In remembrance of Carnival Land

The Mirror Made of Bone

A Gothic fairytale

Author’s Note

Before this story found its voice, it lived for a time inside someone else’s dream.

Carnival Land was a luminous and enigmatic graphic novel created by an artist I loved. In its dreamlike world, she imagined herself as a heroine of transformation, poised to step through the Mirror of Selves into a perfected image of who she might become. Alongside her stood Peri, an acrobat who offered her shelter and quiet loyalty while she stitched her new self into being. That character was drawn from me. I had been written into Carnival Land not as a partner, but as a supporting character, one who would steady the mirror as she crossed the threshold alone. 

Illustration by Tatiana Tavares. From a gifted print in the author’s collection. Shared here for non-commercial, illustrative purposes. Copyright remains with the artist.

At the time, I didn’t fully recognise the deeper currents beneath that dream. But as our relationship unfolded, we became enmeshed in unconscious patterns that mirrored the roles from Carnival Land. I found myself becoming what I had been drawn as: a container for someone else’s metamorphosis. Her quest for perfection, for self-creation, left little room between us for shared reality.

Illustration by Tatiana Tavares. From a gifted print in the author’s collection. Shared here for non-commercial, illustrative purposes. Copyright remains with the artist.

In writing The Mirror Made of Bone, I found myself turning the glass inward, revealing an older current, a shape formed in childhood. A deep attunement to the pain of others. A longing to mend what was broken. An instinct to quiet myself, to tread lightly, to disappear so as not to add to the weight already carried.

The Mirror Made of Bone is a way of making sense, of re-entering the dream and speaking from within it in my own voice. It’s a story about what it means to become a symbol in someone else’s search for wholeness. It’s about the subtle cost of projection, and the strength it takes to see clearly when the spell begins to dissolve.

This tale is offered in wonder 

for what was revealed,
for what remained hidden,
and for the love that lives, even in silence.

— Nicholas Monks

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Dedication

In remembrance of Carnival Land
and the weaver of costumes

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Epigraph

The leaves were long, the grass was green,

The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,

And in the glade a light was seen

Of stars in shadow shimmering.

Tinuviel was dancing there

To music of a pipe unseen,

And light of stars was in her hair,

And in her raiment glimmering.

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lay of Leithian (from The Silmarillion)

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THE MIRROR MADE OF BONE

Once, in a half-lit kingdom where dusk and dawn blurred, there lived a dreamer named Tinuviel. Her smile curved like a crescent moon, and her eyes carried old storms, shimmering with the loneliness of someone who had walked too long in the dark. She spun enchanted worlds from thread and dust and placed them in a cabinet of curiosities. There they hummed with seductive light, filled with spells and broken clockwork. The world admired her artistry, though few understood the sadness that moved within her. She lived half in shadow, hidden behind the glow of her creations, pouring herself into the light, yet drawing a deepening darkness behind her.

In the same world lived Peri, an acrobat who hadn’t yet remembered his own grace. He moved through life as if underwater, his limbs reluctant to stretch into the shape of his longing. Deep inside him was a stillness, unshaken by the noise of the world. And though he carried that stillness untouched, some part of him was already weary beneath its weight. Without movement, he remained a container of dreams, not the dance of them.

One day, they met in the velvet dusk, and something unspoken passed between them, like roots shifting under frozen earth. A canopy grew up, and in its branches hung glass jars glowing with captive stars — vessels of hope, longing, and unspoken dreams.

Beneath that canopy, in flickering pools of light, Tinuviel and Peri studied illuminated spellbooks written in celestial ink. They intuited the mystical language that turns dream into form, though its meanings lay just beyond the dawn of their understanding. And so, they cast their spells in a world of mirrors with blurred edges, floating like shadows in a mist with no end.

“Stay,” she said. “Hold this space for me and in it, absorb the things I cannot remember. These veiled mirrors are constellations only your stillness can transform. You, Peri, whose heart is a deep well, and whose spirit I would turn in secret spirals toward the sky.”

They reached for each other with the urgency of those who are drowning, for neither was made only of light. In each other they saw what they longed for. And yet, misunderstanding each other’s inner world's, they grasped after illusions, each unable to name what was truly missing.

This folly shaped their entanglement and cast a thousand shadows: flickering on the surface of the well, and sinking them into its depths, a drowning place they confused for love.

In time, the darkening well swallowed the light, and the jars, one by one, fell and shattered, silent star-glass settling in the depths. The spellbooks faded to whispers only the attentive might still hear.

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A little star fell in the night,

Broke its mirror, lost its light.

One by one, the pieces gleam

Each one holds a quiet dream.

Look inside but do not fear,

The face you find is waiting here.

Not too perfect, not too bright

But full of shadow, full of light.

When you’ve cried and when you’ve grown,

Your shape will rise with the stars you’ve sown.

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The mirror-world mist thickened until Tinuviel and Peri could no longer see each other’s outlines. They did not find each other again.

But sometimes, Tinuviel would discover a single shard glowing on her windowsill, filled with a sliver of light.

And Peri, wandering the edge of the realm where gravity bends sideways, would feel the tension of an invisible wire beneath his feet, leading him toward a place he nolonger feared.

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Starlight shards upon the sill,

Mirrors made for those who will

Dare to look with open eyes

Where the silent sorrow lies.

Not for beauty, not for pride,

But the truth we hold inside.

When we fall, when we break,

That’s the shape our hearts must take.

In the shadow, in the well,

Where the soul begins to tell

All the parts we used to hide

There, the dreamer turns the tide.

Only one may stand alone,

In that mirror made of bone.

See the face that’s worn and true,

Every crack a light shines through.

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Reflection

On Shadows, Truth, and the Spaces Between

Love often begins not with understanding, but with recognition, a flash of familiarity that draws us toward another, believing they hold something we lack. But recognition is not always truth. Sometimes, it is a mirror held at an angle, reflecting only the outline of our longing.

In The Mirror Made of Bone, Tinuviel and Peri are archetypes of a deep human pattern. Their tragedy lies not in their meeting, but in the misreading of the magic they see in each other. True intimacy requires more than feeling, it asks for clarity. More than devotion, it demands self-awareness.

Without clear boundaries, love can distort into something else. In such a spell, one may vanish in the name of love. Or one might live behind a practiced exterior, concealing a self too fractured to face.

Illustration by Tatiana Tavares. From a gifted print in the author’s collection. Shared here for non-commercial, illustrative purposes. Copyright remains with the artist.

Looking back, I see this more clearly now. I remember one image from Carnival Land that returns with prophetic meaning: the acrobat reaching toward a lone figure crouched in shadow surrounded by a scatter of fallen masks, her arm drawn inward to guard an unseen mark. The text accompanying the image speaks of an encounter, a kindness extended, a threshold crossed — yet a secret kept, a wound hidden, and a slipping away, unseen and unresolved.

