The talk and screening is part of the US Environmental Film Festival, in its 18th year. For those of you who are enthusiasts for films about the people/nature connection, there are 155 diverse films screening between March 16th and 28th. Special programs exist for children and are marked by a family-friendly symbol in the festival program.

But here in Maine, this week, fog has three levels of engagement. Thin wispy fog is called “fog.” As it thickens a little, it is called “thick-o-fog.” When it really shuts down such that you cannot see the bow of the lobster boat before you, it becomes “dungeon thick.”

DIRK: My great-uncle Clyde, another gifted Kentucky musician, used to talk to me about the days when subsistence farming was simply life. It wasn’t a matter of being poor. It was a matter of doing what you did. Though that type of agriculture is seen as vastly different from hunting-and-gathering, in some ways it is closer to that oldest form of human existence than to the modern idea of a career. For farmers like my great-uncle, as for our nomadic ancestors, life did not fall into compartments. Work was not a separate thing, and neither was the environment, the spiritual world, or any other aspect of life. “We were always telling jokes, singing songs, always right next to each other, always so close,” he told me. “It was better. It was hard work, but it was better.”

I understood. I hadn’t lived that way. It was easy for me to glorify a rural life. And yet, I knew that trading it all away for the material comfort of the American Dream was also wrong. I didn’t discount her, but neither did I discount my pappaw and my Uncle Clyde and the times when the family was together, in the fields, working hard but singing, laughing, praying – not spread out between California, New York, and Louisiana, as just my immediate family is today. I recall those times of being together, in one place, tied so deeply and intimately to that place that it can become all places. Being connected so deeply to that piece of earth that all the earth is known.

DIRK POWELL “When I was about 12 years old, my pappaw played a very simple tune for me on his banjo and, unknowingly, changed my life. The music was sincere and egoless in a way that resonated deeply with me; but it was his comment afterwards that brought the moment to a point and tears to my eyes. As the last notes faded away on that warm Kentucky afternoon, he turned to me and said, “You know, people used to think that was just beautiful.”

“I experienced one of those instant question-and-answers that form the seeds of epiphany. What had changed? Beauty? No, beauty is unchangeable. So it must be that people had changed – and any change that leads people to judge and then reject beauty should not be accepted without serious questioning. It is that decision to walk away, not the artistic fruit of a culture that evolved in unbroken tradition for generations, that should be closely examined and weighed for its worth.

That moment with my grandfather, James Clarence Hay, made me determined to learn the music of those hills, not to preserve something from the past but to share timeless beauty in the present and, ideally, to pass on to others a medium through which to express their own feelings and thoughts. Tradition is a sustainable resource; you can’t take from it without giving more back. It’s a spring that never runs dry. Unfortunately, the more we’ve lost ties to nature, spirit, culture, family – the pathways of tradition – the more we’ve lost ourselves. But picking up a banjo and playing it puts you instantly back into the flow of the tradition. It evolved for that purpose and that alone.”

Not all nature is beautiful and without struggle. More of that in a future post from Dirk, reflecting on music and some of the life experiences of his great uncle and grandmother.

A much pared-down version of something similar can be seen in the 65 episodes of our television series Sunrise Earth. In that series, however, we present no thoughts, no music, and far fewer edits.

I wonder…are the moments of holding steady similar to the first observations within a well-conceived scientific experiment? Or the stillness of having one day a week where we can find rest and some connection to a power larger than our own? Cal DeWitt told me about his discipline of humming Psalms as a soundtrack for his daily experiences. More on that from him soon.

Taking time to notice matters. During nearly 20 years of producing structured narrative film and television, I’ve often found that I depart a shoot location with a fairly low level of confidence that I’ve actually been there. We race around too much. And at the end, amidst good-byes with support crew and guests, I find myself feeling “I would really like to come here someday.”

The fixed recordings of Sunrise Earth NEVER evoke this feeling however. We leave, confident we’ve been.

I’m not a Nature Worshipper.  And unlike Cal, I’m not a Christian and I don’t see my approach to plants and animals as a part of “praising God.” Nonetheless, I do strongly share Cal’s sense that the combination of music, beauty in nature, and a deep knowledge of how life works is extremely important to our well-being. He has tapped into something of vital importance here. In this sense -for me- the Doxology is an immensely beautiful song and Cal DeWitt is doing immensely significant work.

While browsing in a flea market, Tim happened upon a copy of The American Vocalist that had belonged to a woman named Amelia Clark. Born around the time it was first published, she had cherished her copy of the book, underlining and adding notes beside her favorites. Among Tim’s favorite annotations: “as sung by Amelia Clark, 1949, age 99, over and over!”

Mansfield was a preacher in a little town just up the road from us: Hope, Maine. And when it was time to find a place to film Tim for the movie, it seemed only appropriate to visit the tiny cemetery where Mansfield is buried. We did.  The grass and wildflowers were creeping around stones that stood and those that had fallen.  

More on Southern Roots from Dirk Powell soon.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe of the vegetation.

[written in the mid-1800's... poem continues... Whitman photo by Matthew Brady]

We filmed Tim Eriksen sat riverside and worked up a version of this tune on his banjo, finishing it off with an echoing flourish.  Enjoy.