The Winter Forest is a Stillness I Study
I stand on the edge of a small forest, in a small county, wondering at my beautiful small life.
What am I seeking? The physical presence of trees, the way walking this trail leads me to what it means to be human.
The patience of looking closely, what it has to teach me about love & kindness, cruelty & grace.
The world is big & wide & wonderful & the tiniest newly hatched insect or inching snail, the commonest spread of turkey tail mushrooms represent possibility, ways of being alive in the world.
We all want to pray & in the forest I can pray. Walking is the shape of my asking, my hope, my gratitude.
Poetry is about words, but poetry is about silence, too. The silence of this winter forest contains everything.
~ Michele Pollock 38 Our Brown County • Jan./ Feb. 2019 photo by Michele Pollock
HOUSE CONCERTS continued from 35
Local singer-songwriter Kenan Rainwater is embracing the house concert concept and taking it to the next level, technologically, with a broad view of the possibilities.
“ It’ s a beautiful concept and it creates a nice environment for the musicians to play in,” Rainwater said.“ When you’ re at a house concert, probably the best part of it is the personal interaction, the intimacy, and the attention. You don’ t need amplification when the audience is there to listen.”
For the past year, Rainwater has been hacking his way through the jungle of online electronics, teaching himself how to put house concerts online live.
“ I have massive dreams for the house concert, live stream model,” he said.“ I’ d like to combine the intimate live performance of a house concert for a small studio audience with broadcasting it all over the world via the internet, and now, a YouTube station.”
From an improvised home studio, Rainwater has been streaming his own house concerts while learning the software and hardware to run multiple camera angles and produce good live sound using a soundboard combined with room microphones.“ You really want to appeal to music lovers who want a unique experience that they are not going to find at any bar in the country where they are playing the hits from yesterday and today,” Rainwater said.
Blankenship said he’ s not sure if a local-only house concert is a sustainable idea. He favors hooking into a national house concert association.“ If we can get a good mix of travelling and local artists, I think that’ s a win-win for everybody,” Blankenship said.“ I think there’ s some real potential to make a name for Brown County. We just have to get a few heads together and figure out what would be the best way to go at it.”
Thompson said he’ s encountered several people who were interested in hosting a house concert.“ I would love to see this turn into a co-op situation where you get five people, five groups doing this, and saying we’ ll do this once a month, or once every fifth or sixth weekend,” he said.“ It could become a very cool thing for Brown County. You’ re welcome to tell anybody who’ s interested in something like that to contact me( through the WFHB radio station).” •