Vulture Looking 151 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Hooded Vulture.
The Romance of Sky Burials….
Vultures are not the most romantic of birds. Most folks have a revulsion response to them. Certainly William Bartram’s fascination with them is unique.
Yet vultures have an interesting place in the history of Man. In Tibet, there are sky burials, where a body is left in a high place, on top of a mountain, and cut open for the Vultures to devour.
I spent yesterday preparing pictures and the reading from Bartram for this blog. After looking at picture after picture of vultures I was well tuned in. When I drove to work, crossing a bridge, there was a single solitary vulture sitting on the railing, overlooking the highway below.
Solitary Vulture 863 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail
Death and Rebirth flowing into one another…
In all the days I have driven to work, I have never seen a solitary vulture, much less one sitting on a bridge. A shiver of awareness ran down my spine. Vulture energy was saying hello to me, as I had been saying hello to vulture energy all morning.
So, in curiosity, I looked up the symbolic meaning of vultures on my favorite website, Shamanism: Working with Animal Spirits. Death and rebirth, the cycle of life is one meaning, so deep in itself, recognizing that death is necessary to life. Certainly the vulture knows this well, embodies it even, as a vulture cannot live without the death of other creatures.
South American Vultures by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series
King Vultures and Roasted Reptiles….
Its inherent in William’s writings about the King Vulture, now no longer found in Florida. (It died out in a series of freezes in the early 1800’s according to Francis Harper). The Native Americans burned the deserts to flush out the game, which they then killed for sustenance, for continued life. Then the King Vulture moved in to feast on the roasted reptiles left from the burn, for their sustenance, their continued life. So death and life are constantly flowing one into the other.
Vulture Wings 80 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series
New Visions and Purification….
New Vision and Purification are additional meanings. Since I am currently learning more about the business of my business, this makes lots of since to me. I am creating from my inspiration, as always, but channeling that more directly into how I am creating my business. I am creating New Visions for my work, and for offerings of my work, and getting rid of things that no longer work, a Purification.
Vulture Tree 83 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series
Prophecy of Encouragement.
Prophecy is yet another meaning. I have had no prophetic visions, or have I? After I saw the vulture yesterday, I dreamt I sold some art above and beyond what was available in my upcoming monthly offering. So I have had a prophecy of encouragement that I am on the right path with my New Visions and Purifications of my work and offerings.
How do you Perceive Vultures?
I offer here a Possible Perception of Vultures decorating a tree budding out in early spring. I took this image along the San Juan River, south of Lake George. From their perch, the can see afar, pulling in New Visions, Prophetic Visions. In their devouring of the flesh of the dead, they purify the environment, and take life from death.
Vultures Possible Perception 6064 by Beth Thompson
*Opening stanza from “The Slacks” by Trip Shakespeare.
Many thanks to the folks at The Center for the Birds of Prey in South Carolina, who allowed me into the enclosure of the South American Vultures in order to better photograph them.
William Bartram traveled south from Amelia Island to reach Florida and the St. John’s River. He crossed Fort George’s Sound, now called Nassau Sound to reach present day Jacksonville. In his words….
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Pelican Alights 2 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series
Pelican Alights!
We took a ferry across the St. John’s river to reach Fort George’s Sound. The pelicans of which William Bartram writes were in great abundance along the dock of the ferry. We did not shoot and eat one, but nevertheless I got up close and personal looks at numerous pelicans.
Driftwood Tritych by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series
Dead Tree Beach
The grove of orange trees no longer exists along the high promontory of Fort George’s Sound, now called Nassau Sound. Instead, we discovered a beach full of dead trees, perhaps remnants of Bartram’s Orange Grove.
Dead Tree Beach 934 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series
The driftwood beach was dramatic and lonely. Few people were out, and the day was dark and gray, threatening always to rain. Still, the driftwood was wonderful fodder for my camera, so I happily took pictures to my heart’s content.
Driftwood Possible Perception 6063 by Beth Thompson
On a high promontory….
To reach the driftwood beach we (my mother, my aunt and I) hiked through a beachside forest. The views deep into the woods were dark and mysterious; the views through the trees towards the sound were dramatic and melancholy on such a gray day. We discovered bay, palmettos, pine, live oak but no sword plants that Bartram so lovingly described as growing here.
