The Wildness Within

South Dakota Magazine WILDNESS Book Review

The current November/December issue of South Dakota magazine reviewed our book and this is what they said on Page 32 the BOOKSHELF Section:

POETRY

WILDNESS: POEMS and PHOTOS (44 pp., softcover)

This book is a collaborative effort between longtime friends Charles A. Haislet and James E. Johnson. Haislet is a Minneapolis doctor of Medicine, while Johnson who enjoyed a 35-year career in art and design in Minneapolis, now lives on a Brown County Ranch. Johnson’s photos taken mostly on the Pete and Mikki Caspers ranch south of Hecla, served as inspiration for Haislet’s poems. The result, Haislet writes, ” is a book where the poetry and the image are so intimately connected that they create a third body that is more than either alone ”

A photo of a snowy trail ( pictured above ) led to the poem ” Cold Cabin ”

Day after day I awoke
in a cold cabin
lit a fire and
looked out at this road
Each day the same

But once after lunch
I walked out,
and walked and walked
and just kept walking

CH

Cover

Sample inside spread

This is the first Book published by WILDNESS B O O K S - our new publishing company.

We will be looking for other books on WILDNESS to publish in the future.

For books - $ 19.95 wildnessbooks@nvc.net

Jim & Charlie at their POETRY READING & BOOK SIGNING

October - The Red Rooster Coffee House - Aberdeen, South Dakota

OUR BEST REVIEW

” Jim, I love this book that you and Charlie have done! The photographs completely amaze me. I’m thinking of the baby ducks and that snowy road through the trees ( I have a big copy of that in my study) and the winter scene next door and the lone tree and the moon up above the prairie. Beautiful, beautiful ! ”

Robert Bly - Poet Laureate, State of Minnesota

WILDNESS with a Twist

I love to do collage and did a lot back in the 70’s and 8o’s - I had two gallery showing. One at my studio on Loring Park and another at Bob Thompsons’ Gallery next to the New French Cafe in Mpls.

Collage is so spontaneous and lightning fast. Its like a spark of creative crazyness. I started doing collage when I was working at the Walker Art Center, I had about two or three going on the wall that I would add to between design jobs. Now I do the same thing between photography, drawings, design projects, ranching and farming.

Heres an example of that creative crazyness. And I guess its that WILDNESS I look for in Nature in my photography

only here it comes from inside me - what a revelation ! Ah Hah

Wildness With A Twist - Photo collage and prisma pencil 11″x 17″ JimJ08

Prints available at - jamesjohnson@nvc.net

Caspers Ranch WILDNESS

Here’s some of the WILDNESS in my world on Caspers Ranch where I live in South Dakota.

The Land
The People
The Animals
The Plants all the Living
The Breathing
The Moving Wonder of IT ALL

IT takes my breath away

JimJ

Caspers Ranch WILDNESS - Photo collage & prisma pencil 11″ x 17″ JimJ08

Prints available at - jamesjohnson@nvc.net

LOST IN THE WILDNESS

My Mind Has Been Lost in The WILDNESS of It All,

I have been doing a series called me and my shadow.

Theres something about the shadow and how it changes with light-

Self Portrait, Lost in Wildness - Ibsen photo print JimJ08

Prints available at - jamesjohnson@nvc.net

WILDNESS and SOUL

The quest for the divine, or oneness with the universe, always springs from within.
For me I have discovered that by going to our Mother - Mother Earth - and who better describes It than Episcopal priest Mattew Fox.

“By digging deep into a wellspring of WILDNESS one finds the energy for new life, connections, images and moral imagination by which change happens in a deep, not superficial, way.”

As Paul said in his latest email-

It doesn’t matter where you find your spiritual path. We are all fundamentally spiritual beings and the essence of that lies in knowing one’s true self and finding a peace that comes from within rather than the outside world. It is in remembering this that we awaken to our personal path. The spiritual path springs forth from a daily routine that reaffirms our personal connection and purpose.

Recently I read that there are:

7 SOUL WOUNDS that are widespread in American Culture.

They are:

1. Separation from Nature

2. Separation from personal creativity and perception

3. Separation from dreaming and the visionary capacity

4. Separation from the ancestors/spiritual worlds

5. Separation from the body, deep masculine and deep feminine

6. Separation from the Essential Self /Purpose

7. Separation from the Cosmos

The journey of integration of all the parts of the Soul into a whole is called INDIVIDUATION

My Son JOE JOHNSON - who gives me great Joy, Pride and Love -

As perhaps - DaVinci’s modern “Man the Designer” on his path to INDIVIDUATION - - October 2008

Haying On Casper’s Ranch

August, 2008 - Haying On Casper’s Ranch -

It is Haying Season on the Ranch.
Hot and dry winds of August
cure the sweet smelling grasses
for all the grazing animals
Living the saying
” Make hay while the sun shines ”
Working until sunset and into the night
to beat the rain.
All the forces of Nature full of bounty.
The fullness of the growing things.
WILDNESS all around.
Living a Natural cycle
preparing for Winter.

JimJ

This photo reminds me of and old master landscape painting.

Prints available at - jamesjohnson@nvc.net

Wind Spirit Dance

The imagination comes alive when we look at clouds

heres an image from my series of photos called Wind Spirits

Wind Spirit Dance

Spirit Totem # 13

This is an image from a series called Spirit Totems

Prints available at - jamesjohnson@nvc.net

Grandson Spencer on the Ranch

My grandson Spencer was visiting the ranch last week, a full time was had by all.

Spencer taking me for a ride.

On our way to the rodeo.

The May Queen

The May Queen

We voted this lady the May Queen, she will rein over all our festivites

Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly–and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
- Omar Kayyam

In Spring Rapture from the Ranch

Signs of Spring on the Ranch

High boots in the muddy manure
scent of winter mildew moistness
from sweet grass hay

Babies abound
mother cow bellows with the pain of the new calf
her calf struggles to breath through the afterbirth
some don’t make it
others struggle to stand as the herd moves forward
mother sheep groans a out shoots a white furry missile
predators await

Gray Drakes patrol the nesting area with there
heads and neck bent down mouths open hiss - s- s-s-stay away
big wings spread and flapping
they fearlessly attack any thing that moves
protecting the gander on the grade AAA eggs

Clouds of blackbirds swarm with wings of red, yellow and white
they move with UFO shap and speed through the cattle

There are fresh aromas in every step I take
It is time for cowboys to sing
and say ” ha-ay babe, walk on the Wild Side ”

JimJ