Jerry Katz: Burnt Forest

Path

“It is important to know a landscape intimately.
Be married to it.
See it every day.
There is always something new to be seen.”

A visit to a forest burned in Nova Scotia in 2008

JERRY KATZ is a Canadian writer, artist and founder of Nonduality.com and the discussion forum, Nonduality Salon. He also co-organized the first Science and Nonduality Conference and edited the seminal classic, One: Essential Writings on Nonduality. In his previous feature on the site, Let the Scene See You, he outlines his creative processes through the art of taking digital pictures of the surrounding landscape of his native home.

In this month’s guest post for The Culturium, Jerry puts his philosophy into practice by documenting the juxtaposition of death and life in the aftermath of a forest fire in a series of stunning photographs and a meditation on the rejuvenative qualities of the natural world.

oOo

ON 13TH JUNE 2008, a forest fire broke out near Porters Lake, Nova Scotia, destroying two houses, damaging several others and burning six thousand acres of forest in total. The fire was believed to be caused by a campfire and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police laid no charges; however, it was determined that residue from Hurricane Juan fuelled the fire. The fire was the largest in an urban area fought in Nova Scotia and the largest fire in 30 years.

Slender prayers

Titles suggested for the above photograph:
“Slender Prayers” —Amrita Nadi
“Ascending” —Victoria Svoboda
“Scriptures from the Firelands”—Bev Byrnes-Laird

Scriptures from the Firelands reminded me of when I was 12 years old.
I would go to the synagogue on Saturday mornings because I had to.

I felt freer when leaving the house of worship.
That freedom felt more like God than the God prayed to in the synagogue.

Walking home, I would see that the leaves on the street
and gum wrappers in the gutter
were pages making up a Torah I understood.

Another page of the Crazy Torah I read as a young boy: