The world we have known can never be the same. We can beguile ourselves with the vain hope that things will return to normal, forgetting that the world has always been in flux. Human evolution has been driven by geological upheaval, climate change and plagues. Mortal crises test us, like running a marathon. In the last week, four people whom we loved and admired have passed away. Calamities like COVID-19 remind us of the fragility of life and the durability of the human spirit. For the first time in the history of the planet, a unique intelligent life-form has been focused on a single natural disaster, in real time, at the same moment in time.
Making lemonade out of bitter fruit, these quotidian posts are offered as messages of hope, not just for our own survival, but as motivation to turn our attention to the world around us, to treasure what we had previously taken for granted, to draw strength, wisdom and compassion from deeper engagements with nature.
CROW’S NEST MOUNTAIN FROM COLD SPRING LANDING. Saturday July 16, 2016.
Located in the Hudson Highlands, an hour’s drive north of Manhattan, the village of Cold Spring was given its name by George Washington after refreshing himself at a nearby spring. In colonial times, the village was nothing more than a cluster of buildings by a river landing on the estate of Adolphus Philipse. In 1817, Gouvernor Kemble established the West Point Foundry just south of the village. For nearly a century, as the facility produced artillery-pieces and ammunition for the United States Army, the village grew into a town. Cannon tubes were finished, inspected, and tested by firing live rounds at Crow’s Nest Mountain, across the river. The rocky slopes are said to be littered with thousands of cannonballs and unknown quantities of unexploded ordnance. The infamous pirate William Kidd is said to have buried his loot at Kidd’s Plug, the rocky outcropping at the base of the distant cliffs. Putnam County poet George Pope Morris praised the mountain in verse:
“Where Hudson’s waves o’er silvery sands
Winds through the hills afar,
And Cro’ Nest like a monarch stands
Crowned with a single star.”
(Image and text were featured in the exhibition James McElhinney. Discover the Hudson Anew, curated by Laura Vookles. Hudson River Museum. Yonkers, New York. September 13, 2019 to February 16, 2020. Published also as a limited-edition in Hudson Highlands. North River Suite Volume One. Needlewatcher Editions. New York. 2018)
(A preview of SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER by James L. McElhinney (c) 2020. Schiffer Publishing).
Copyright James Lancel McElhinney (c) 2020 Texts and images may be reproduced (with proper citation) by permission of the author. To enquire, send a request to editions@needlewatcher.com