Full moon glorious she, arriving right on Spring equinox. The evenings serenaded by our Rana Catesbeiana frogs and mornings a chirping chorus of native songbirds. Morning sky of pink haze beat the cherry blossom trees to the punch as if to give a hint of what is to come. A warm fragrant air blows strong enough to tip the crow off his course and force him to bank into the wind. Sometimes he plays with it, enjoying being pushed around in the sky, seeing where the gusts take him. It is nesting season, soon there will be no time for play. The wind brings a message that a peace is coming and with it the resolution I have been seeking for so very long.

With a breath of finality
Blowing away old beliefs
Standing at the altar of ourselves
What does it mean
To get out of our own way?

Grace Constantine Porter

You were born in New York 9 years ago and raised by a loving silver haired elderly man and his wife for 7 years in a New York high rise. Your loving silver haired master died leaving you alone with his widow. You began to suffer greatly at the hands of her mental decline with dementia. So much damage happened before her children placed her in a home and took you to Brittany Rescue Society. The Rescue Society put you up for adoption three times and all three times you were taken back to the rescue society. The families said you couldn't love. They wanted a dog who could love. I called the Brittany Rescue Society looking for someone who could fill my heart left by the gaping hole of Hope's passing. I was certain no dog could hold a candle to her legacy. I adopted you and my heart sank. I felt like you couldn't love me. I almost took you back for the fourth time to the rescue society, but the next day a miracle happened. I began to notice you had an uncanny ability to sense changes in me and respond. You were cool, calm, collected and eerily smart. There was a deep magic to you that I was beginning to see. That night you decided to sleep next to me. I canceled my appointment with the rescue society. Over the months and years you formed a bond with me stronger than most human relationships. You were a trauma rescue. You taught me that time, love and patience were the only strategies for a trauma survivor, but once those bonds are made they are among the strongest in the world. People are drawn to you. I'll never forget the Christmas when we went down to Burnside's homeless camps to deliver our gifts and you curled up in the lap of the biggest, strongest, surliest resident at the camp and he held you until he cried. "I used to have myself a dog" he said. You make connections with so many. It's like they can see the light in you. I don't know if I deserve to be a steward of such an amazing animal, but I am forever grateful nonetheless. Happy Birthday my best friend. Please give me as many years as you can.

The Collective Readings

Videos forthcoming!

The Collective

THE COLLECTIVE - FORD GALLERY- MARCH 31 2018

Sean Davis-

Sean Davis is the author of The Wax Bullet War, a Purple heart Iraq War veteran, and winner of the Legionnaire of the Year Award from the American Legion in 2015 and the recipient of the Emily Gottfried Emerging Leader, Human Rights award for 2016. His stories, essays and articles have appeared in the Smoke, Human the Movie, and Ted Talk Books The Misfits Manifesto. Sean has fought in a revolution, a war, and helped save lives in New Orleans during Katrina. He’s a wild land firefighter during the summers. He has been a police officer, a bartender, an incident responder, a supernumerary in an opera, and currently teaches writing at Mt. Hood Community College and Clackamas Community College. Sean not only encourages communion with Nature, he dedicates life and limb to protect her. Each year you'll find him bravely situated on the front lines of wildfires across the Pacific Northwest as one of Oregon's most experienced and decorated firefighters. Sean's love of Nature and of people is the lifeblood in his particular brand of philanthropy. Sean lives in rural Oregon with his talented wife Kelly Davis and their daughter. 

Sean is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. Within the Collective Sean offers his series of paintings surrounding trauma, survival and the interconnectedness with Nature. 

