All meaning is lost to the obvious here. Things just work too well: a pasture has just the right number of springs for its herds; a barrier ledge sheds its rock to make a perfect incline for passage; waterfalls are above the ideal shelter for a hunter's perch; hills just want to glow in the morning and embrace the day at its close in a way that passes along every light the eye can behold.

There is no point in naming these blessings when they never had to be wished for and the imagination never had to conceive a place not this. One simply ignores this presence amongst all that obviousness. The reality is deftly dimmed in the enigmatic shade of perpetually replenished moments and the possessors of all this good fortune pass unaware of any cause or past, believing only in the promise of their present. It is all just accepted as the ordinary state of being.

But “being” here is posed as a grand conundrum: in a place such as this where all seems inevitable, a presence still challenges the resilience of spirit and opens the mind to an elusive, veiled reminder of events of a past.

Advancements; innovations; poised to ready some ultimate disruption, continually surface in a record of vision and inspiration that seems to spring from a source within this inclusive, subtle accord. In art, merchandising, industry, manufacturing, product development, music, government and most all other endeavors, creativity has entered the narrative. Traces of this start with the first publication of a written record of this place nearly four centuries ago and continue today.

There is a persistent presence in the records that form the history of this place. Though each sees it differently in a different passage of time, the history as a whole follows some prescribed flow where its past moments are echoed in its present; a transcendental history of consequential events, reverberating in waves of importance, mystically verifying that this presence directs it.

A string of recorded instances carry a consistent message that, throughout the whole span of this history, yields little evidence that any difference has ever existed between what the creators of the ideas of their time embraced as inspiration and what those of another past answering to the persuasions of their own time found they needed. From the record's point of view the actors are all performing the same pilgrimage dance as in many, many other incarnations of the same past here. There is a redundancy that makes the inevitability of an outcome today the same as at least what should be expected from just taking the time to grasp this history.

The events of this history simply happen here because being here makes this the right place for them to happen. That is what the record implies and that explains why there has been a break in this history ever since this presence stood revealed.

A transition has been in place ever since a record, in a literal sense, of the composition of this place, in aerial photography; on film; was created. These photographs taken over half a century ago reflect a point of view that the photographer holds as a personal perspective on the very presence that is inspiring him. Implicit in the light and time of day of these creations is the character of the omniscient presence of place; something sensed, alluded to; for so long in this history... what the history was not supposed to reveal.

These photographs displayed the purest realization of every way this presence had tempted creative perception for all this time. Portraits of this place have been made back as far as human awareness of it have left records, and each time these renderings' attempts at capturing that ethereal attraction just invited more to try. This aerial concept shook the foundation of this age-old compact with a creative preoccupation for envisioning an identity for this presence.

The creative resources that had always bridged between the present era and a lucid awareness of its precedents had built a rich tradition of written history. That is what was always meant to perpetuate this long tradition of benign, watchful interest in an absolute presence. This, now, when mated with the technological potential of the current era, is in danger of becoming lost as a pornography of virtual likeness.

The aerial view, as a measure of physical change over time, hearkened toward a change from the personal meditations of the artist to the invasive obvious. In the standpoint that digital views of the earth convey today; impersonal observations that mechanically capture arbitrary features; even the forced links to street level views; bind the viewer to the trivial and banal scenes of common life. These photographic images thus inevitably lead to the objectification of the inspirational qualities this presence once addressed with impunity.

Thus this transition unfolded, as a disruption, serving up a break in this history; ironically in a spirit of development carried in the person of the very creator of the cathartic photographs that foretold it.

To summarize, first, a half century ago, the population here doubled in a two decade burst of suburbanization. These numbers deserted the long standing allegiances as their commuting abandoned the century-old community base. Then stability suffered as the new arrivals were disinclined to identify with a structure whose affairs had always been under the guidance of the local manufacturing, business and merchant class, the wisdom of their owners always providing the officers of the government, the boards of the banks and for guiding the schools and the church congregations. So a pedestrian sense of self set in to socially level the playing field and civic involvement disintegrated as disinterest became the dominant attitude. That drove every established tradition into decline and diluted the identity of this place to where it could have been any place. In short, nearly every living memory of what preceded the now embedded almost three generations of these disinterested was erased.

Today an interest in local identity is positioned to reboot awareness of this dormant presence. The most recent quarter century has seen this in a pride in historic structures that started with recognition of the significance of the old commercial district's buildings. The “historic” brand reached the traditional base as one farm became a National Register homestead and another became a venue for horse shows. In between, stone houses gained renewed respect, a lighthouse was restored, parks attracted far more then local interest, a weekend in August became enshrined in music legend, the mountainside became designated “wild wilderness”, and the riverfront got “scenic significance” status.

That has all merged into a single path, now tipping the scale toward a new surge in building that's transforming the once farmed and quarried but now overgrown and wooded countryside into hundreds of insular objectifications of urban escape fantasies. Cumulatively, this gentrification of the countryside is on its way toward consuming an amount of land nearly equal to all the suburban development that came before it.

The earth's aerial images are progressively growing into a stage for counting the remote clearings that frame these get-aways; a viewing pastime that has captured the attention of the curious and inspired the imagination of these newest arrivals who embrace the concept that their cloistered retreats fulfill the same desire for home ownership and new technology jobs that brought the disruptive choices of unnatural geometry they share equally in the same landscape, in this great virtual earth view.

The affection the latest arrivals feel in their yearnings for the ideal of a local society, locally available resources, a local heritage and culture; all concepts made so attractive in the past quarter century's revelation of historic amenities that brought them here; is a counter force to the diffused sensitivities that preceded them. They believe sincerely they are destined to bring in the next phase of the future history of this place.

The focus on knowing the past is now renewed. But if there is one message that history has it is that no detail of its progression can be dismissed. There are hidden gifts to be realized in the recent past that are exactly the same as those that previous eras grew from, regardless of how unbeneficial they may have appeared in their own time. Knowing the “now” first helps for knowing its origins. The present state of being will be revealed in relation to that.

*** The End ***