michaelbix's photostream

After centuries of carrying debris down from the upper reaches of the east hillsides (above Glendalough Upper Lake) the embankment has grown quite high where the stream takes a "u" turn.

Two old trees, I think an elm and an oak, help stabilise it.

2003 - Glendalough, Co. Wicklow, Ireland

Once, when visiting Glendalough's middle stream (above "St. Kevin's Oratory" and tumbling down the east hillside) I had a vision that the early monk-mystics baptised themselves in these pools.

So obsessed was I by this persistent vision that I entered the narrow cleft of a valley and began picking my way of the stream, stopping to visualise each increasingly inaccessible pool as a further step of "submersion" into the feminine earth.

The pools became mossier and deeper and more mysterious, and also harder to get to as one went higher... until the final and most daunting of all.. a "pool of total re-birth," was tucked into the middle of a cliff. There was no way to approach it without killing myself, but the glimpse I got was of the tumbling water entering a cave-like hole big enough for a person to squeeze into, foetal-like, as the roaring spray completely encircled the inside of that rock enclosure.

The only way to enter it would be to descend to it from above - by a rope... and I was sure that's exactly what they did as a final, perfect and full uniting with the Divine.

Delirious, I stumbled back out of the gorge where I re-joined friends who had taken the customary way up the hillside... on a pleasant inclined walkway safely guarded by an iron fence-rail. They pointed out to me that my pant legs were ripped and my own legs torn, my pants soaked with water and with blood. Ah well.

2003 - Glendalough, Co. Wicklow, Ireland

This very large granite outcropping was used by 18th-century settlers as a windbreak. There are two cellar holes in this leveled area to the southwest of the granite outcropping, near the summit at about the 360-metre elevation. Another foundation, large enough to be a community hall or barn, is up a rise just to the right. (Original file - 54MB)

A slightly distorted view of the town beach includes two walkers (one with child, one with dog). This bay on Vancouver Island's eastern shore connects to the Sansum Narrows (to the south) and Stuart Channel (to the north)... both ultimately reaching the Georgia Strait of the newly-designated Salish Sea. Mt. Maxwell on Saltspring Island is just a little left of centre.

This small waterfall, at a break in the forest not far from the first forest management gate, is part of the newly-establish Kokshilah River Provincial Park system in south central Vancouver Island.

The second and third-growth pines are quite dense here, but where there are level areas next to the road, co-management decisions led to the establishment of picnic and hiking areas accessible most of the time.

I explore the logging roads as much as possible within the constraints of property law... which make most areas of the mid and north island off-limits more than 5 kilometres from the coast except on weekends and in designated areas.

One would never have known this was Crown land obtained without full treaty agreement, and at that time under specific terms permitting logging... but now being sold off for real estate development as certain timber exploitation becomes unprofitable. My feeling is that if the original terms of use were to take to land (under questionable terms) for logging, if that original use can't be sustained then the grant from the Crown is invalidated. It's not available for real estate profit... it's available to be returned to First Nations.