Looking Towards Sound 764 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series
The Well from which William drank…
Down near the head of the beach I discovered a stream of water flowing into the ocean. Could the stream’s source be the fresh water Bartram refers to during his camp on Nassau Sound? Perhaps it was. I feel it was. The well from which Bartram drank…
Stream into Nassau Sound 990 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series
On the backside of Talbot Island, because it is indeed an island, not the mainland as Bartram reports, I found Sawpit Creek, which just might have been the place where Bartram and Mr. Egan camped. It has much changed.
Sawpit Creek 27 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series
Raucous roosting birds….
And I found the raucous roosting birds, mostly egrets, but with a great heron and some others promiscuously mixed in. The birds were easily startled, and flew from roost to roost, with some of my best pictures being of them taking flight.
Roosting 190 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series.
To the Great Tattoo Artist in the Sky….
Aunt Angie, Mom, and I re-crossed the St. John’s River via the ferry and stopped and dined at a lovely little seafood restaurant, before returning to Cow-Ford. At Cow-Ford the river is indeed a mile across, but it has much grown from a simple public ferry. Now called Jacksonville, the city hugs the water.
A couple of years ago my old roommate, Mitchell Atkinson passed on to the other side. A tattoo artist extraordinaire, I believe he was getting creative with clouds when I took this image of Cow-Ford, the great tattoo artist in the sky.
Jacksonville 309 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series
* Opening stanza from “The Slacks” by Trip Shakespeare.
Here is the Crying Bird, and two species of Spanish Curlews, from our faithful observer and documenter William Bartram…
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Florida Limpkin 368 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
Ephouskyca and Tarzan!
The Florida Limpkin no longer flies in great groups about the San Juan River in Florida. Its primary food source has diminished, apple snails. So William Bartram’s Crying Bird struggles to survive. A rather lack-luster bird, the most extraordinary thing about it, it’s cry. So thus the Native Americans named it Ephouskyca, or Crying Bird, for its distinctive cry. According to my guide on the San Juan River, Captain Gary of Blue Heron River Tours, that cry made it into Tarzan, as a sound of wild Africa, but the Limpkin’s voice is actually a sound of wild Florida.
Crying Bird Possible Perception 6061 by Beth Thompson. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
Spanish Curlews in Maple 222 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
Juveniles and Adults
The two species of Spanish Curlews are actually one species, juveniles and adults, of the White Ibis. The juveniles are brown, as they grow older more and more feathers turn white.
Juvenile Ibis 102 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
Spanish Curlews Possible Perception 6062 by Beth Thompson. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
Pensive, Melancholy, Wood Pelican…
Bartram’s description of the Wood Pelican, or Wood Stork as it is now called, is dead on. A very solitary and melancholy bird, we saw only one on my week of journeys down the San Juan. An endangered species, in some protected areas making a come-back of sorts however.
Wood Stork 199 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
The Pleasures of Solitude
I can relate to a point to the Wood Stork, in that I like to be solitary. But for me, being solitary is about connecting to inspiration, connecting to Source Energy, and myself. My times of solitude center and balance me, so that I can move with grace when I connect to the greater world about me. Not that I don’t think deep thoughts when alone, sometimes I do, other times I think happy ones.
Sparklers by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
My Favorite Thing!*
Lately I have been practicing thinking like a dog—My Favorite Thing! Getting to write this blog post—My Favorite Thing! I got pumped up after an inspiring call last night, and took pictures of myself with sparklers—My Favorite Thing! While I was completely alone (except for Luna, my dog—My Favorite Thing!) these pictures are more about connection and joy and play and awe—My Favorite Thing!, than the Wood Pelican’s melancholy pensiveness—My Favorite Thing! Enjoy! My Favorite Thing!
Self Portrait with Sparklers by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
a writer-photographer reads Kublai Khan on her iPhone in the Wal-Mart breakroom?
She contends that the poem sings not of Kublai Khan, but rather disguises…
…an ode to William Bartram and his Travels.
Sunny Spot of Greenery by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
A Stately Pleasure Dome…
Let’s start with “a stately pleasure dome did decree”. William, some years prior to his Travels, had a plantation on the San Juan in Florida. Whether Coleridge knew we know not, but if he did, a plantation transforms easily into a pleasure dome, and if he didn’t, the opening extract from William Bartram on the Isle of Palms could easily decree as a stately pleasure dome.
Caverns Measureless to Man…
Measureless Cavern by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
… from Coleridge, and William Bartram’s description of Salt Springs: “which incessantly threw up, from dark, rocky caverns” the waters of the fountain.
