David O'Hara

In my hard drives I have half a million photos.

The camera opens and closes a little window and grabs all the light it can in that moment. Small points on a sensor each play their role and grab their little bit, registering intensity and wavelength. Processors tag each bit of measured light with coordinates on a two-dimensional plane, framed by straight lines and right angles.

And this all seems normal to us because we have done it so often.

We do not think about the lines and angles and coordinates even though our own biology does not perceive the world like that.

We have two eyes, resulting in binocular vision with depth perception, 3D images; the camera has only one eye. We have eyes able to see motion in part of the eye and precision in another. And we have a visual cortex that makes some sense of all of this, and sends that sense on to connect with what we hear, feel, smell, taste. All our body’s senses come together in a “common sense.”

Here I hold this mussel shell in my hand. It is semi-fossil, meaning there is no living tissue left in it, at least none of the tissue we thought of as mussel. It has many other lives on it, bacteria and algae and other microscopic organisms. What I see is nacre, lustrous and pearlescent. I also see that it is covered by black-and-brown flaking skin, and I wonder if I should peel it off to show the true nature of the mussel shell. This is what we have done with buttons, after all.

And with gemstones: we cut off the outside to make the inside shine for eyes like our own. We approach the rough natural world with lapidary tools, murdering to dissect, dissecting to find gems. We cast aside the organic and the soft tissue in hopes of finding the hard and enduring treasure inside, the diamond in the rough, the pearl in the shell, the treasure inside the tomb. Never mind the body; we want only the things that glisten.

Nate has jars of soft tissue on his shelves. I am here for a class on unionidae, and I am overwhelmed by how little I have noticed before, by how much there is to see in such a small space. Few who come to his museum ever look at that soft tissue; most of Nate’s students are there to learn the shells to make money by digging holes for bridge footings, or by consulting with those who need to comply with the law.

What does it mean to contemplate this mussel shell in my hand? Let us begin to consider what it is that I hold. We ask questions like “What is it for? What good is it? What does it do? Can you eat it?” We think with our guts, with our appetitive soul.

But we can also allow ourselves to be silent, and to consider what the shell says about itself.

The question “What is it for?” begins to feel foolish and rude.

This is hard work, asking questions of a mute shell! How can I hear its replies? Where to begin? I sometimes begin by sketching it. To photograph it is to let the camera “See” and to register the coordinates of pixels smacked by photons. To sketch it is dissatisfying because it never looks like the thing we see unless we are very good artists.

But if I sketch I slow down, and I let my hand holding the pen tell my eye whether it is seeing well or only seeing what it thinks it sees. I am no longer trying to move at the speed of light, as I hope my camera will do.

We often think we see what we do not see; we see some light, and then we fill in the gaps. We all have blind spots, and we no longer see them. And then we think we are not blind. We are all above average by our own estimation.

Gaylord Schanilec engraved “Unionidae Upstream” and “Unionidae Downstream.” Two engravings, framed together as one. As I look at this on the wall of the gallery I see: here is a threehorn wartyback; here are two semi fossil shells of different sexes. Maybe giant floaters. I am aware that most people don’t know the word “unionidae.” Most will not see that these three semifossil shells are two species, two sexes. They look like gray lumps. Until you see the lines.

I am starting to see. I look for the growth lines, and I know: they are not like tree rings, showing seasons of weather; they show seasons of growth, following the nutrients of the stream rather than the hours of sunlight. Similar, but different. Shanilec’s Rapidograph pen has traced the lines very finely indeed.

But this is not about making art; it is about making my mind start to see its own unseeing. It is about reminding myself that I see bits of light, fill in the gaps, and believe that what I have synthesized unthinkingly is now something known. I glance at the world and think I now own a fact. My ocular vision is my truth, or so I am tempted to think.

But the shell in my hand as I stand by the river has only begun to speak. It is not just speaking itself, showing its layers, showing its death. It is also asking me questions about itself: why am I here, in your hand? Why am I open, my muscles and connective tissue gone? Why am I only bones, in this riverbed? And then: how long ago did I die? Are there more like me? Am I a fossil? Am I extinct?

And now the harder questions: Why am I holding this shell? What drew me to it? Why do I think part of it is lovely? What does that tell me about myself? What role did I play in its death? How are our lives connected?

And the slowness of contemplating these questions begins to reveal me to myself.

Made a few sketches in my journal this weekend. One sketch was after a paragraph about migration to my city and its growing population.

The other sketch was about government corruption.

I didn’t intend the images to line up like this; both were just images of birds I saw while hiking this weekend. But the migration paragraph was followed by the image of migrating waterfowl, and the corruption paragraph was followed by an image of a woodpecker looking for insects in the branch it was perched on.

At lunch with an artist friend the other day we started talking about watercolors and he told me he had something to show me: his new Escoda brushes from Pablo Rubén. The brushes are beautiful by themselves, but he tells me they’ve changed the way he paints. He showed me some of his recent work and I can see the difference already.