Even then, the dream spoke as foretelling. For when certain shadows remain unspoken, they begin to weave themselves through the fabric of a bond. No blame, no fault, only a sorrow shaped by what remained hidden.

Such threads fray quietly over time. There are labours of care that grow ever more delicate, like threading a needle in moonlight, unseen work, difficult to sustain without slowly vanishing. So it was, supporting the artist I loved through the long looping years of her PhD and as a young academic. In time, that thread wore thin, and finally broke beneath the weight of my cancer diagnosis.

But the breaking of a thread is not the end of the tale. Their story is not a failure. It is a necessary rupture. The shattering of the enchanted jars, the scattering of star-glass, the mist that finally blinds them to each other’s shape. These are not punishments, but thresholds. Moments of unmaking that reveal what was hidden beneath.

For the true mirror, as the poem tells us, is not made for beauty or perfection. It is made of bone. It is made for truth. And when the mirror breaks, when what once seemed whole shatters into fragments,  it is tempting to turn away from the broken pieces, from the shadows they reveal. Yet it is in the dark places, the depths we fear to enter, that the scattered stars lie hidden.

And if I peer into those broken shards, into the starlight sunk in the well, I begin to see an older pattern, one that shaped the bond long before its ending. A boy who learned to cushion others by withholding himself. Who grew skilled in reading the unspoken, in softening the edges of things. Who believed that by sacrificing himself, by becoming invisible to his own needs, he might keep those he loved from breaking.

In the end, The Mirror Made of Bone traces how certain bonds, shaped by old wounds and unmet needs, can masquerade as love, weaving a spell that binds through longing rather than truth. The deepest learning for me was recognising how I allowed myself to become a container for another person's unprocessed pain while my own emotional reality was denied, dismissed, or distorted. 

What began as devotion became a slow erasure, as I contorted myself around someone else’s wounds in the hope of preserving the connection. 

What I struggled with most in our relationship was the emotional climate we lived inside of. For a long time, I felt as though I was carrying a weight of sadness, unrest, and deep dissatisfaction that did not belong to me, and that there was little room for my own inner life when I became depleted.

I do not believe this was done consciously or with cruelty. I believe it emerged from old pain and patterns formed long before we met. But over time, it exhausted me and eroded my sense of safety and self.

I did not leave because love ended. I left because my body could not survive the cost.

A cancer diagnosis removes the luxury of emotional negotiation. It demands a stable space for recovery without ongoing emotional demand. Facing that reality, it became unmistakably clear that the relationship I was in could not yield such a space. What had been endured through habit and hope became untenable through illness.

Leaving was not an absence of love. It was an act of necessity. I reached the limits of what I could carry for another person and remain healthy. Continuing would have required me to abandon myself.

If this story has a meaning, it is this:

love can be real, and still not be survivable. Sometimes the most honest thing a person can do is step back into their own life.

Within that rupture lies the beginning of healing. By naming the pattern and reclaiming the voice I had withheld, the story becomes an act of self-repair. It is not a tale of failure, but of awakening — the breaking of a spell, and the return to what is real. 

And this, perhaps, is the night-sea journey of the artist and of the soul: to descend, to gather lost light from the well of the psyche, and through that descent, to rise reshaped. For it is through those luminous fractures that we begin to return to ourselves, not as illusions, but as beings finally capable of love.

Illustration by Tatiana Tavares. From a gifted print in the author’s collection. Shared here for non-commercial, illustrative purposes. Copyright remains with the artist.

Author’s note: The poems in this work were generated in collaboration with AI and curated, edited, and placed by the author as part of the story's mythic and symbolic structure.

To the New Zealand Mainstream Media

Addressing Liz Gunn MSM hit pieces, FreeNZ's Values, and sharing Kiwi Gemma Stratford's Story



In response to the attacks on our colleague Liz Gunn by the NZ media, I would like to introduce the FreeNZ media/news company and to offer the NZ public some broad insights into who we are as an organisation, as individuals, and what we stand for. Our team encompasses a diverse group of kiwis from various occupational backgrounds. In a time of increasing polarisation, the story of how we came together is a remarkable one. The FreeNZ team reaches across the political spectrum from moderate left to right, geographically we inhabit the length and breadth of the country. Among our ranks are experienced media professionals, journalists, teachers, IT professionals, librarians, corporate governance professionals, medical professionals, project managers, designers, lawyers, researchers, and students. We typify a cross-section of New Zealand society uniting together on a voluntary basis around a singular conviction — In the context of informed consent, the growing jab injury reports we are receiving need to be shared with the New Zealand public. Additionally, the FreeNZ media team aims to report critically on the wider milieu of covid-19 issues as a means for offering an informed counterpoint to the single source of truth government narrative. We do so as an emphatic rejection of censorship, and in defence of the democratic rights of all New Zealanders to engage in open dialogue and informed debate.

The FreeNZ team are unburdened by commercial constraints or political allegiances. This affords us the unbridled power to report assiduously on the difficult stories being shared directly with us by kiwis. For the most part, FreeNZ has been giving voice to under-represented New Zealanders whose stories are unpalatable to the MSM, (detailed later in this article). Because FreeNZs investigative journalism is unrestrained by any threats to our revenue flow, we are uncompromised in our ability to uphold the democratic principles of a free press.

“The idea of the fourth estate is that those who exercise the greatest power need to be challenged by adversarial pushback and an insistence on transparency; the job of the press is to disprove the falsehoods that power invariably disseminates to protect itself.”

- Glenn Greenwald (journalist, author, lawyer)

So who am I, and how is it that I find myself penning a defence of Liz Gunn in response to MSM hit pieces? I believe a personal introduction is warranted to dispel the ad hominems invariably being aimed at those who question. I’m a 45-year-old Librarian with a 15-year career in a customer-facing community service role. The hub of Libraries I work with are frequented by a colourful coterie of uniquely lovable New Zealanders from many different backgrounds, with unique life experiences, circumstances, motivations, and values. I have never found it acceptable to reduce complex and nuanced human beings to superficial labels, the lazy epithet anti-vaxxer comes to mind. Until recently the organisation I worked for was steeped in an ethos of inclusivity defined by the motto - We work to support, educate and connect communities all across Tāmaki Makaurau, and to acknowledge the mana of each and every Aucklander. It’s hardly surprising that segregation sits uncomfortably with me.

When Liz first popped up on my youtube channel in late 2021, I had been feeling affected by the unsettling polarisation in public opinion surrounding a myriad of Covid-19 issues, vaccine mandates, lockdowns, emergency legislation, Bill Gates etc... Everybody has been hearing it, the polarization in our communities is happening amidst a rising tide of anger and fear. Never in my life have I experienced such division within families, between friends, even between partners.