Jennifer Porter-

Jennifer Porter is a native of Portland and an artist and conservationist. Her early work and focus surrounded spacial theory, the built environment and architecture. She developed and curated 'Centrifuge' at Art Institute of Portland. Centrifuge was a study of the interconnectedness between the disciplines of art, art theory and architecture. Centrifuge featured master artist and GBD Architecture founder Chuck Gordon, two of Portland’s leading architecture firms and several of Portland’s local artists. She curated a series of shows in a massive artist run pop up gallery collective, Deep Field Gallery. She served four years on the planning committee of Portland’s largest art auction, The Annual CAP Art Auction, overseeing the installation and multimedia program. Jennifer’s interest began to take a more personal tone in recent years with focus on nature and conservation issues and most recently the process of finding the new normal in trauma recovery.  Working alongside her family as habitat restoration specialists, reconstructing damaged habitats, she found an inherent similarity to the power of nature in its rejuvenation and restoration, and the healing we do from traumatic instances in our own lives. She is currently dedicated to assisting high risk youth.
 

Reading: Jude Brewer

Jude’s writing has appeared in Retreat West, New Millennium Writings, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Scintilla Press, Typishly, and Cultured Vultures. His nonfiction short was a finalist in the 2017 Montana Book Festival, and he was the winner of the 2017 Retreat West Flash Fiction Prize. He also produces and hosts the literary “radio theatre” podcast Storytellers Telling Stories. New episodes available Tuesdays on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, any podcast app and on sttspod.com


Reading: Jason Arias

Jason Arias lives in Portland, OR. You can find some of his previous work in past issues of Oregon Humanities Magazine, Lidia Yuknavitch’s book The Misfit’s Manifesto, Perceptions Magazine, and Storytellers Telling Stories Podcast as well as other publications.   

Magellan In His Tree Of Honey

The other day I was thinking, I hope I get a shot of him when the leaves turn... Well he granted my wish.

Up Close

Yesterday while on a walk with Grace we found her. One of Magellan's roost members had flown close to the garden to pass away. The neighbor and I picked her up and held her warm but very still form in our hands. We watched her eyes close as she became even more still. It was the first we had been able to hold one of these magnificent creatures in our hands and study the genius of their natural aviation. Magellan was not grieving over her when we found her and so we are unsure if it was his life mate Maria who passed. The evidence showed that she may have been ambushed by a large cat while walking on the ground near the woods and wetlands. She most certainly was alone when the incident occurred. A cat or dog would not have survived the wrath of roost members who witnessed her demise. I thought of her today when working on a sculpture. It is a bioluminescent under a globe atop of nest filled with the biodiversity of nature. Containing some of Oregon's most poisonous flora, such as Nightshade and Letharia Vulpina. It also contains some of Nature's beautiful wonders, such as gifts that Magellan has left me over the weeks in exchange for his meals. Spun within the nest are gift feathers, some brightly colored twigs and mosses he found, and portions of a wasps nest that he found interesting.  All of these items spun together, the bright and dark, the beautiful and the deadly. The bioluminescence atop the nest is a testament to our divine  or higher self which is a truth above the worldly cyclone of form, function, world, dirt earth, flesh, bone, pain, perception. It's that transition she made yesterday that had me transfixed. The warmth of her form in our hands seemed to be the energy of remembrance to sheer genius of her mechanics. The energy of flight. It was a profound thing to experience. The neighbor buried her in the woods near the wetlands as two roost members stationed in the trees witnessed her return to the earth. What an incredible phenomena. Nature.

The Eye Of The Storm.

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Small Gifts

Magellan is my yard crow. Over the last year and a half, I've entered into a neat friendship with this unique and beautiful bird. I like to say he chose me. He's been very faithful and constant. I write about his antics quite a bit on F.B. and he even has his little base of dedicated readership!

One thing he taught me recently, is appreciating the small things.
Magellan will leave trinkets in return for his meals and I've been saving them. I sure do dig that sentient little being. I hope he is around for many seasons to come!

Evidence In The Fire~ The Place You Will Sit And Recon With Your Demons

Each of us has this place, this shack, this drowned place and in it are all the entities which have influenced us in the past, present and as much as we work against it, they will lay claim to our futures, albeit it in differing ways depending upon our counterbalance and the form which we exact it. 'They' (insert anyone who claims to be a professional in these realms) say that visiting this place, doing the work here, facing it dead on is the path to gaining greater control of our countenance. Inwardly we press on believing we are in control. I make the decisions! Don't I? If we part from this idealism we fear we may splinter, or become confused and walk closer to what awaits us in the shack.

