Spillway at the Ashokan Reservoir. The Ashoan is the oldest in a series of major reservoirs that provide drinking water for New York City. It's close to Woodstock, about a 15 minute drive from my studio (to the west). This was the first time I'd ever seen the spillway functioning as such. Photo by Eric Francis.
yeah, everyone’s moved on. but here I am at the Spillway, needing to send this out into the ethers.
from my journal today(BEFORE opening email) I was trying to tie together these 3 events, because for me they had the same imprint:
–eerie silence
lives forgotten
things taken away
-N. State= shut down with everything set in place for the next workday that was never to come-patients turned out into the streets to fend for themselves, abandoned
-Cannonsville area= a whistle blowing for 1hr – a warning to watch/abandon for the imminent waters of destruction. unstoppable man-created.
-Sendai= no whistle (I think) as the imminent waters (not of destruction but of warning; which is an archaic word for Notice) washed life straight away. unstoppable Nature
as I’ve said “pointing with her watery arm”.
FOR ME:Desiring to tell a story of the people who were sacrificed, lost, & forgotten
as a way of restoring Grace in a graceless situation- perhaps this is how we can foster/encourage Peace=Light=Energy. this as KEY ……to open door, openthedoor..
I stick with this…yes, changing policy, laws, business, commerce, habits, is important, but not the KEY. still believe this is so energetic at the core. ” it Cannot be solved at the level it was created”. solution is energetic,…..aligning.
aligning ourselves by showing up every day, involving OURselves in something that ‘stirs us’, taking an Action to heal (wounds inside as well as things we See, and knowing we are not alone, we are co-creators. following the Energy, that Bliss….
perhaps this is one main road to solution……
anyway, random thoughts
talk to you v.soon,
night night. everyone.
you are truly amazing, I don’t know where you find the time to go take photos in the midst of doing the other 100 things that provide content for this site.
your efforts are not in vain. I’m serious here.
thanks for the link. it actually stirred up a lot of memories for me, looking at those farms and villages; the places, people, history, all submerged now. in particular, it was reading about the cemeteries which struck a huge cord within. In 2003 I helped my friend Jon basically “build” the cemetery information for Northern State Hospital, a state psychiatric hospital in Sedro-Wooley, WA. Without going into too much now, he had worked there in the 1980’s, although it had officially shut down in 1974. there were still patients there, but they were in another location on the extensive grounds. Besides having some really awesome paranormal experiences, he had access to a lot of information about the place.
OK. lots of folks died there as well. and we won’t get into that right now. but foremost in his mind Jon was disturbed that the cemetery was so undocumented. there were only a few concrete blocks with pt. names on them. they had disappeared over time. he remembered when he worked there, boxes of people’s cremains were just laying haphazardly in a cabinet.
these cremains were later moved and buried in a different cemetery in Mt. Vernon.
to sum up, I helped him research, build a database, and organize information so that he could provide a service (free of course) to family members that might be looking for loved ones that had lived & died at that hospital. my friend still is the go-to guy for anyone looking, and he’s started a book about the place which I’ll be partially involved in.
Anyway, reading about these people who were cast aside for “progress” in regards to this reservoir evoked the same feelings as why I wanted to help with the other project, so that they could be remembered, acknowledged, respected in some way. decently.
In the spirit of your invitation to “reach out” last week, I extend myself to you by offering to help research, document, journal, Whatever when the time comes if you decide you want to embark on that journey. there would be a tiny selfish part in it for me, in that I would like to view, study and document the wagon wheel tracks that were pulled by those donkeys. It may sound silly but I have an ongoing project I am working on that deals with animals as beasts of burden, beasts that tirelessly, generously give of their lives in order to serve humans. As they “improve” our lives, how are we treating (or how did we treat) them??? this is heartwork for me-those animals need to be recognized. side project at the dairy….at any rate, even if you don’t write the book, I think I’ll have to now go and seek out those tracks. the story there is too great to ignore!
I apologize for the too long post. you inspired me.
take care, and think about it. generally if you have a calling from the Universe, it’s a signal.
and like lucky driver said above,
“it’s an important story to tell too”
take care of yourself!
your new friend, Stellium
p.s. I have references as well.. peace.
Eric –
You must write that novel! I’m biased because I have a long-standing interest in how infrastructure networks allow for certain forms of urban development, and I have a particular fascination with water infrastructure. Have you ever read Marc Reisner’s book “Cadillac Desert”? It is a great history of water development in the West and is full of information that reveals the real costs (political, economic, social, etc.) of bringing water to a region that probably should not even be supporting large populations of people in the first place. The issues included in the book appear in many other water infrastructure construction projects located around the country, and I’m sure the reservoir in your area provides a rich background from which a good tale could be told. It’s such an important story to tell, too.
That’s exactly the idea – one thing about the Internet is that it has a disembodied feeling. So one reason I post a lot of photos of (the beauty of) my immediate surroundings is to provide a sense of place; a little grounding in existence.
As for the reservoir system — I would love to take a year or two and write a historical novel about some of the lost towns and the lives that were disrupted by the flooding process. Here is a website devoted to it — click around a little and you will see many lost towns.
All along Rt. 28 going out toward Woodstock and beyond you see memorial signs to the lost villages. There are many. New Tongore cemetery, not far from the old water testing lab, was the recipient of many of the removed graves that came from towns obliterated by the Ashokan. Truth is, they moved the headstones; there is no way to dig up 100 year old bones that were buried in a wood box.
introspective.
