For my creative response, I created a water ritual score, which could be done by an audience member or another artist.
Water Ritual Score: Confluence
(1) Gather some water from a local body of water, preferably one that has personal, geopolitical, or historical resonance.
(2) Hold your bottle of Salaach river water in your hands. As you hold it, notice what images come up -- of natural beauty, personal memories, news images, etc.
(3) Hold your container of local water in your hands, again noticing what images come up.
(4) Pour the two vessels of waters into one container. As you do so, imagine the histories, memories, and images of the two bodies of water mixing, meeting, blending, and submerging in each other.
(5) Use the mixed waters to nourish a plant, either indigenous to this soil or a migrant plant (transplant).
(6) Watch the plant grow and continue to care for it.
I did this score myself with water from the San Lorenzo River, which as you all know, was formerly the site for the last Chinatown in Santa Cruz, and water from the Salaach, the border between Austria and Germany in Salzburg.
(1) Gathering Water
(2) Salaach
I remember dipping an amber Nalgene bottle into your waters, the icicle-like sheaths of water falling fast from the dam, algae slipping between toes. Round smooth river rocks, sunlit skies, waters meandering green and blue, feet teasing, talking, fighting with each other. How close the other side of the border, how seemingly effortless the crossing, un-policed. Stones gathered in rings, charred stone. Blackened vestiges of campfires lit by refugees, small fires of hope, re-homing, unbelonging.
(3) San Lorenzo
(4) Mixing Waters
password: lorenzo
Water Ritual - Confluence
(5) Nourishing Life
I used the Salaach and San Lorenzo waters to nourish a small bunch of wildflowers gathered from the banks of the San Lorenzo. They included California golden poppies, flowering fennel, and more. The water and the bouquet smell of licorice.
Water Ritual Score: Confluence
(1) Gather some water from a local body of water, preferably one that has personal, geopolitical, or historical resonance.
(2) Hold your bottle of Salaach river water in your hands. As you hold it, notice what images come up -- of natural beauty, personal memories, news images, etc.
(3) Hold your container of local water in your hands, again noticing what images come up.
(4) Pour the two vessels of waters into one container. As you do so, imagine the histories, memories, and images of the two bodies of water mixing, meeting, blending, and submerging in each other.
(5) Use the mixed waters to nourish a plant, either indigenous to this soil or a migrant plant (transplant).
(6) Watch the plant grow and continue to care for it.
I did this score myself with water from the San Lorenzo River, which as you all know, was formerly the site for the last Chinatown in Santa Cruz, and water from the Salaach, the border between Austria and Germany in Salzburg.
(1) Gathering Water
(2) Salaach
I remember dipping an amber Nalgene bottle into your waters, the icicle-like sheaths of water falling fast from the dam, algae slipping between toes. Round smooth river rocks, sunlit skies, waters meandering green and blue, feet teasing, talking, fighting with each other. How close the other side of the border, how seemingly effortless the crossing, un-policed. Stones gathered in rings, charred stone. Blackened vestiges of campfires lit by refugees, small fires of hope, re-homing, unbelonging.
(3) San Lorenzo
today you were sandy, summery, overgrown with yellow
flowering fennel, pink spires, the bees crazy with heat and pollen. a redfaced man asked me for a quarter,
blessed me when I said no. the
river was higher today, the stones of the riverbed all underwater. I remembered the swollen brown winter floods,
tree trunks drifting fast and dangerous, onlookers gaping from the concrete
bridge. across the way, a group of
latino men lounge on blankets. I think
of the working class Chinese who lived and played on the riverbanks in the early 1900s, of who is seen as suspicious, now vs. then.
(4) Mixing Waters
password: lorenzo
Water Ritual - Confluence
I used the Salaach and San Lorenzo waters to nourish a small bunch of wildflowers gathered from the banks of the San Lorenzo. They included California golden poppies, flowering fennel, and more. The water and the bouquet smell of licorice.
Intermixed Poem (as per Shy's suggestion in the comments):
This is really lovely. I love the poetry combined with the photos and video, and the imagined live gestures. Very rich. Would be wonderful to do this. I have no idea what body of water I could work with in the LA area. The one thing that comes to mind if regarding the LA river and the heavy gentrification that is happening along it. I had this major *feeling* with mixing the two waters. Not sure exactly how to describe it but its like I wouldn't want to mix the two waters but keep them separate! What does that mean?!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback! I'd love for you to do it, if you're interested. The LA River is an amazingly politically loaded site, and its channelization (ie, paving it over in concrete) has long been a bone of contention, environmentally, since it sends all rainwater to the ocean instead of absorbing into the earth. There's some info here: http://lariver.org/
DeleteAnd how interesting you didn't want the waters to mix! Is it because you feel like their histories and stories should be kept separate?
I enjoy the do it yourself feeling of the instructions, so that anyone can do it anywhere at any time (like we could each do it as a PNC assignment). It is simple yet loaded with possible meanings. I appreciate the way both poems set us up to experience the surroundings of the river and then leaves us with the memory of former inhabitants. I wonder what a third poem, that intermixes the first two poems, might look like? The idea of using the waters to nourish something is beautiful. When I first read it I too had a slight reaction to the idea of the mixing of the two waters (though not the actual mixing, like it was for Meena). Could that feeling come from some weird desire to maintain "purity"?
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea, Shy! I added a "intermixed" poem to the end of the post as per your suggestion. Let me know what you think!
Delete