The truth is, I don't believe we want to believe we have less control than we believe we have. Problem presented. I don't think so many of us know what means. The word control. Does it mean we have a full understanding of what is in that dark place? Do we kick the door open with rifle clutched in both hands and demand that forces in this place sit down, shut the fuck up and don't move? Do we walk in slowly driven by a deadly curiosity into a place we know is dangerous, almost as though we'd been taken over? Sit down, trance like in the chair and wait as these forces emerge from the walls and floor and walk toward us, encircle us, and then..... Do we go in like a hostage negotiator, books and publications in hand and tell them "Look here goddamn it! I have a fucking degree! I've armed myself with information! I gained a position of leadership! I have power! You can't fuck with me!"

For whatever reason my shack has been appearing, and asking me for a day of reckoning for two years now. The entities in my shack were born of trauma and abuse, they are large, looming and they laugh at my rifle as they snap it like a match stick. My tribe stands encircling the fire outside this place, a couple members of my family, some very strong friends and an energy worker are there. I choose to believe this is the universe pulling me near, and whispering in my ear, " I'm not messing with you now Jennifer, your pretense, your running, your masks, your fear, your slow evolution it must all go into the fire, it is your job to make sure you don't go in with them, we are here....now walk...."

Fluid Earth

Part of my job working in habitat restoration is to chronicle what we do, hands in the earth to the public, our clients, our environmental community and even our family. Communicating our science many times give us an opportunity to create art. In this case a beautiful new series created from the aerial meanderings of myself and nephew Grayson Moyer. This is a particularly beautiful series captured on Nature Conservancy land in Oregon.

From Kenya to Portland to the Show.

May 31st 2016, Millie Otieno boarded a flight from Nairobi, traveled through Amsterdam and finally landed in Portland Oregon on June 8th. This was her first travel experience out of Africa and her first visit to the states. June 8th was the beginning of a whirlwind week preceding The Recycled Rain annual exhibition at Portland's Ford building. 

Millie brought with her the artworks of Kiviwosheg School students. Over a period of several weeks each student experienced creating art with colored pencils, acrylic, water color and gouache. The subject matter of each beautiful piece was a result of the studies of water conservation, habitat, wildlife and environmental social studies around the globe. Most notably they outlined the understanding of Kibera's water management crisis and the environmental and economic challenges it creates. This was Kiviwosheg's first international project involving all enrolled students.

In the weeks preceding her visit to Oregon, Millie invited her project partners, supporters and audience to experience a greater understanding of the region of Kibera through outlining the current state of affairs in Kibera and greater Nairobi.  Emphasis was placed in particular on the region's double edged sword of natural resource management. In May, torrential floods swept through the region and even brought down a building. The May floods were reported by the international media and were a real time, case in point example of the region's great need for water management, treatment and distribution. 

After arriving in Portland, in the week before the exhibition Millie visited our coastal ranges, habitats and estuaries. She learned about fresh water migration, soil and native plants near our oceans.  Touring through the great Columbia Gorge, she visited the political hotbed Oxbow Springs and fisheries, learning about our native and farmed salmon, water quality practices of the region and water rights transfer processes. Our meeting with Columbia Riverkeepers was a unique one of a kind opportunity. At the time of the meeting the organization was exacting a first response plan of action to the Mosier train derailment, working directly with Mosier government, the state of Oregon, EPA, media and Yakima Tribes. It was a wealth of information and experience to take back to Kiviwosheg.
 

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Each student wrote an introductory letter about themselves, their family, their daily experience in school, neighborhood and what profession they see themselves working in after completing higher education. These letters were placed between their works of art at the exhibition.

The opening was a first gallery experience for Millie and certainly a first as a contributor. Millie created two works of art which were also on display. The experience was most fruitful. The opportunity to share the Kiviwosheg School with the Portland art community, learn about art and ecology in another country and begin planning processes for building a stronger Kiviwosheg was a once in a lifetime experience.