YOLO Journal Issue 12 - Flipbook - Page 129
MEMORY KEEPING
Pigments and colors made from rocks, mud, and soil tell stories, the alchemy of deep earth time. In the
late fall, I traveled down the Oregon Coast during a storm and a full moon. Big tidal weather is a lure, as
the waves churn up long-buried stuff in the estuary muds. There’s a special place that is a bioluminescent
bay, where salt and clams are harvested. A buddy took me here once and showed me how to see the
color hiding in a tsunami-buried ghost forest that otherwise looks like old wood and mud. Blue isn’t
blue—it’s the tender soul of a fossilized spruce cone that never became a tree. Yellow is iron and silica
that bind together around tiny roots, in a magic armor that encapsulates a presence long after the ancient
plant fades. I see oozy orange muck, an offering from microbes. When I rub a piece of the earth into my
notebook, I can feel how the ocean’s gravitas and swells and salt change the texture as my finger smears
the page. Color carries creative power and emotional tuning of place and time for me. A way to hold
onto and communicate with a beyond-human friend, land that I love.
Image and Words by Heidi Gustafson
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