An excursion........

While I could have been packing up the last bit of flotsam to move my 'place'......

I decided to travel with dear ones

for a change 

of pace...

This past weekend brought me to the far eastern plains of New Mexico and the cities of 

Portales and Clovis......
and Eastern New Mexico University

for an amazing conference of a very few esteemed historians and place keepers

who put together a wonderful selection of thoughtful essays on the daunting task 

of  preserving

New Mexico's Heritage

as I sat

and absorbed

this conference,

 the land,

it's historic significance, 

and
observed

blatant social, political, ecologic and funding concerns...

frankly.....

my head was spinning slowly...

As my fellows were impassioned with saving valuable historic sites.... 

I remained

 enchanted with 

decay

Wabi Sabi and dusty roads...........

One thing's for sure.........New Mexico is laced with long dusty roads........forgiving the east west I-40 sister to Route 66....and the North South I 40......and the divine I 65 that got me to Memphis this summer.....but once off those interstates.......it is wide open nothingness........tiny towns, many deserted....leave ghostly memories behind.....

This is the place where pickup trucks are left to bask in sun far beyond their usefulness...and adobe buildings are left to crumble like sand castles on the beach. This creates a beauty very similar to traditional Japanese esthetics.....influenced by the Shinto religion.....the awareness of nature and Buddhism....the belief that all things are considered to be either evolving from, or dissolving into nothingness......Wabi......transient and stark beauty......and Sabi......the beauty of natural patina and aging.

The Hermitary has a nice reflection titled Wabi and Sabi: the Aesthetics of Solitide HERE........

How I spent my summer.....

I can't believe it's the middle of September!  

Summer has flown by............

and with all my travel and study.....I am amazed I was able to capture some time

for making...........

inspired by the wabi sabi spirit of this countryside....

old trucks left to weather.....tin roofs.....rusty bits....

and of course

crosses 

of all shapes and sizes....