At that time, my general feeling around Covid-19 was that the government were doing their best in a difficult situation, I would say I was a vaccine agnostic - yet with reservations. I had been struggling to digest the unprecedented social and political changes we were experiencing: rushed emergency health legislation with no sunset clauses, vaccine passports, even the looming uncertainties of digital IDs. I found the mandate to embrace our government as a ‘single source of truth’ equally disquieting. As such, I had been trying to keep an open mind, to engage with a range of fiercely held opinions, and to understand what was going on. The difficulty of doing so was compounded by the deeply unsettling experience of lockdowns, social isolation, and the dysfunction of communicating on social media. At a junction in history when I felt it was more important than ever for Kiwis to come together and talk, conversations on both sides of the covid-19 divide seemed to be descending into a morass of absurd memes, name-calling, or apathetic indifference.

Liz Gunn’s first address to the nation pierced through this turbid atmosphere, resonating deeply with me. Her courage to speak from the heart, and question publicly the ethics of vaccine mandates and the medical segregation of New Zealanders had the effect of a clarion call. Alongside thousands of other New Zealanders, I emailed her. I've included that email below. It offers insights into my thinking at the time and marks a personal turning point that leads down an eye-opening path of inquiry.



Dear Liz

In a climate of fear, maintaining the ability to think and speak freely, and to consider a broad range of ideas becomes increasingly challenging so thank you for speaking so bravely!

I'm an Auckland Librarian concerned about censorship. I’ve found the mandate to embrace our government as a ‘single source of truth,’ and the stifling of our democratic rights to engage in open dialogue and scientific debate astonishing to witness. Traditionally Libraries have been keystones in a healthy democracy, ensuring people have access to a broad range of information, and so I was concerned (although not surprised) to receive an email from our social media team directing staff to push a pro-vaccine stance “When encouraging the vaccination efforts, we should be pointing customers in the direction of official and trusted information — to combat the harmful misinformation that is currently being circulated about the vaccine and COVID-19.”

I requested some clarity from the social media team around Auckland Libraries position concerning public access to a broad range of information "Are Auckland Libraries taking a political stance regarding the information we share publicly with a view to encourage vaccine efforts? If this is the case, should staff be directing customers away from official and trusted information questioning vaccine efficacy?”

I informed the social media team of a request I’d received from the public to share an article on our community library social media page. The article in question raises concerns about boosters, and was published October 9th 2021 in The Lancet (A weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal, among the world's oldest, best-known, and most prestigious general medical journals). The article in question is titled Considerations in boosting COVID-19 vaccine immune responses, and was authored by FDA Director and Deputy Director of the Office of Vaccines Research Marion Gruber and Phillip Kause Available: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02046-8/fulltext 

The article raises concerns about myocarditis and the possible long-term health impacts of vaccination boosters. With regards to balance, and informed consent, I felt sharing this article would be in the public interest. I also stated that from the perspective of a Librarian, any objections from the social media team would raise some interesting questions around the politics of information sharing, and censorship. I didn't receive a response to my email, but my manager was contacted and told to shut down posts on our community library social media page questioning vaccine safety and efficacy. Other staff were encouraged to continue promoting vaccination efforts.

Liz responded with the following observation, “What an extraordinary email ... it’s an allegory of so much else that has been manipulated and suppressed.”


Since joining the FreeNZ team in late 2021 I’ve been afforded repeated insights into the truth of Liz’s statement, further bolstering my conviction in the importance of our journalism. I would like to share one of those stories. It’s not an easy read:

Gemma Stratford suffers from a rare mast cell condition which causes multiple allergies including to particular smells, drugs, foods, and to certain heat or cold conditions. Gemma ingests mainly zero sugar electrolyte drinks and barely any normal food for her daily energy intake. Gemma is also registered as being severely anaphylactic to sugar. Sucrose, a stabiliser ingredient in the jab, is dangerous for Gemma. The medical exemption she was issued by her GP was later rejected by Ashley Bloomfield.

Despite multiple serious anaphylactic reactions immediately after her first vaccination, and since then painful seizures up to 10+ times a day, Gemma is being forced into taking the second jab to keep the critical support she needs for her children. Gemma is a paid carer for two of her high-needs children who have disorders including autism, epilepsy, and anaphylaxis and who require 24-hour care. Gemma relies on government financial support to pay for medication and to enable her to care for her children full-time. The regular seizures she is now suffering (following her first jab) make it unsafe for her to drive, and a struggle to care for her children. Gemma is now faced with an unconscionable decision.


FreeNZ is inundated with stories like Gemmas. The view-count and readership for these stories are steadily growing, enough to warrant attention from the mainstream NZ media. Lane Nichols, from a ‘mainstream publication’, recently contacted us with a request for information. We have included some of that telling correspondence below:


Lane Nichols: Hi Liz, Lane Nichols here from the ….. We've been sent a photo that appears to show you dining on Friday night at Lone Star New Lynn. When was this photo taken? Did you show a vaccine pass as required under the COVID protection framework? Are you available to talk?

Liz Gunn: FreeNZ recently conducted an interview with Gemma Stratford. Gemma discusses the impact vaccine mandates have had on her, and her family. Gemma is available and willing to be interviewed by MSM. Her story is available here: https://odysee.com/@FreeNZ:d/gemma-stratford:4

Lane Nichols: Thanks but I’ll leave the rabbit hole fodder to you and your followers.

Hello Lane, the FreeNZ team will continue to report diligently on stories we deem in the public interest. Many of us are doing so while balancing full-time jobs, and working long hours voluntarily to cover the serious performance deficiencies we've identified in your profession. Nonetheless, in the interests of fair-mindedness, we would like to extend the benefit of the doubt to you, and more broadly to the NZ media for your neglect to investigate or report on Gemma’s story, and many others like it. The most generous excuse our team can offer is that you simply haven't taken the time to look. The FreeNZ team encourage you to do so, and not without a sense of distaste for the need to remind you of your professional responsibilities. Gemma could have been your daughter, sister, or wife. Regardless, given that you are now fully aware of Gemma's appalling situation, we hope the basic human virtues of empathy and compassion will be sufficient motivating factors for your further investigation. Any additional information requests you may have regarding Gemma's situation will be welcomed by the FreeNZ team.

Nick Monks


Here’s Nicks most recent piece.

On the 18th of January 2022, a Candlelight Vigil was held in Auckland for Kiwi kids, on the eve of the 5-11-year-old rollout. Anna Hodgkinson, Casey Hodgkinson's mum, spoke.

Nick went along to capture the peaceful gathering, as well as an interview with Anna, on the eve of what will go down in history as a sombre occasion for New Zealand and its people.

Reflections on Strange Times: Covid-19

1. Introduction

The Covid-19 pandemic has coincided with an unprecedented level of social and political polarisation. Public debate around lockdowns, vaccine mandates, emergency legislation, vaccine passports, and institutional trust has become increasingly charged. In my lifetime, I have never witnessed such profound divisions within communities — between friends, families, and even intimate partners.

