I have been thinking about sea level rise for a long time but only recently took a more detailed look at exactly how humans and other species might interact with rising waters. It’s going to be complicated. Not just the forced(“managed”) https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2008198117

retreat from the edges of the sea of entire urban centers, but all the contamination of waters we will leave behind as we flee and the saltwater intrusion into freshwater aquifers. Then there will be the tangles of other species negotiating purchase in the shifting landscapes as sea creatures move inland and land creatures mix it up with humans in ever tighter population clusters.

I think it’s important to face, feel and embrace the rage, terror and exhaustion that is part of our present reality. That doesn’t mean we’re helpless and should give up. It does mean we need to expand and honor our capacity for humility and empathy, including for how exhausting this all is.

This summer, I will teach two in-person workshops about my trigger point theory and how to apply it, one in the Pyrenees, France for CAMP and one on Vinalhaven Island, Maine. Both will be in pretty idyllic venues for contemplation.

Saturday evening, I was terribly sorry to receive the sad news from the Virginia Tech curator, Robin Scully, a close mutual friend of Suzi Gablik, of her passing at the age of 87, not that old by today’s standards. I expect there will be some sort of public event because her work was so important to so many in the artworld. I hope to honor her then.

I come to the shore for answers about how things fit together. My mind starts as a blank canvas. I am interested in all kinds of edges and boundaries- between disciplines, peoples, languages and between habitats. An edge is what defines the space inbetween where we may find our interdependence with all other life. Between habitats, ecotones define where species negotiate space. The edge that has preoccupied me more than any others since 1989 is the ecotone at the edge of water that advances from the sea onto the shores of this island. My studio is 3’ from deep water and looks out on Narrows Island. For 32 years, I’ve sat in the same rocking chair and meditated on where the tides come in and out on the rocks as the light constantly shifts and mutates before my eyes. My question is, how can art best respond to the forces determining ecological change around the globe?

All of history is storytelling. I’ve recently been taken by the new book on history as storytelling by Richard Cohen. This past weekend, even as the tragic story in Ukraine continues to unfold has been awash in the religious narratives that have been so pervasive and powerful in our world for so long. This is a good time to remember how devastating or inspirational a story can be as a means to organize data, determined by who gets to tell what story with what outcome.

I feel reduced to being another witness to another holocaust.

I hated leaving New York City. It was wrenching but perhaps necessary for now. My personal "explanation," to friends, that it was all about the numbers, didn’t Hailing from Australia, Glenn Albrecht recently wrote on his FB page, “From Earth Emotions” (2019):

"I am fully supportive of experiences such as "forest bathing" (Shinrin-yoku) that give back to the body the elements it needs for physical health, for example, enhanced oxygen levels. I do this at my property at Duns Creek. The subtle combination of trees, running water, wind and birdsong, all combine to give my body what it needs to rest and recuperate its energy."

This week I will see spring twice. Spring is hope, like snow is joy. I always crave both. There was scant, only wet, evanescent snow in New York City (NYC) this year and I missed snow on Vinalhaven Island, Maine. At least in Maine, I know snow is a likely certainty to return. Snow is no longer a certainty in NYC. Despite climate change, the joy of snow is still a promise in Maine, at least for now and spring is still a certainty everywhere, bringing promises of joy along with hope.

Please join me Wednesday night for a fragment of The Blued Trees Opera, embedded in my talk for Philadelphia Contemporary: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/museums-of-the-21st-century-aviva-rahmani-and-li-sumpter-registration-297330863617?keep_tld=1

On the first day of spring, the sentient world is holding its breath as the devastation in Ukraine grinds on. In this essay by Thomas Freidman, he outlines why Putin’s plan D may be on Europe’s doorstep, “If Putin’s plans A, B and C all fail, though, I fear that he would be a cornered animal and he could opt for plan D — launching either chemical weapons or the first nuclear bomb since Nagasaki.”