This came up because we were talking about the inflection point at which it makes sense to buy better tools. I have often resisted buying better guitars until I feel I have played the ones I have to some kind of limit. But it’s hard to know: is this a limit of the instrument, or do I need to pay a different kind of attention to how I play?

Pretty sure I’ll be buying better watercolor paints soon, but for now I’m going to stick with my cheap brushes. (I mostly use brushes that have plastic reservoirs so I can quickly paint while hiking.)

Still, I’m making a note that it might not be long before I need to get some better brushes, too.

Last year I led a private, online discussion of Thucydides. Amazing experience. Thinking of starting up again.

Prairie.

This is a lovely book, written by my friend and co-author, Matthew Dickerson, and illustrated by Matthew Clark with simple but enticing woodcuts and sketches.

Dickerson is a computer science professor, but also a poet, musician, novelist, and wonder-walker in this wonderful world we share. And he is attentive to nature and to his own spiritual journey in a way that invites readers to attend to our own inner lives and the world around us.

A study of one of the oxbows on the Big Sioux River. I sketched this yesterday from a photo I took this past weekend.

Two recent pages from my pocket sketchbook. One is from last week’s trip to the Paha Sapa (Black Hills); the other is from this morning’s walk along the Big Sioux River.

Aside, I am impressed by the way micro.blog generates the alt text. Makes me feel like a better artist! Thanks, @manton !

Sketching is a good practice for me. When I take a photo, I am instructing the light sensor to take in light. But when I sketch, I am forced to ask myself: what do I actually see? This is very different from asking what I think I see. And the sketch shows me whether what I see comes close to what I think I see.

A little more about Bio-Itzá, by my favorite photographer. Click the video link to hear my late mentor, Reginaldo Chayax Huex, speak Itzá. He was one of the last people to hear his ancestral language spoken by monolingual Itzá speakers, his parents.

A great place to visit in Guatemala: www.bioitza.org/en

I just returned from a weeklong visit there, a place I’ve been to many times over the last two decades. I highly recommend it!​

They can arrange local homestays, language lessons in Spanish and the endangered Itzá language, rainforest tours (with or without overnight stays), visits with local artisans making sustainable use of rainforest products, wildlife viewings, and visits to local sacred sites like Tikal and Yaxhá.

While you’re there, you can also take in Arcas animal rescue center (your visit will help to fund their efforts to save the scarlet macaw and other animals endangered by trafficking) and the beautiful island city of Flores​. If you’re feeling even more adventurous, reach out to Fundaeco’s Francisco Asturias and let him bring you deep into the forest to see jaguars and to get to know the work Fundaeco is doing to conserve one of the last remaining extended rainforests in Central America.

​Here is Asturias’ instagram, which is a good way to reach out to him:

And here is more about Arcas. They welcome volunteers! You can also learn about through the PBS film, “Jungle Animal Hospital”

All of these photos were taken by me during this visit. It’s a beautiful place with wonderful people.

A few faces from the Paha Sapa (Black Hills) of South Dakota this week.

After almost a month of travel for research and collaboration, I wanted a few days in the mountains to write and reflect. Here’s a little of what I saw.

It probably seems odd to drive so far to unwind after long travel but the Paha Sapa feels like a “thin space,” where my mind gets quiet and my heart opens wide.

(Images: bison and pronghorn antelope on short grass prairie.)

Seven or eight years ago I made a cultural blunder while working in rural Guatemala.

When I bring my students to Petén, I tend to rent a room in a local home. The woman who steers the ship of that home, Merlina, is a small woman with tremendous strength of heart. She has nine children, and most of them have children of their own. Some have grandchildren. Merlina knows them all, prays for them all, and provides food and shelter for any who happen to be living under who roof or visiting for a while.

When I stay with Merlina and her family, I spend time playing with the kids, and I usually bring some small gifts to share. One of Merlina’s granddaughters, Yessica, has often drawn pictures for me, and I save every one of them in the pocket at the back of my journal. Every now and then I take them out and look at them, and admire the way she has grown as an artist.

When Yessica was an adolescent, she was plainly showing some autodidact artistic talent. She was also approaching the end of her time in free public schooling. I wanted to foster her talent however I could, so I gave her a new set of Staedtler pencils I’d brought for my own work. Six pencils of varying hardness, in a shiny metal tin. She was delighted. I left Merlina’s house that day feeling pretty good about the gift, even though it meant I’d have a smaller art kit to work with for the rest of the month that I’d be teaching abroad.

That evening when I got home Yessica was sad. Merlina had taken the pencils and shared them equally among all the grandchildren. I looked around and one was using a pencil to poke the dog. Another was using a pencil to dig holes in the dirt floor. I was very surprised and not very happy.

