Virtual Residency Day Three, Defying Bombs, Addressing Global Warming

Today is the third day of writing on my blog about the global virtual residency I have undertaken, linking Geumgang, Korea, Pescia Italy and Khoj International in India with my tiny island in the Gulf of Maine.

As part of this work, Ravi Agarwal from India, has written me about the privatization of water there and mercury pollution into rivers from garbage incineration for electrical energy- the same issues we are beginning to face in Maine with the world wide consumption of Poland Springs water and the mercury that comes from inadequately regulated coal burning factories in the midwest. That precipitates into and pollutes Maine fishing grounds and waterways. He has also written me about perceptible rainfall changes probably caused by global warming. On this island, as a sole source aquifer, we also depend entirely upon rainfall for freshwater and have also seen dramatic changes in those patterns apparently caused by global warming.

In Pescia, Italy, Bibi Melli, who initiated inviting me to be part of Verdearte, has begun painting numbers on each chestnut tree there with the slurry of pure ultramarine blue pigment and buttermilk I recommended. She reports that it smells wonderful and glows against the green of the forest. I wrote her back that the slurry, which would be friendly to moss growth, is unpredictable in how fast mosses may respond. Meanwhile it is a modest, delicate and lovely way to honor each tree. We are thanking them for the bounty and beauty they bring locally and the albido effect they contribute that resists global warming.

Two days ago, the first of these journal posts for the residency, after the Mumbai and middle east bombings I asked, how shall we name this project? I know now that it is an act of defiance and resistance against the world's insanity. It is an affirmation of what must be paid attention to and the fragile act of making beauty out of that resistance.