The Sunless Sea of Lake George…
The Sunless Sea, or Lifeless Ocean of Coleridge describes Lake George, a vast inland sea with no tides. I photographed it sunless as well. Lake George has no tides, therefore, Coleridge describes it as lifeless.
Lifeless Ocean by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
Perspiring their mingled odours…
The “incense-bearing trees” of Kublai Khan come from William’s “balmy Lantana, ambrosial Citra, perfumed Crinum, perspiring their mingled odours.” A few pages prior to my reading, Coleridge’s “sensuous rills” make their appearance as Bartram’s “serpentine rivulet, meandering over the meadows”.
Flowering Tree with Ibis by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
The “sunny spot of greenery” of the first verse echos Bartram’s description of the Isle of Palms: “blessed unviolated spot of earth”.
Blessed Spot by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
A savage place!
William Bartram’s “stars twinkling with uncommon brilliancy” recall the dark, waning moon, and made it into the following verse from Kublai Khan:
A savage place! As holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By a woman wailing for her demon lover!
Gator by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
Terrifying Screams…
What on earth? What women populate William’s book—wailing or otherwise? Oh, but the terrifying screams of the Florida Barred Owl, awakening Will in time to fight off the crocodile, bent on dragging him into the water! I would contend that the Barred Owl becomes Coleridge’s the wailing woman and his demon lover, Bartram’s crocodile.
Upwelling by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
Vaulted!
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail,
All of which clearly describes Six Mile Springs, as seen by William Bartram, now known as Salt Springs. Unfortunately when I witnessed Salt Springs things had much changed. While the “caverns measureless to man” exist still, and the water welled up, it did not rise 2 or 3 feet above the surface, indeed it did not rise above the surface at all.
Concrete girder…
The most disconcerting change in the surrounding environment, instead of surrounded by a grove of Illisium Floridanum, Oranges, Palms, and Magnolias; concrete girded the spring. Yet the springs were still large enough for large shallops to sail in, in fact a yacht moored just outside of them.
Concrete Girder by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
And what of
Mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
Well, Willam traveled to the Southeast between 1773, the year of the Boston Tea Party, and 1777, returning to Philadelphia 2 years after the first shots of war fired. Distant voices at the time prophesied the American Revolutionary War.
Xanadu Timeline: Shows key dates for Coleridge, Bartram, and the world. Click on the image for a larger view.
Ambrosial Citra…
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes in holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Orange Tree by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
Here in the south at Christmas we make a dish called Ambrosia, from William’s “ambrosial Citra”, Nectar of the Gods, the food of Paradise, made from oranges (honey-dew) and coconut (milk of Paradise). As William reports many a meal of oranges throughout his Travels in Florida, I would contend that this last passage refers to this dining upon ambrosia, the nectar of the Gods, oranges and Cocos nucifera (coconut palm) mentioned on the first page of the Introduction of William Bartram’s Travels. Indeed, Bartram mentions Palms throughout Travels, so Coleridge may have associated Palms with coconuts. Coconuts, which grow in Tropical Island Paradises as all know.
Tribes of Fish in Cerulean Ether…
Fish Tribes by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
But what of William’s “amazing and delightful scene, though real, appears at first but as a piece of excellent painting; there seems no medium”? The fish, who dive into the “caverns measureless to man”; then re-emerge from the “cerulean ether”?
Cerulean Ether by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
Porlocked!
What can I tell you? Coleridge got Porlocked. In other words, while writing Kublai Khan upon awakening from his opium-induced dream, a man from Porlock stopped by and interrupted his creative process, and he never recovered his train of thought. Unlike this author, he obviously didn’t practice having ideas while working an unrelated job and repeat the idea in the mind so it is not forgotten.
Descent into the abyss…
Or he perhaps felt he could not improve upon this amazing reality. And perhaps he could not. I do know that the water still appears “absolutely diaphanous, or as transparent as ether” and that tribes of fish still move about in peaceful harmony, some laying beds, others descending into the abyss.
Salt Springs Fish Possible Perception 6060 by Beth Thompson. Click on the image for a larger view or to order prints.
William Bartram was a witness to the Augusta Treaty of 1773 with the Creek People. Our faithful recorder documented this and his journey to Buffalo Lick with the surveyors following the Treaty.
Buffalo Lick Marker by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view.
Lost in the Sands of Time…
The actual location of Buffalo Lick is lost in the sands of time. Out of 4 possible locations for Buffalo Lick, I visited 2, and a third was lost behind a recent growth of young pines. Yet the land holds the memory, in a creek near the 3rd location I discovered creek kaolin; white, sweet clay that buffalo, deer, and cows like to lick.
