04 January 2025
MATRIX
The sea, turned to stone, is laughing
a last laugh made of waves.
— Federico García Lorca
SERPENTINE. Coastal boulder in Oregon; various deep carvings.
SCHIST. Deep groves forming ovals and circles on schist boulders embedded in the rolling hills east of the Russian River CA.
SANDSTONE. Deep cups and carvings on boulder once along lower Rogue River; twice removed, now in a park.
MARBLE. Golden sun softened by the sand of time, eastern California.
GRANITE. Cupped and carved boulder near the Pacific ocean, California.
FELDSPAR. Crystals embedded in an igneous matrix with swirling carvings, on a wave-worn boulder, edge of a desiccating pluvial lake in Oregon.
BASALT. Completely patinaed carvings on this chocolate boulder in eastern Oregon.
ANDESITE. A massive andesite glacial erratic in NW Washington, carvings obscured by mosses and leaves.
In the beginning all was Molten. Caressing, congealing Creation arrives. Stone appears, birthing Earth. Restless Movement brings Life to all things. Beings wake, blink, consent. Carrying stone, placing stone, carving rock in the Telling time of prayer. The carving of the petroglyph, a fleeting phase in the life of the stone. Yes, the stone, alive. Actor and witness. Change, the constant forgiving. In the faraway end… all is Molten.
NOTES
— Federico García Lorca (Spanish, 1898-1936) from the poem Moonbow.
— Photos by DB. Future posts on this blog will be devoted to each of these petroglyph, emphasizing eco-context, silences, and duration through time and beyond. With gratitude to the unknown carvers.
CODA
Is life immortal? Don't ask life,
for it doesn't even know what life is.
We are the ones who know
that one day it too must die and return
to the beginning, the inertia of the origin.
The end of yesterday, today, and tomorrow,
the dissipation of time
and of nothing, its opposite.
Then will there be a then?
will the primigenius spark
light the matrix of the worlds,
a perpetual re-beginning of a senseless whirling?
No one answers, no one knows.
We only know that to live is to live for.
— Octavio Paz (Mexican 1914-1998)
from the long poem Response and Reconciliation
(trans Eliot Weinberger)
17 December 2024
Erractics: Three Puget Sound Petroglyph Boulders
Surging tides, flowing water, wave action, and, in one case the physical relocation of the boulder, continue to reshape the markings and how they are seen and imagined. Researchers have also affected physical change through rubbings, castings, and removal of barnacles - indeed, barnacles for decades have encrusted the Agate Point boulder (below) to near obscurity. (First photo: backside looking toward the sound)
Below, one of three boulders, originally from Harstine Island, called the Love Rock by the tribe, is now a centerpiece of the Squaxin Island Tribe’s Veterans Memorial near Shelton.
beyond my hear; my mind
flows out to the water,
soars above the whale’s path
to the wide world’s corners
and returns with keen desire;
the lone bird, flying, shrieks
and leads the willing soul
to the whale-road, and over
the tumbling of the waves.
— The Seafarer (Anglo-Saxon)
— Photos: DB, several years ago during tidal explorations. Defined by tides through time, the clarity and power of these faces and eyes and other forms convey a compelling presence … living as they ever have.
— Jeanette Winterson in Art Objects Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery (1997)
Erratic Boulder.
to settle on,
on a ledge, poised
on the brink.
Don't you value your own success?
— Olav H Hauge (Norwegian)
27 November 2024
HART :: FIRE
All significant concentrations of rock art on the Refuge were outside the fire zone. 186,000 acres of the Refuge were protected from the fire. These photos show examples from some of the several concentrations of rock art on the Refuge.
The fire resulted in the closure of 82,000 acres of the Refuge until June 2025. Details:
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/hart-mountain-national-antelope
https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2024-08/wildfire-damage-forces-parts-oregon-refuge-remain-closed
Map shows extent of the fire.
NOTES—Gaston Bachelard, from Chapter One: Fire and Respect in The Psychoanalysis of Fire (1938, French)
—Fire effects on rock images and similar cultural resources (2012). US Forest Service Report available as a PDF: https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/40430