I love these pictures of the environment surrounding you.
yeah, everyone’s moved on. but here I am at the Spillway, needing to send this out into the ethers.
from my journal today(BEFORE opening email) I was trying to tie together these 3 events, because for me they had the same imprint:
–eerie silence
lives forgotten
things taken away
-N. State= shut down with everything set in place for the next workday that was never to come-patients turned out into the streets to fend for themselves, abandoned
-Cannonsville area= a whistle blowing for 1hr – a warning to watch/abandon for the imminent waters of destruction. unstoppable man-created.
-Sendai= no whistle (I think) as the imminent waters (not of destruction but of warning; which is an archaic word for Notice) washed life straight away. unstoppable Nature
as I’ve said “pointing with her watery arm”.
FOR ME:Desiring to tell a story of the people who were sacrificed, lost, & forgotten
as a way of restoring Grace in a graceless situation- perhaps this is how we can foster/encourage Peace=Light=Energy. this as KEY ……to open door, openthedoor..
I stick with this…yes, changing policy, laws, business, commerce, habits, is important, but not the KEY. still believe this is so energetic at the core. ” it Cannot be solved at the level it was created”. solution is energetic,…..aligning.
aligning ourselves by showing up every day, involving OURselves in something that ‘stirs us’, taking an Action to heal (wounds inside as well as things we See, and knowing we are not alone, we are co-creators. following the Energy, that Bliss….
perhaps this is one main road to solution……
anyway, random thoughts
talk to you v.soon,
night night. everyone.
you are truly amazing, I don’t know where you find the time to go take photos in the midst of doing the other 100 things that provide content for this site.
your efforts are not in vain. I’m serious here.
thanks for the link. it actually stirred up a lot of memories for me, looking at those farms and villages; the places, people, history, all submerged now. in particular, it was reading about the cemeteries which struck a huge cord within. In 2003 I helped my friend Jon basically “build” the cemetery information for Northern State Hospital, a state psychiatric hospital in Sedro-Wooley, WA. Without going into too much now, he had worked there in the 1980’s, although it had officially shut down in 1974. there were still patients there, but they were in another location on the extensive grounds. Besides having some really awesome paranormal experiences, he had access to a lot of information about the place.
OK. lots of folks died there as well. and we won’t get into that right now. but foremost in his mind Jon was disturbed that the cemetery was so undocumented. there were only a few concrete blocks with pt. names on them. they had disappeared over time. he remembered when he worked there, boxes of people’s cremains were just laying haphazardly in a cabinet.
these cremains were later moved and buried in a different cemetery in Mt. Vernon.
to sum up, I helped him research, build a database, and organize information so that he could provide a service (free of course) to family members that might be looking for loved ones that had lived & died at that hospital. my friend still is the go-to guy for anyone looking, and he’s started a book about the place which I’ll be partially involved in.
Anyway, reading about these people who were cast aside for “progress” in regards to this reservoir evoked the same feelings as why I wanted to help with the other project, so that they could be remembered, acknowledged, respected in some way. decently.
In the spirit of your invitation to “reach out” last week, I extend myself to you by offering to help research, document, journal, Whatever when the time comes if you decide you want to embark on that journey. there would be a tiny selfish part in it for me, in that I would like to view, study and document the wagon wheel tracks that were pulled by those donkeys. It may sound silly but I have an ongoing project I am working on that deals with animals as beasts of burden, beasts that tirelessly, generously give of their lives in order to serve humans. As they “improve” our lives, how are we treating (or how did we treat) them??? this is heartwork for me-those animals need to be recognized. side project at the dairy….at any rate, even if you don’t write the book, I think I’ll have to now go and seek out those tracks. the story there is too great to ignore!
I apologize for the too long post. you inspired me.
take care, and think about it. generally if you have a calling from the Universe, it’s a signal.
and like lucky driver said above,
“it’s an important story to tell too”
take care of yourself!
your new friend, Stellium
p.s. I have references as well.. peace.
Eric –
You must write that novel! I’m biased because I have a long-standing interest in how infrastructure networks allow for certain forms of urban development, and I have a particular fascination with water infrastructure. Have you ever read Marc Reisner’s book “Cadillac Desert”? It is a great history of water development in the West and is full of information that reveals the real costs (political, economic, social, etc.) of bringing water to a region that probably should not even be supporting large populations of people in the first place. The issues included in the book appear in many other water infrastructure construction projects located around the country, and I’m sure the reservoir in your area provides a rich background from which a good tale could be told. It’s such an important story to tell, too.
That’s exactly the idea – one thing about the Internet is that it has a disembodied feeling. So one reason I post a lot of photos of (the beauty of) my immediate surroundings is to provide a sense of place; a little grounding in existence.
As for the reservoir system — I would love to take a year or two and write a historical novel about some of the lost towns and the lives that were disrupted by the flooding process. Here is a website devoted to it — click around a little and you will see many lost towns.
http://bearsystems.com/cannonsville/cannonsville.html
All along Rt. 28 going out toward Woodstock and beyond you see memorial signs to the lost villages. There are many. New Tongore cemetery, not far from the old water testing lab, was the recipient of many of the removed graves that came from towns obliterated by the Ashokan. Truth is, they moved the headstones; there is no way to dig up 100 year old bones that were buried in a wood box.
introspective.
I love these pictures of the environment surrounding you.
thanks.