Creek Kaolin by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view.
The land also still holds the beauty, perhaps the most dramatically gorgeous place being Temperance Bell.
Temperance Bell Trees by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view.
The Burning of Greensboro…
In Lexington, GA, at the artist cooperative, I found a little booklet about the burning of Greensboro when it was just a frontier town. This bears out William Bartram’s report that the Creek people were not very happy with the treaty signed with the colonists ceding away land the size of Delaware. For Greensboro is very near the Buffalo Lick area, which was the boundary of the land ceded in 1776. Sometime after that, when Greensboro had just been settled as a frontier town, the Creeks returned and burned it to the ground.
Dried Flower Heads at Temperance Bell by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view.
Treaty after Treaty, signed, then broken…
While the Creeks may have been the victors in that battle, the Native American people as a whole have lost out. The colonization of North America has had a lasting impact on the well-being of the First People, and not for the better. Colonist attitudes were racist and greedy for land. Treaty after treaty was signed and then broken, while the Native American people viewed and continue to view each treaty as a sacred contract.
Temperance Bell Possible Perception 6058 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view.
Appropriation….
Once the treaty signing stopped, the Native American tribes were made into Nations, legal entities that could then do business with other governments and corporations. This continued the appropriation of resources rightly belonging to the Native American peoples.
Desecration by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view.
The Loss of the Land: Impact!
The loss of control of their land has impacted the Native American people in a myriad of ways, none of them good. According to a report by James Anaya (http://unsr.jamesanaya.org/docs/countries/2012-report-usa-a-hrc-21-47-add1_en.pdf), the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples for the United Nations, there are a number of frightening statistics about the Native American population in the U.S. today. His notes on Justice Department Statistics include:
• The poverty rate among Native Americans is double the national average
• 500% more Native Americans die from tuberculosis than the national average.
• 514% more die from alcoholism
• 177% more die from diabetes
• 140% more from unintentional injuries
• 92% more die from homicide
• and 92% more die from suicide than the national average.
In addition:
• The overall level of education is much lower among Native American Peoples.
• Violent crime exceeds that of any other racial group at double the national average.
• Native American Women are twice as likely as all other women to be victims of violence.
• One in three Native American Women will be raped during her lifetime.
• 80% of the rapes are by non-indigenous men, who are not subject to indigenous prosecution due to their non-indigenous status.
Dogwood in Spring by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view.
To survive, women leave, abandoning their culture….
In order to survive, many women leave their communities. As one woman said, in James Anaya’s report, “when I left, I didn’t just leave my family. I left my culture behind…I ran away from my traditions, from my songs, my dances, my heritage.”
Alabama Flower 519 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view.
What would William do?
What would William think of all this? I think that the faithful recorder of the people and tribes that he met, the close observer, moved by the Chactaw song he asked to be translated, would be saddened, especially at the loss of culture and the suffering that continues today. I think that Puc-Puggy, or Flower-Hunter, as the Native Americans called him, would be especially saddened by the way that the powers of corporations and government are using the land, the very land that the Native American people hold sacred to them, against the people.
Puc-Puggy Possible Perception 6059 by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view.
Truth and Reconciliation without Vilification
James Anaya, in a talk at the University of Georgia, called for healing through Truth and Reconciliation without Vilification. In other words, a national conversation about the actual realities of the indigenous peoples of the United States, and the historical antecedents, needs to happen, involving the media, school teachers, people at all levels of government and society.
Autumn Pine by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view.
Return control of the Land
That and returning control of the land where it is reasonable to the Native American People, would begin the process of healing this nearly invisible issue. In particular, he asked that the President officially extend an apology to the Native American People, by taking the steps outlined in an Apology passed by Congress in 2010.
Winter Crept Myrtle by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view.
An Interview from the Frontlines of Relocation
Following is an interview with Swaneagle, who has worked recently on the very issue of relocation and loss of control of the land. She gives her perspective on the Apology from Congress. In the interview it becomes very clear that the Native American people hold the land sacred in a way that even Americans with an affinity for nature cannot quite fathom. In addition, it becomes clear that in taking the people’s resources, we are poisoning the land from out beneath them, and using the poisoned land as a tool for their destruction. In essence, using the very thing they hold most sacred to destroy them.
Summer Forest by Beth Thompson: Beth’s Travels on the Bartram Trail Series. Click on the image for a larger view.
