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There's a photo on the wall of my massage office: Twenty Sticks, by Michael Kenna. 
I have thought for years that Twenty Sticks was the name of a place, and over the last week I spent hours searching desperately for information on Twenty Sticks in Japan. For the story  behind this mysterious place. The result of my leaping down those umpteen rabbit holes? Twenty Sticks is not a location. 

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In fact, Kenna has other pieces with names like Six Sticks, Thirty Eight Sticks. You get the idea. I have not discovered exactly what those sticks are doing in the water, but it might be a fishing weir. In reading interviews and perusing his website, Kenna’s work goes well beyond the theme of unexpected sticks emerging from noir bodies of water.

Kenna has worked all over the world, and last year celebrated 50 years in the industry. Regardless of location or subject, his work is stunning. Twenty Sticks was taken in Kohoku, Honshu, Japan, in 2003. Kenna has returned to Japan several times as it holds a singular place in his heart. 

Born in 1953 in England, Kenna studied to become a Catholic Priest when he was quite young. He ended up enrolling in art school, and in the late 1970’s moved to San Francisco. By that time he was showing his photos in galleries, and he worked as assistant and printer for the esteemed photographer Ruth Bernhard for a decade. It was with her that he refined and developed his expert printing skills. Kenna, to this day, prints each one of his works in order to achieve the precise effect he wants. 

Achieving that precise effect also means working in conditions not all would consider ideal. He prefers snow, rain, and mist, very early mornings or nights. His work is only in black and white, as color brings an overabundance of sensation, and has the tendency to lose the mood created with black and white. Rather than produce an image that is a two-dimensional representation, Kenna aims to create a feeling. He prefers to work alone, and may spend hours or days in a location, getting the sense of the place. The final piece provides a three-dimensional space for the viewer to spend time in, to rest in, to explore. In this way, perhaps Twenty Sticks is indeed a location.

When I looked at some of the work on his website, I did not yet know how Kenna did things. Still, I could sense a quality, a sensation that went beyond the image. Even on my inexpensive laptop, seeing his pieces was an experience and I felt a myriad of emotions: awe with Wave, dread and horror with Crematorium Building, amazement with Torii, Study 4. I was even more amazed when I learned that in Japan, entrances to sanctuaries are often found in lakes since all of nature is considered sacred. 

Kenna’s approach to his work achieves his intention. His method - characterized by patience, calm, thoughtfulness, intention, and a willingness to immerse himself in a place or subject - has me thinking about my own work and my time in nature too. I appreciate Twenty Sticks even more these days, hanging on my wall, reminding me, encouraging me.

​Glimpsing a dragonfly while on the trail is a special treat. These sightings put a little extra spring in my step because they are an unexpected gift. I usually notice the bright flash of green or blue, and I smile to watch the long, elegant body with its four shapely wings flitting through the greenery near the creek. Dragonflies symbolize transformation, which I find hopeful and encouraging. I’m curious why dragonflies do not also symbolize perspective, considering that their head is made up of many compound eyes with thousands of lenses. They can see up to twelve meters (over 39 feet) in all directions in order to spot what they’re hunting. (Woodland Trust: What Do Dragonflies Eat? and Other Dragonfly Facts)

Dragonflies spend a large part of their lives as larvae (nymphs) in the water, and as adults, around the water. Lakes, streams, rivers, ponds, and even bogs are their home. These habitat areas are sensitive; a robust dragonfly population is an indication of the health of these environments, and the reverse is true. Since dragonflies snack frequently on insects like mosquitoes it behooves us to nurture these habitats, and thus the dragonfly population.  (Bridgewater State University article: Life Cycle of Dragonflies and Damselflies)

Dragonfly life as an adult is relatively short, usually just a few months, giving them just enough time to reproduce. Dragonflies are carnivorous predators. In addition to mosquitoes, they eat midges, flies, small butterflies and even other dragonflies. 

In general the dragonfly life cycle follows this pattern:

1. Eggs are deposited directly into the water, or into sand or a plant in close proximity to the water.
2. After hatching from the egg the nymph remains in the water for several months or several years, feeding on insects and tadpoles.
3. When ready - sometimes triggered by warming water temps in spring and summer - the nymph makes its way out of the water and clings to a plant or rock, taking in air to expand its entire body. The skin behind the head splits and the adult dragonfly pulls itself out of what was its body - now a shell called the exuviae.
4. After several hours of drying time, the adult dragonfly is ready for liftoff and flies away to find its first meal out of the water.

Dragonflies come in an astounding number of shades - yellow and black striped, iridescent green and blue, brown and black. Different species also boast fascinating names. Here are a few (find more details and excellent pictures in this Sweetgrass Farm Garden blog post: Exploring the Different Families of Dragonflies):

• Darners, due to the darning needle appearance of their bodies.
• Clubtails, as the distal end of the body is enlarged, resembling a club.
• Petaltails, for the attachments on their abdomen resembling petals.
• Cruisers, because of their penchant for not dawdling in one watery home for long.

Dragonflies are sometimes mistaken for damselflies, and vice-versa. The two are closely related but there are a couple of ways to tell them apart. When perched, the damselfly pulls its wings in and behind its body, while dragonflies keep theirs out to the sides. Typically, damsels have a slightly smaller and more slender body than the dragons.

