Bighorn Stone Ghosting

 

"Lichens are symbiotic assemblages of species: filamentous fungi and photosynthetic algae and cyanobacteria. Lichens are themselves a kind of landscape, enlivened by their ghosts." --Elaine Gan et al 

Marking on stone extends the landscape in this country west of the Warner Mountains, Modoc County, California.  Once home to Bighorn who became extinct with the arrival of white settlers with domestic sheep. The native wild Bighorn are not immune to the Euro-bacterial diseases.  Past attempts to reintroduce Bighorn from Canada, via an introduced herd in the Lava Beds have failed. A particular kind of ghostly landscape. 

Below: This stone lies close to the ground near the complex of petroglyphs on the low rock rim (below and pictured above.). Click to enlarge.

 

Another rock rim in a nearby canyon reveals a two-legged ghost magically floating near two dream-like bighorn poised in the timeless now.  Lichen marking stonescapes in the endless passing of seasons. 

—Opening quote referring to the work of Anne Pringle, from the "Introduction to Ghosts on a Damaged Planet." In Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet, editors:  Anna Tsing, Heather Swanson, Elaine Gan, and Nils Bubandt, 2017.

Ghosts Now and Then

"Forgetting, in itself, remakes landscapes, as we privilege some assemblages over others. Yet ghosts remind us.  Ghosts point to our forgetting, showing us how living landscapes are imbued with earlier tracks and traces."  —Gan et al.

Above this rock outcrop, this wall of stone, an ephemeral playa lake pulses. In the High Lakes country of Lake County.  The playa, decades ago dammed by the big cattle outfit operating in Warner basin. This pooling of the playa enabled cattle to graze into the summer.  

Once I hiked in as some fellows, rifles poised, were leaving the playa in a quad, heading back to the highway. I discovered a freshly shot marmot on a rock rim above some petroglyphs on the stones edging the playa. 

Another time, a coyote dashed out of hiding out into the middle of the playa, turned around and barked at me. Then trotted on their way. Each being — in death and in living — conjures desire and absence. All ghosts now. You, too, and me, how so? 

How do we count time out here?  Still the nights and days come and go. As do the spiky stars and the luminous moon. Clocking what we don’t know.

"As artists, we conjure magical figures, weave speculative fictions, animate feral and partial connections. We necessarily stumble. And try again. With every mark, difference haunts and struggles to appear anew." —Gan et al.

—Quotes from the Introduction to Ghosts on a Damaged Planet. In Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet, editors:  Anna Tsing, Heather Swanson, Elaine Gan, and Nils Bubandt, 2017.