In emotionally charged contexts, rational dialogue and good-faith engagement are often the first casualties. I include myself in this observation. Like many others, I have struggled at times to separate evidence from emotion, and to remain open to perspectives that challenge my own assumptions. Over the past year, I have therefore made a deliberate effort to listen carefully, to seek common ground, and to better understand the broader forces shaping our collective response to the pandemic.

This task has been complicated by prolonged lockdowns, social isolation, and the distortive effects of social media communication. In a climate of fear and urgency, the capacity for nuanced thinking, dissent, and open discussion becomes increasingly difficult to sustain. Events have unfolded rapidly, often with limited time for public deliberation: emergency health legislation, vaccine mandates, digital passes, and speech regulation have been introduced at a pace that makes careful scrutiny challenging.

I have also found the directive to regard the government as a “single source of truth” unsettling. While public health coordination is essential in emergencies, scientific inquiry depends on transparency, debate, and the continual testing of assumptions. For this reason, I wish to explore — as a devil’s advocate — a number of questions that challenge aspects of the prevailing Covid-19 policy framework.

My intent is not to deny the seriousness of Covid-19, nor to dismiss the potential benefits of vaccination. Rather, it is to resist censorship, and to defend the democratic and scientific principle that policy should remain open to evidence-based critique. The studies, articles, and expert discussions referenced below are drawn from mainstream or peer-reviewed sources and are presented as a counterpoint — not a final verdict — on our current pandemic response.

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2. The Proposition

Below, I outline a series of questions. I do not claim that these questions are fully resolved, nor that the evidence is conclusive. However, I believe there is a growing body of professional concern that warrants serious consideration rather than dismissal.

Question 1

Have pharmaceutical regulatory agencies — institutions entrusted with independent oversight of public health — become vulnerable to conflicts of interest through financial or institutional alignment with industry?

Question 2

Given that the World Health Organization plays a coordinating role in global health policy, and that national regulators (such as Medsafe in New Zealand) operate within this broader framework, is it reasonable to question whether financial incentives may influence policy decisions — particularly when the economic scale of the current pandemic response is unprecedented?

Question 3

If regulatory capture were demonstrated, what would the implications be for global health decision-making during a pandemic — especially with respect to treatment approval, risk assessment, and public trust?

Question 4

Dr Pierre Kory (MD), a US clinician involved in early Covid-19 treatment, argues that the cumulative scientific evidence supporting ivermectin as a treatment is substantial, and that its adoption could have significantly reduced Covid-19 morbidity. Is it legitimate to ask whether economic incentives — including the lack of patent protection for ivermectin — may have contributed to resistance against its approval, rather than attributing such concerns solely to “conspiracy thinking”?

(See: NPR, “Some doctors think they’ve found a cheap generic drug which treats Covid-19 — so why hasn’t anyone heard of it?”)

Question 5

If low-cost therapeutic options are insufficiently explored or delayed, can policymakers be fully trusted to impartially evaluate the safety profile of newly developed vaccines — particularly where long-term safety data is, by definition, unavailable?

Question 6

Are these questions relevant to informed consent, human rights, and the ethical legitimacy of vaccine passports, particularly where participation in social and economic life is conditioned on compliance?

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3. The Counterpoint

A detailed discussion between biologist Bret Weinstein (PhD) and physician Pierre Kory (MD) examines the evidence surrounding ivermectin and questions the regulatory barriers to its approval. A reference list of peer-reviewed studies cited in the discussion is available alongside the podcast.

Podcast: Covid, Ivermectin, and the Crime of the Century
https://podcasts.apple.com/no/podcast/covid-ivermectin-and-the-crime-of-the/id1471581521?i=1000523859023

Dr Kory argues that scientific findings inconsistent with a vaccine-centric strategy have been marginalised. Whether one agrees with this assessment or not, the claim itself raises legitimate questions about how scientific dissent is handled during emergencies.

Additional interviews (including discussions involving Dr Mobeen Syed and Steve Kirsch) raise broader concerns about regulatory independence and pharmaceutical influence. These discussions do not prove misconduct, but they articulate a pattern of concern shared by multiple professionals.

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Regulatory liability and profit

In New Zealand, the Pfizer vaccine has been granted indemnity against injury claims. This is consistent with international practice during emergencies, but it nevertheless raises ethical questions. If vaccines are as safe as claimed, why does liability not extend to manufacturers? Should the financial burden of adverse outcomes fall entirely on taxpayers?

Pfizer reported approximately USD $33.5 billion in vaccine revenue in 2021. Profit alone does not imply wrongdoing, but in the context of public health mandates, it heightens the need for transparency and rigorous oversight.

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Global equity and vaccine access

Economist Shamubeel Eaqub recently noted that Covid-19 is likely endemic due to uneven global vaccine distribution. This raises difficult ethical questions. While wealthy nations promote vaccination as a collective moral duty, poorer countries remain dependent on delayed access. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical executives receive substantial bonuses during the pandemic.

This disparity complicates narratives that frame vaccine hesitancy purely as ignorance or selfishness. Journalist Glenn Greenwald has highlighted the troubling trend of dehumanising rhetoric directed at the unvaccinated — rhetoric that often ignores structural, racial, and economic inequalities.

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Scientific caution on boosters

An October 2021 Lancet article authored by senior FDA vaccine officials Marion Gruber and Phillip Krause raised concerns about widespread booster adoption without robust long-term safety and efficacy data. The authors argued that high-stakes decisions should be grounded in transparent, peer-reviewed evidence and international scientific debate.

They emphasised that existing data did not clearly support routine boosters and warned that policy driven by non-scientific pressures could prove counterproductive.

Following publication, both authors resigned from the FDA — a development that raises questions about the politicisation of vaccine policy and the tolerance for internal scientific dissent.

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4. Conclusion

The pandemic response has produced extraordinary outcomes: rapid vaccine development, sweeping public health powers, and immense pharmaceutical profits. At the same time, citizens are being asked to accept novel medical technologies, ongoing boosters, restrictions on civil liberties, and economic disruption — often with limited opportunity for open debate.

I do not deny Covid-19’s seriousness, nor dismiss the potential benefits of vaccination. I have received many vaccines in my life and, until recently, assumed this would be no different. My hesitation is not ideological but ethical. I care deeply about the wellbeing of my community, and the prospect of causing harm to others weighs heavily on me.

For that reason, these questions matter. If they are unfounded, I will be relieved. If they are not, the implications for public trust, democratic governance, and scientific integrity are profound.

A healthy society should be able to ask difficult questions without fear, ridicule, or exclusion. That capacity may ultimately prove as important to our collective wellbeing as any medical intervention.

 

Te Ara Awataha Restoration

Im feeling lucky to be involved with some fantastic projects happening in my Kaipatiki community!

IFLA documentary brief - Greenway Restoration segment: https://kaipatikicommunityspace.blogspot.com/.../auckland...

Kia ora Kaipatiki placemakers.

Thanks Paris for hosting an interesting and productive meeting yesterday!

