In Praise of Rocks

 

In mid-June 2016, my husband Peter and I along with an artist friend, Charlie Johnston, spent a week at the Chetco River Inn. It is about twenty miles up the Chetco River outside Brookings, Oregon, which is on the border with California. As I often do, I decided to make a series of daily journal videoitos aka digital stories.

The second in this series of five is a morning’s amazement at the beauty of the gravel bar down on the river not far from our Stone House cottage retreat.

This is an overview of the Chetco River bar where I'm staggering around in the rocks looking through a lens instead of where I'm going. This is ankle-twisting country, for sure, but I got lucky.
This is an overview of the Chetco River bar where I’m staggering around in the rocks looking through a lens instead of where I’m going. This is ankle-twisting country, for sure, but I got lucky.

At one time, okay, okay from about age 8 to about age 60! I hauled rocks home from my travels by the irresistible bucketful. Finally, I realized I really didn’t get that much enjoyment out of them once I got home and put them in the yard. The geologists are right to call them “leaverites,” as in “leave ‘er rite there.”

Now, I take photos mostly. I don’t say a couple of special beauties didn’t make it into the back of the Subaru, but at least the muffler isn’t dragging the ground.

This videoito is a celebration of Oregon’s geology once it’s been tumbled and cast up on the bar waiting for the next flood to take it on down to the sea.

In the Southwest desert, this would be an actual set of Georgia O'Keeffe antelope horns. On the Chetco River, it's driftwood.
In the Southwest desert, this would be an actual set of Georgia O’Keeffe antelope horns. On the Chetco River, it’s driftwood.
Chetco Rainbow stone
The Chetco River specializes in what we call Rainbow Rock–admittedly not its scientific name.

Chetco stripey rock with leaves


single yellow flower on Chetco stone

 

spoon n stone Chetco bar
There are many surprises on the Chetco River bar–this perfectly good tablespoon beside a rusty whatchacallit was one for me today.

 

I'm not the only one enjoying morning on the bar.
I’m not the only one enjoying morning on the bar.

8 thoughts on “In Praise of Rocks

  1. Bryan Alexander says:

    Those are some wild rocks. I love the stripes.
    For the first half I thought the video was really about water.
    Gorgeous.

    Reply
    1. Sandy Brown Jensen says:

      Bryan, in a perfect world I think the whole theme of each video out, but these are daily journal videos, which are more like written journals in their wandering from topic to topic. I like that quality, but some people think I shouldn’t post anything but polished work…life is short–see, say, post, move on.

      I wrote and posted some gratitude poems yesterday you might like: http://mysteriousnightvision.com/art-journaling/frogs-cats-n-grats/

      Reply
    1. Sandy Brown Jensen says:

      Thanks, Sheri. I always appreciate your comments!

      Reply

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