1,200 Miles For A Walk In The Woods

The Wisteria Cornstalk gig was a bust. Megan and I drove 600 miles each way, 20+ hours in the car, to teach contact improv dance to three people. That totally sucks. Our workshop time slot was 10:00-11:30 AM. In general I would say that most of the festival attendees were just getting moving by then since each night the music went until midnight or later, and there were drum/dance jams from then til dawn. Add to that a location that was essentially invisible, a program guide that no one seemed to read, and rain the first morning, and you have, well, nothing.

I went for a walk the first afternoon, after having one die hard dancer show up for our workshop. I was bummed, and the presenters in the later time slot did not really interest me (the Mayan Prophecy, or The Next Group To Hitch A Ride On A Comet). So I grabbed my camera and set off to explore some of the 600 acres that make up Wisteria. It is an old strip mine that the group bought from the state of Ohio to be established as a nature preserve. The area for the festival is 99% open ground with a gravel road running through it, and the rest is new growth forest with leftover dangerous shafts and ravines. Staying on the established trails is strongly encouraged. Having just rained, and with the sun playing peek-a-boo, it was pretty sweet in the woods. While warm, it wasn't nearly as bad as it was out in the meadow where the sun was baking the moisture out of the ground.


Wisteria Woods I

I have been to this land a number of times, and I do not always make time to take a hike when I am here. I forget that it is quite lush and beautiful. The first time I was on this land was in 1996, and what I remember most from that first experience is that there were no animals. There were frogs in the pond, but we heard nothing at night, we saw no birds or chitter critters like mice or gophers, and saw no evidence of deer or larger mammals. It was weird, and disheartening.


Wisteria Woods II

It is clear that the twelve years that the land has been under the care and love of the Wisteria folks has been productive and restorative. Not only are hawks and other large birds routinely present, there is an abundance of night sound: Peepers, crickets, cicadas (periodically), and so on. While on my hike this year, I saw several sets of deer tracks, fresh that morning. There were piles of scat too, but I did not recognize it. It was not deer or rabbit, didn't seem like a wild cat or fox, and I am certain it was not porcupine. At any rate, it was uplifting to find so much evidence of beings returning to the land.


Sandstone Wall

The bare wall scars left by the mining - which I think ended in the 1950's - are slowly fading as new growth takes hold. Some of that progress is due to the intervention of the humans tending the land as they attempt to reduce erosion and re-introduce appropriate native species while keeping out destructive interlopers like the Emerald Ash Borer. They are in it for the long haul at Wisteria, and it is wonderful to see the progress they are making. Their goal is to live and play in harmony with the land, and such thinking guides all their choices.



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