I have been dwelling on some of the questions raised, and I would like to offer a more considered response about how Kaipatiki Libraries are striving to reflect the interests of our multicultural community. I would also like to invite feedback and participation from this group in our Library Storytelling Project, collecting and sharing local stories of place & belonging.

Libraries are about more than just books, Libraries are also multipurpose community facilities. Our relevance to the community is dependent on our ability to reflect the diverse cultural values of our customers. Libraries want their patrons to feel welcomed, at home, safe and valued. This ethos of inclusiveness is reflected in Auckland Libraries future direction’s strategy, and our promise to acknowledge the mana of every Aucklander.

Visiting Kaipatiki Libraries on any given day reveals a melting pot of different ethnicities. We endeavor to reflect this diversity in the different cultural programs and events we run such as Arabic story time, Chinese New Year celebrations, Matariki festival, language weeks etc... However, we are always striving to evolve our offerings in line with changing demographics. For this reason, Kaipatiki Libraries are currently running a service development project encouraging customers to take ownership of the Library space. The community lounge set up for this purpose asks patrons to engage, connect, and create together. We are seeking input from the community about what they want to do, see, and be involved with both at the Library and within the wider community. This includes encouraging Library users to take leadership roles in the creation and delivery of content. I think there is some crossover here with the principles of place making and I’m looking forward to discussing this with you all further.

Since the start of the Kaipatiki Libraries service development project, feedback and participation from the community has seen a diversification of our offerings. The influx of ideas has provided fresh opportunities for enriching our Library mahi and mana through the facilitation of community lead initiatives. Personally, I’ve witnessed a sense of deepening connection and shared purpose growing between Library staff and local individuals, groups, and organisations. Intrinsic to the project is the ongoing exercise of building and nurturing positive relationships and shared good will. For example, the Kaipatiki Project Environmental Centre have repeatedly expressed their sincere gratitude for the mahi Kaipatiki Libraries are offering in support of their environmental work.

One particularly rich work stream that has emerged out of the service development project is our involvement with the Jessie Tonar scout reserve restoration. Through this involvement I have been making connections with local mana whenua such as Lucy Tukua. I’ve also been learning about local stories of place, particularly concerning the significance of the Te Ara Awataha stream.

Libraries have a responsibility for nurturing a sense of place and belonging within our community. These principles are reflected in the brief I wrote for the IFLA Auckland Libraries film segment on the Te Ara Awataha restoration. The film is no longer in production because the covid-19 lockdown fell during our shooting deadline; however I still think this is a fantastic story that should be told and could be explored as a community project.

Promoting mana whenua’s involvement with the Ara Awataha restoration fits with Libraries commitment to preserve our heritage. Libraries also have an important role to play around issues of sustainability. The story outlined in the brief aligns with Auckland Libraries newly developing role as an environmental hub, (heritage and legacy) preserving our past & insuring our future. I am very keen to follow up on Mere's suggestion and further explore how Libraries can share local stories of cultural significance. If anyone in this group has contacts who would like to discuss this further, I would love to meet them.

I personally believe that Libraries are keystones in a healthy community. To remain relevant, we will continue providing services beyond just books. Kaipatiki Libraries are very keen to work with local groups, organizations and individuals, seeking opportunities for shared mahi aimed at enriching our communities.

Ngā mihi nui

Nick

International Federation of Library Associations documentary brief: Awataha Greenway Project:

auckland-libraries-ifla-short-film

Further to LEH, Kaipatiki Libraries are working alongside Kaipātiki Project Environmental Centre, positioning Kaipātiki Libraries as a supporting partner in local and regional conservation efforts, including participation in the Northcote Zero Waste initiative. This serves LEH objectives by establishing a model for Libraries as a community based environmental hub. Accordingly,  Auckland Libraries are participating in EcoFest 2021, Auckland’s largest environmental festival. Kaipatiki Libraries have engaged in community co-design to deliver multiple high-level Library Ecofest events within the Kaipātiki hub that registered high levels of participation and recommendation. Libraries have utilized their digital channels, and  subject matter expertise to promote relevant  resources on both the EcoFest and Auckland Libraries website available here. This included providing opportunities for mana whenua to identify key resources relevant to Māori notions of the embodiment of culture in nature.

Auckland Libraries involvement in EcoFest 2021 was acknowledged publicly on the Kaipātiki Project blog as a significant contribution to the capacity and reach of EcoFest 2021, available here. Conversations have already begun regarding the exciting developmental possibilities for expanded Library involvement in EcoFest 2022 (podcasts).  

Black Sand Mining

I did not set out to write a conventional thesis. From the beginning, I sensed that what I was exploring could not be fully captured in the language of certainty or linear argument. My project—The Ecological Self—was born from a deeper urge: to listen, to notice, and to record the felt sense of being in relationship with the more-than-human world. It was never just about photography. It was about presence.

I approached this inquiry not as an observer looking out at nature, but as a body moving within it. The forest paths, the misted air, the quiet light filtered through canopy—these were not “subjects” of study but co-respondents, participants in a slow dialogue. I wanted my writing to reflect that same reciprocity. I wanted it to breathe, to echo, to listen back.

Much of what I wrote emerged in the spaces between walking and watching, between standing still and pressing the shutter. These moments called for a language that was closer to poetry than theory—language that could hold ambiguity, that could stretch and bend to accommodate silence. So I allowed myself to write as I experienced: fragmentary, recursive, sensory.

In this exegesis, you’ll find passages that unfold like poems. Not because I sought to decorate the work, but because poetry is the most faithful companion I know when dealing with the ineffable. When I describe the light shifting on surface, or the play of wind moving on water, I am not simply reporting—I am offering a fragment of consciousness, a trace of lived encounter. 

This way of writing became part of my method. I did not separate the thinking from the feeling, or the image from the word. They emerged together, shaped by the same impulse: to honour the interconnectedness of all things. The ecological self, as I understand it, is not something we build through intellect alone. It arises in the body, in the breath, in the spaces where we are permeable—open to the touch of rain, the sound of waves, the stillness of dusk.

Lens-based practice became a way to be in relationship—with place, with time, with self. Photography offered me a kind of slow seeing. It made me linger. It helped me return. And it reminded me that perception is not neutral—it is shaped by emotion, by memory, by breath. My images are not attempts to capture nature, but invitations to pause within it:

As clouds drift through reflective pools of light, I walk the beach advancing and retreating with the sweeping surf. I respond to changing light as it glances off surface and illuminates patterns in the sand and rippling water. I regard this rhythmic movement as a dialectic between self and environment. My photography unfolds over many hours in which I become immersed in a meditative state of interactive fascination. My attention is absorbed in such a way that I experience myself as participant in an enchanted dance. The environmental psychologist David Kidner notes that “Difference and relation … together make up a sort of dance that is part of the vitality of the natural world."[18] While photographing, I am not engaged in critical thought but rather relaxing into a concentrated state, responsive to the myriad interacting phenomena in the surroundings.

