Warrandyte

10-13th May 2013

Although this didn't end up being a collaboration destination for one of the Fields of Possibility pieces, it was still a source of inspiration for several solo improvisations, and was the site of many other forms of collaboration and creative dialogue including improvised percussion, spoken word, and traditional Hawaiian song.
I spent much time here exploring around the river, through the trees on the banks where it forks in two.
Sitting in a tree - just large enough to support my weight - I recorded the sound of the water. There was a busy main road close by, but the riverbank was steep and tall enough here to absorb much traffic noise.
I took many photos and made many recordings of birds, water, wind and my own voice. It was a strange feeling of being enveloped by nature, but knowing that the busy city was right over there.
When I returned to my lodgings that afternoon, I sat on my bed and unwound. Suddenly a vision of the trees and vales I'd been picking my way through came into the room, not just into my imagination, but seemingly quite literally into the room, into my sense.
In the story Where the Wild Things Are I especially loved as a child the passage where the forest gradually became part of Max's room, until it was completely transformed (see below).
That's what my vision was like - there was no separation between the trees and the room, in my mind I brought the trees and the vale right there into the room with me, if only for a moment.
Earlier that day, there had been much talk of mana - letting go, making right, and receiving the mana of nature.
This was the inspiration for Where the Mana Things Are.