I told Merlina that those were special pencils for artists like Yessica, not ordinary pencils. Merlina patiently explained to me that in her culture it was up to her to provide for her family, and to ensure that everyone shared the good things that came into the household.

She was right, of course. I really wanted to help Yessica, but I was so focused on what I wanted for an individual that I was not thinking about different cultural norms, nor on the flourishing of the whole family. The next day I walked into town, bought a lot of common pencils and pens, and gave them to Merlina to give to her grandchildren as she saw fit. And I asked if she, as the head of the family, might consider setting aside the six Staedtler pencils for Yessica. She appreciated the gesture, I guess, and agreed to set them aside.

Funny thing: Yessica’s mom also heard the conversation, and, when she discovered that these pencils were special pencils, she decided Yessica was too young for them, so she set them aside for several years.

Seven years passed between my last visit to Petén and my visit two weeks ago. I’ve been homesick for that place, but COVID and a variety of other unexpected circumstances have kept me from returning until this winter.

For a variety of reasons I no longer teach that particular tropical ecology course, but I’ve stayed in close touch with some of my conservation partners in Petén. This winter my wife and I saw a window of opportunity and decided to fly down. In all my years of working in Guatemala, Christina had never been able to join me. This year, the stars aligned.

Naturally, we stayed at Merlina’s house again. Yessica is an adult now, and I’m happy to say she’s still making art. I opened my journal and showed her some of her youthful pictures. She laughed and covered her face. “I’ve gotten much better,” she said. “Let me show you.”

She retreated into one of the back rooms and emerged a minute later with hands full of watercolor paintings on canvas, a sketchbook, and loose pencil drawings. As I paged through the sketchbook my eyes filled with both wonder and tears. She’s so good! Without formal schooling in art, she has found online resources that have helped her to learn about value, form, texture, and color. Some of her sketches were almost like photos; others were deep abstractions that invited long examination. It filled my heart to see what she has been doing, and how she has been growing.

And then she showed me one more thing: the Staedtler pencil tin. Two of the pencils are gone, presumably worn down to nothing. A third is a mere stub. The others show signs of long wear. The tin has a patina that comes with frequent handling in a rainforest climate. Her mom held back the pencils until she thought Yessica was ready for them, and then handed them over so that Yessica could continue to grow as an artist.

I have to admit I cried a lot when I saw the art and the pencils. And then I reached into my art kit and, with Merlina’s permission, gave Yessica a new set of pencils and pens to work with, and a new pencil case to hold it all.

After I got home last week, Yessica sent me some photos of the work she has been doing recently, as an employee of the Ministry of Culture and Sports: she has been making indigenous-themed murals in her community. Which is to say: she’s working as an artist. It’s not her only work, but it’s part of what she does, and she does it well. My heart is full, Yessica. I’m so glad to see what you are doing, and I hope your art continues to grow and to fill other hearts in the community around you.

Dogs.

These are my son’s and daughter-in-law’s dogs. They watched us as we said goodnight in the driveway after a visit this evening. I liked the light, and their faces.

Spent part of February in Aysén, Chile. Kept seeing things that made me want to slow down, like these two bumblebees. The orange one was drenched with rain and clinging to a thistle, so I’m not at all confident in its ID, but I think it is a bombus dahlbomii, which is endangered and indigenous. It is also called the Patagonian Bumblebee. Only saw this one. The other was abundant and easy to find. I believe it is bombus ruderatus, which is imported and invasive, brought to South America from Europe in order to pollinate red clover. I feel fortunate to have see the endangered bee. I looked for more of them but never saw another.

I don’t do much product review anymore (I had an outdoor product review blog 25 years ago when I was an outdoors and fly fishing guide) but every now and then I find something that really impresses me. This Pelican marine phone case with lanyard (pictured) and I just came back from a week of rafting in Aysén, Chile. I used it every day on white water and felt very confident in the lanyard and case. The touchscreen works well enough and the photos were crisp and clear. I used this with my iPhone 14 Pro, which is also in an Otterbox case. Didn’t have to remove the Otterbox case to fit into the Pelican pouch, though it was snug. The pouch is nicely padded with sealed air pockets that protect the phone and that would probably help it float, though I did not test that out!

I’m between airplanes so this will be brief: check out @jthingelstad and his Weekly Thing.

So grateful for people like Jamie who help me keep learning a little more every day.

Left to my own devices on airplanes I often turn off the screen and think about mathematics, ecology, or both. Often I think with pen and paper, giving me a record of questions to look into when I get home.

Related to my previous post, here’s something I wrote about the time I invited a beggar to lunch. The conversation did not go as I thought it would. It went even better.

Originally published in Sojourners online:

When We Choose To See Them

The Good Samaritan story and loving our neighbors.

A short piece of my conversation with John Meyer on his Leadmore podcast:

www.linkedin.com/posts/joh…