It would be disingenuous of me to suggest that my photography field trips always unfold as enchanted encounters with the more-than-human world. Invariably I am attended by conflicting currents of thought ready to punctuate my contemplative methods. Often-times thought arises unbidden, pulling me this way and that in streams of conjecture. I stand on the beach surveying the surroundings and I feel oppressed by the dullness of a grey cloudy day, or I resent the lashing assaults of squalling rain showers. I might question my methods and ask myself: Where is the photograph here? Why photograph at all?

In such moments I sit in the sand dunes, or alongside streams that empty into the sea. Relaxing into an awareness of the moment, I become a conduit for interacting aspects of mind and matter, I become porous. The rhythmic sweep of the waves draws me into their presence, the eddying gusts of wind converge with the transmuting environments of my heart and mind. This is how an ecological ethic unfolds in my practice. It is an ethic of spending time, of dropping beneath projections and opening to a receptive awareness of the environment.

During this process of thinking, photographing, spending time and reflecting, the lens has served as an appendage to my self, bringing me into a deeper and closer relationship with what I observe. In the process my point of view has become less separated from the object of attention so that I find myself intimately involved as an inherent part of the ecology, and in this sense, the ecology that I have set out to explore is opening as a plain of immanent potential. In rare moments I find myself close to being 'at one' with the more-than-human world.

As I wrote, I found myself moving away from certainty and toward intimacy. Rather than explain the work, I let it unfold. Rather than define the ecological self, I tried to inhabit it. This required a kind of surrender: to write not from a place of mastery, but from a place of listening. Sometimes that meant circling back. Sometimes it meant not knowing.

The structure of the writing followed the rhythms of nature itself—cyclical, layered, returning with subtle variation. Like tides, like seasons. I resisted the urge to make everything tidy. I let questions hang. I let silence speak.

My hope is that the reader, too, will slow down. That you will not rush through these pages looking for conclusions, but dwell with them as you might dwell in a forest clearing—attentive, patient, awake to what stirs just beyond the edge of knowing.

This project changed me. It drew me closer to the earth, yes—but also to myself. I have come to understand the ecological self not as a theory, but as a practice of remembering. Remembering that I belong. That I am not separate. That to live is to participate in a vast, entangled, luminous web of life.

And so I write as I walk: slowly, openly, reverently. With camera in hand, with heart attuned, I listen for what the world might be whispering back.

— Nicholas Monks
The Ecological Self: A Lens-Based Inquiry
Auckland University of Technology, 2019

My connection to the land

A lifetime spent immersed in the coastal environs west of Auckland has inspired in me an appreciation for the beauty of the region and its diverse ecology. For over thirty years I have been returning to hike, surf, and photograph. My responses to this landscape are overwhelmingly visceral and cathartic. The activities I engage in here distance me from the noise and demands of hurried urban life, and I experience a heightened sensuous immersion in the elemental forces of nature, a connection with the ebb and flow of tides, with the shifting seasons, and with the rhythms of cyclic time. As I approach the coast I take pleasure in the particular character of changing light, of luminous salt-saturated haze drifting above the cliffs, and the reflective shimmering of the ocean over black iron sand. 

The wealth of uplifting experiences I have enjoyed here informs my research interest concerning the phenomenology of enchantment. The political theorist, Jane Bennett, describes enchantment as a state of wonder that arises when one is struck and shaken by the extraordinary. She explores the possibility that this affective force might inspire and motivate ethical behaviour. “I emphasise how wonder marks the vitality and agency of a world that sometimes bestows the gift of joy to humans, a gift that can be translated into ethical generosity."[1]

A corresponding sense of gratitude infuses my relationship with the west coast. Over many years I have been privileged to share waves with the now critically endangered Māui dolphins, been thrilled by schools of feeding hammerhead sharks, and I have felt a kinship with the remarkable grace of gliding tākapu, their outstretched wings tracing the crest of unbroken waves, harnessing updrafts that propel them effortlessly along the coast. I have witnessed the infinitesimal growth of kauri ascending the heights of the bush-clad ranges and observed the slow migration of sand. Pushed by the currents of wind and swell, sand gathers in creeping underwater banks that give form to the breaking waves, later congregating ashore in dunes that shape erosion patterns and support coastal habitats.

Over the duration of a lifetime, my continual return to the coast has taken on the character of communion, and yet it exists as a constantly transforming relationship. To navigate the ocean’s powerful forces, I have learned to identify its hazards and yields, and to adapt to its ever-changing moods. But also, to appreciate its constancy. The influence of this dynamic relationship flows through my life as a sense of enriching connection. I experience myself most fully in this environment as part of a living and interconnected whole, as both a witness and participant in the timeless interaction between land, sky, and sea.

The philosopher and cultural ecologist David Abram argues that the environmental crisis gripping the planet is a crisis of perception, the inability to appreciate anything outside of an exclusively human discourse, and that modern life is characterised by an unhealthy disconnect from the living earth that sustains us. “Today we participate almost exclusively with other humans, and with our own human made technologies. It is a precarious situation given our age-old reciprocity with the many-voiced landscape.[2] Metaphorically, my photography aims to sing in the forgotten register of “the many-voiced landscape”, and to imbue my song with the values of kaitiaki that are too often silenced by economic imperatives. Although I am Pākehā and a guest on this whenua, I feel I have a role to play in terms of kaitiaki.

The Eco theologian Father Thomas Berry laments western cultures objectification of the Earth — primarily as raw resource for economic exploitation — as an attitude driving biosphere collapse. Berry has described the universe as “a communion of subjects rather than a collection of objects."[3] Similarly, Abram argues of the importance for a renewed sensorial connection with the ‘more-than-human world’. His premise is that “we are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human."[4]

For me the genius loci of the west coast manifests as this potent expression of wildness, of an abiding and durational sense of deep time, an unfolding drama enacted by powerful elemental forces that have etched their indelible impressions upon the living land. But just as significantly, these forces have played a formative role in shaping the idiosyncrasies of my contemplative character, and my attunement to the rhythms of the region. My familiarity with recurrent ocean patterns has developed out of a necessity to avoid drowning, and in pursuit of catching and surfing waves. I understand the behaviour of ground swell. It travels in sets of individual waves separated by intervals where increases in distance equal speed and power. I can identify rip currents and use them to my advantage, conveying me ‘out the back’ to the relative safety of deep water beyond the impact zone.