Dragonflies predate dinosaurs. From the fossil record, these prehistoric dragonfly insects, called  Meganeuropsis, had a wingspan of 75 centimeters, or 29.5 inches! Though our current-day dragonflies are related to Meganeuropsis, they clearly have evolved to a size that works better in today’s environment. (Earth Archives: The Biggest Insect Ever Was a Huge “Dragonfly”)

Lest you think dragonflies are all whimsy, know that they are considered the most successful predator, with a hunting success rate of 95%. The movie Alien borrowed from the dragonfly nymph’s ability to move their lower jaw like an arm, so quickly the prey doesn’t know what just happened as they are being swallowed by the nymph. (Willistown Conservation Trust article: Dragonflies: Nature’s Most Successful Predator)

Sources/Learn More

• NPS St. Croix National Scenic Riverway Dragonfly Fact Sheet
• Woodland Trust: What Do Dragonflies Eat? and Other Dragonfly Facts
• Bridgewater State University article: Life Cycle of Dragonflies and Damselflies
• Sweetgrass Farm Garden blog post: Exploring the Different Families of Dragonflies
• Earth Archives: The Biggest Insect Ever Was a Huge “Dragonfly”
• Willistown Conservation Trust article: Dragonflies: Nature’s Most Successful Predator

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Group Therapy
One of the local bars in the city where I grew up was called Group Therapy. The sign, a flashing pink martini glass with a neon green olive inside, is seared into my memory though I never stepped foot inside. When I think of people supporting one another, this silly sign comes to mind. Though the martini is not the path to healing (nor is that unlikely olive), demonstrating compassion for ourselves and other people helps us move forward in life. 

Compassion, Empathy and Sympathy
Support, whether one-on-one or in a group setting, involves compassion. And we humans are wired for compassion via our vagus nerve (study).  So compassion is literally something we are born with. 

A vital tool in practicing compassion is empathy. (I want to mention here that sympathy, feeling sorry for someone but not necessarily relating to their experience, is not a tool of compassion. In fact it often disconnects, as in “I feel so sorry for you, poor thing. Glad it’s not me.”)

In Brené Brown’s book  Atlas of the Heart, she explains that there are two types of empathy: cognitive, which is an understanding of someone’s feelings, and affective, which is feeling someone else’s feelings. 

Empathy: What Works, What Doesn’t
I’m grateful for Brown’s work because it has helped me understand that my affective empathy was not serving me - or anyone else. I used to be the person that would feel a person’s feelings for them, whether a family member, friend, or even a movie character (yes, truly over-the-top empath here). This might have helped the person feel understood, but it left both them and me in the mire of emotion, neither one of us moving forward. It also meant that I spent many of my days feeling emotionally overwhelmed, exhausted, and hopeless. This was not an effective support strategy.

Now that I know better, I practice understanding what someone may be feeling, but I see that my own experience is separate from that person. I can therefore effectively show up for them in a supportive role.

Here’s the analogy that helps me:
Your friend falls into a hole. You come to the edge of the hole and look down, saying, “oh, that looks terrible, I’m so sorry for you,” and you keep walking. That is sympathy. 
Next time, you decide to jump into the hole with your friend, feeling for them. Now you are both in the hole, with no way out. You are experiencing affective empathy.
Now, let’s say you grab a sturdy rope ladder, attach it to the side of the hole and climb down. You sit with your friend, comforting and understanding, then when the friend is ready you support them in climbing out of the hole. Bingo! Cognitive empathy.

Learn More
For more about empathy and Theresa Wiseman’s Four Attributes of Empathy, check out this article.

For more on compassion and how it includes the desire to help, check out this article and video on the evolutionary roots of compassion. 

Originally published June 2022

​Fish Creek roars past me, its teeming flow slapping into boulders and ricocheting streams of liquid straight into the sky. Evening light, mellow and golden, settles amongst the rippling round green of aspen leaves. Sunbeams play in the creek’s shadows, illuminating sections of choppy water and the occasional tree stump racing by in the current. 

The chirps, chortles, tweets, caws, trilling and melodic sing-song emanate from the treetops and all around me. Happy birds. My eyes take in the green above, below, all around, and the many different shapes and sizes of petals in full bloom. I understand the phrase “drink it in,” I’ve been drinking along this path every evening. I drink it in partly because after those long frozen white months the overwhelming of my senses with the riot of things alive and growing and flowing I’m making up for lost time. But there is another reason I drink - the what if? What if I could no longer see or hear this beauty? So I try, each time, to imprint all of it, all of this sensory gorgeousness, in my body and brain. Just in case. 

When sweet doggie Haven and I are on our sniff outings, I wonder about her world, the darkness and silence since she can no longer see or hear. Does she long for the chatter and song of birds? Does she miss lying in the backyard sunshine and hearing the sounds of children playing down the street? The sound of her name? Would she like to see the faces of her people again? See the grass in which she buries her nose? See the water move past as she stands at the creek’s edge?

When I close my eyes, momentarily taking away my vision, the smell of rich damp earth, the sweet scent of flowers, and the tang of long green grass fills my nose. The creek-created breeze on my skin is cool, the sun is gentle, soaking deeply into my bones. Can Haven smell and feel these things too?

Smell is the strongest sense dogs have - up to 100,000 times the olfactory talent of humans. Their vision is dichromatic, so they see gray, yellow, and violet-blue - perhaps losing vision for her isn’t as much of a loss as I imagine it to be. Perhaps that smelling superpower unlocks beautiful things in Haven’s brain - similar to visual stimuli for me.

I hold hope that the smelling and feeling, and even tasting, help to make up for what is missing. Sometimes she stands perfectly still, nose pointed directly in front of her, neck slightly forward, like she’s smelling something on the wind. She’ll take a lady-like taste of creek water or morning dew. She’ll put her princess paws in the creek (well, when we could get there before the spring runoff) and sniff the life floating by. I watch her body shift as a breeze ruffles her dark coat - it seems she is feeling with her furry skin. 

Sometimes she sits down in the sun, allowing the light to warm her body. She has a little smile and when I give her a kiss she bends her left ear affectionately and gives me one or three in return. In her own way, she is drinking it all in too.