This intimate knowledge is primarily a sensorial and bodily experience: barefoot dashes across burning summer-baked iron sand; cool afternoon sea breezes drafted off the ocean by rising land-heated thermals; winter southerly winds blowing from the frozen polar regions of the Antarctic, chilling to the core; easterly offshore winds grooming the incoming swell into straight-edged lines, smoothing surface conditions to glass; onshore westerlies generating agitated confusions of white water; northerlies bringing warm tropical air and summer cyclones. I experience these changing weather patterns as associative with the coastal conditions they foster, seen through the accumulated knowledge of a lifetime spent communing with the coast. This relationship has instilled in me a humble sense of gratitude for the solace it provides, and inspired in me an interest in advocating for its protection.
​
In his Landmarks series, the nature writer Robert Macfarlane contends that the destruction of our natural environment equally impoverishes and degrades our very humanness. He offers a re-connective narrative by exploring the reciprocal shaping of people and place – how landscapes penetrate the psyche of their inhabitants, and how languages and dialects register an enriching relationship with the wild.“I have long been fascinated by how people understand themselves using landscape, by the topographies of self we carry within us and by the maps we make with which to navigate these interior terrains. We think in metaphors drawn from place and sometimes those metaphors do not only adorn our thought, but actively produce it."[5]

The sea calls to me, as I perform the duties of a city-bound working life or any other activities unrelated to the life of the coast. Ocean emissaries hasten my return, announcing as the rising flurries of an offshore wind, or as familiar cloud formations harkening trains of building swell. The waves form in my mind before I surf them, sweeping up the west coast from the southern reaches of the Tasman. Their variant angles of approach refract in different patterns around headlands, breaking across reefs or sandbars in familiar yet constantly varying formations.

Elemental indicators form a web of interacting coastal conditions that predict and influence the dynamics of breaking waves. Enchanted, they merge together as a synesthesia of perceptual phenomena. Surging surf shimmers musically in dancing sea-salt haze, painting rippling traces in shoreline creeping dunes, whilst the wind whistled sun swirls in faceted ocean surface. I appreciate these elementals for the variant possibilities they yield, both for surfing and photography. But also in the restorative act of spending time, of walking, looking and noticing. Considered from this perspective, I regard my photographs as short hand terms for exploring the ways in which I understand and interact within this wider ecology, an inquiry beneath the surface of nature into the lattice of the self.


The participatory nature of perception

In my practice, phenomenology has provided a philosophical ground for integrating my perception back into the web of life. The philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty argued for the primary role that sensory perception plays in our understanding of the world. He defined the embodied nature of perception as a reciprocal engagement between the perceiving body and that which it perceives. Furthermore, he consistently described the sensible world in active terms as animate and in some sense, alive.
“As I contemplate the blue of the sky ... I abandon myself to it and plunge into this mystery, it thinks itself within me, I am the sky itself as it is drawn together and unified, and as it begins to exist for itself; my consciousness is saturated with this limitless blue.”[6]

David Abram in his book The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World (1996) draws on the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to elucidate the eco-ethical value of subjective bodily experience. Abram describes the value of such an environmental phenomenology as “a philosophy which would strive, not to explain the world as if from outside, but to give voice to the world from our experienced situation within it, recalling us to our participation in the here-and-now, rejuvenating our sense of wonder at the fathomless things, events and powers that surround us on every hand.”[7] Abram articulates the foundations of an environmental ethic which calls for the human community to renew its acquaintance with the sensuous otherness of a world in urgent need of our care and attention.


Landscape & memory

In my practice I am attempting to drop beneath abstractions and pay close attention to the felt experience of the land. I seek to prioritise phenomenological forms of perception in this endeavor. However, I recognise that my experience is tempered by personal proclivities of habit and behaviour that can cloud a phenomenological approach. The subconscious aspects of the psyche are not so easily quieted. Walt Whitman’s observation, that nature emerges subjectively out of a changing historical landscape of beliefs, suggests to me some value in maintaining a perspectival viewpoint whereby looking at the world through multiple interpretive lenses might equate more closely as seeing. The historian Simon Schama in his book Landscape & Memory makes a strong claim for cultural construction as an implicit characteristic of perception. “Landscapes are culture before they are nature; constructs of the imagination projected onto wood and water and rock ... once a certain idea of landscape, a myth, a vision, establishes itself in an actual place, it has a peculiar way of muddling categories, of making metaphors more real than their referents; of becoming in fact, part of the scenery."[8]

My photography queries the role that memory plays in filtering my experience of the present. Here, the ambiguous term landscape is discussed as it refers to a cluster of ideas that describe ideological ways of seeing. In my practice I explore landscape as a concept in relation to my own latent tendencies for framing the land in terms of antiquated ideological and aesthetic filters. These tendencies have predominantly involved photographic tropes of the beautiful, picturesque, and the sublime. These tropes have been evident in my photography, at times in a purposive way, at times as unexamined and habitual inclinations. Although my practice has evolved beyond the limiting perspective that such framings impose, these inclinations have a habit of reappearing in my current research in different guises, at times beneath awareness. As such, the self-reflexivity of my practice acknowledges and releases my outmoded attitudes towards the land as they emerge from processes of thinking and making. This allows for a more receptive awareness of the environment to arise. Yet, the complete erasure of my historical past and the realisation of an unmediated experience of the land seems an impossible task, and so, I have come to regard an ecological self as a dynamic negotiation of different perspectives that is always ongoing and unfinished.



Cultural construction

My experience of the west coast manifests as a heightened sense of felt connection within a life world that extends beyond me. Identifying how this visceral experience of communion might function as an ethic of care for the more-than-human world has been problematised by the seemingly divergent perceptual processes evident in my artworks. I have framed these different understandings of landscape perception as constructionist on the one hand – relating to the projection onto the landscape of culturally determined ideas and attitudes – and phenomenological on the other – perception arising from a sensory and embodied relationship between the subjective self and the land. I recognise these different perceptual modes as being mutually entangled in my practice and necessitating joint consideration.

The environmental psychologist David W. Kidner[9] argues that a cultural constructionist approach to environmentalism, one that views nature as an artifact of language and the realities of the world as primarily discursive ones, has the effect of denying the natural world as a potential source of experience, understanding, or morality.

The sociologist Klaus Eder (1996) summarises a cultural constructionist view of nature in the following way: "Nature is only signifier. The signified in the description of nature is society itself. Society sets down the rules for perceiving and experiencing the world in the symbolisation of nature. Such symbolisations are used to adjust the elementary schemata for perceiving and experiencing the world."[10]

Thus, constructivism has given rise to sceptical attitudes towards nature – nature understood as a larger order out of which we grow. This philosophical view proposes that there exists no ‘Nature’ out there, and that our true environment is socially constituted. Equally, Jane Bennett and William Chaloupka have argued that “nature, like everything else we talk about, is first and foremost an artefact of language”. In this sense, language is understood as constituting nature rather than representing it, so that “any attempt to invoke the name of nature ... must now be either naive or ironic."[11]

As a participant in the extractive processes of culture and capital consistent with industrial consumer society, I exhibit colonising attitudes towards the land consistent with this world view. I am a member of industrial consumer society and so I appreciate the ironies inherent in any romantic attempts to invoke the name of nature. Nonetheless, I also suspect that my struggle to understand and articulate certain nature-inspired experiences I have had in my life has causative relations with the limiting schemata industrial society sets out in the symbolisation of nature. I am ignorant of the degree to which prevailing societal habits for perceiving and experiencing the world preclude more psychologically integrative ways of knowing and being in the environment.

Surfing has been one of the primary activities that brings me into a close relationship with the coast. However, surfing is an overly pejorative way of relating within a wider ecology that remains indifferent to the fulfilment of my leisure pursuits. To disrupt my habits of engagement, I began exploring the bodily sensation of being in the ocean through moving image, and with the intention of treading water in the shoreline surf and recording my experience. Untethered from a surfboard, and consequently from my habituated ways of being in the ocean environment, I drifted passively with rips and currents.

Reflecting critically on this footage, I noticed that during recording, my gaze had been drawn by the activity of the waves from the perspective of a surfer, and that I had chosen to shoot on days that had been favourable for surfing. The images reflected my own tendencies as a surfer to view the ocean through the tropes of surf photography. The body of work didn’t reflect my felt bodily experience of rhythmic ocean movements as much as it hinted at a surfing-derived narrative.


Emptying out & opening up

Photographic tropes can operate as limiting filters that temper a more receptive experience of the environment. My tendency to frame the land in terms of aesthetic conventions such as the beautiful, picturesque, and sublime is not an exhaustive account of the culturally determined ways in which I reflexively think, act, and photograph. Nor do I believe that I have a full awareness of my own limiting biases.

David Abram, in his introduction to Ecopsychology, Phenomenology, and the Environment, describes the difficulties of a phenomenological style of perception: “Such an approach demands great care and lucidity on the part of the would-be practitioner. In careless hands, phenomenology can risk assimilating the wild multiplicity of things into too human a register."[12]

In my practice I have tempered a phenomenological approach with an awareness that projection is an inevitable function of my psyche. By understanding how different modes of perception unfold in my practice I can recognise a broad spectrum of attitudes as they arise within my experience. Art provides a means for such critical reflection, for examining and questioning my relationship with the world, for broadening my perspectives, and for opening new horizons and possibilities. Questioning my approaches to photography, and the underlying attitudes that inform them, is to dig down into a compost, part of a deeper psychological schema of attitudes and beliefs that inform my experience of the present and orientate me in the world. My goal is not a disavowal of my past methods, but rather to seek assimilative possibilities.

Simon Schama states “Although we are accustomed to separate nature and human perception into two realms, they are in fact indivisible. Before it can ever be repose for the senses, landscape is the work of the mind, its scenery is built up as much from strata of the memory as from layers of rock."[13] In accordance with this view, my photography poses questions regarding the characteristic beliefs – “constructs of the imagination projected onto wood and water and rock” – that have been ubiquitous in my past practice and have drawn censures of overt obscurantism. One such convention is the romantic sublime, which has operated as a kind of shadowy antiquarian vestige of its historical predecessor. Photographic throwbacks to this tradition invariable draw criticisms of cultural pastiche, or hopeless romantic cliché. Despite my sympathies with the prescient critical objections levelled against the romantic sublime within contemporary art discourse, it is a tradition that has remained doggedly with me. As such, certain characteristics of the sublime for which I still hold clandestine sympathies require ongoing critical appraisal as they emerge out of processes of thinking and making. This criticality serves as a valuable means for orientating my practice within a broader historical context of understanding.

Nineteenth century romantic artists conceived of the sublime as an elevated experience of boundlessness precipitated by feelings of awe, fear, or terror. Edmund Burke[14] in his treatise on the sublime described extreme aspects of nature, such as storms, mountains, or the wastes of the sea as the most auspicious environments for stimulating these feelings. For this reason, the sublime became synonymous with natural settings of a grandiose kind. In my early practice I was struggling to articulate my felt connection with the land, and so I adopted the romantic sublime as a substitute discourse which did not accurately reflect my experience. However, certain aspects of this convention resonated with me. My attraction to the dramatic scenery of the west coast elicits at times powerful emotions within me. The adrenaline aspects of surfing, of testing physical limits against the forces of the ocean and the palpable fear that can be experienced in this wild environment, have superficial parallels with the language of romantic sublimity.

Nineteenth century metaphysical and idealist rhetoric framed the sublime as a spiritual experience, thought to be triggered when the boundaries of the self and the rational mind – overwhelmed by all that exceeds comprehension – merge with the divine. Furthermore, romanticism was a tradition that celebrated intuition over the intellect, and emotion over reason. These sentiments resonate with my felt experience of the west coast, a location that stimulates an emotional sense of heightened connectivity within an order that exceeds my rational awareness. In common parlance this more-than-human order is termed as nature or cosmos. In my early research the associated heightened feelings that accompanied such felt visceral experiences were translated in lyrical and poetic terms.


Rupture

I began exploring how I could open my photographic gaze to allow for a more nuanced experience of place, and of the more-than-human agencies active in the land, without being overly prescriptive in my methods. I realised that my carefully controlled framing of the land was distancing the environment. With this concern at the forefront of my thoughts, doubt entered my practice and I began to experience an uneasy dissonance when photographing familiar coastal scenes. I realised that to more effectively evoke a sense of relatedness I needed a new approach.

Experimentation with a pinhole camera ensued. This involved relinquishing technical control over the aesthetic outcome of my photographs. Owing to the lack of a viewfinder, this method opened my practice to a different kind of attention. Although I was still thinking pictorially, my attention was inversely engaged. While waiting contemplatively during long exposures, unnoticed elements of the environment presented themselves to me. Accordingly, I became less concerned with producing dramatic sublime photographs. Also, this change to pinhole camera shifted my choice of subject matter. The often-frustrated search for breathless romantic vistas relaxed into a more intimate awareness of the here and now. This prompted mindful attention of what was happening within me in relation to the surroundings. I began regarding the camera differently, as a perceptual filter through which the act of photographing becomes a means for accessing the materiality of my experience.

This marked the beginnings of a transition towards a more relational approach. The romantic sublime morphed from transcendent portal to earthly departure point, registering how shifting attitudes towards the land influence the ways in which it is perceived and interacted with. This shift in thinking raised the question of how an emerging awareness of these filters, documented photographically as markers of significance, could bring into focus hidden influences at work, both in the land and within myself. My interest in felt bodily experiences marked a change towards a phenomenological approach.


Interactive landscape

The philosopher Arne Næss has warned against the dangers of an ecological holism that denies individuality. As such, when photographing I do not seek to collapse self into environment, and I am also aware of the dangers of subsuming environment into self. Næss contends that,“We are part of the ecosphere just as intimately as we are part of our own society. But the expression ‘drops in a stream of life’ may be misleading if it implies that the individuality of the drops is lost in the stream."[15] In both my artworks and my methods, I am seeking to recognise this interplay between separation and relation, recognising the difference between myself and the land while nurturing a greater sensitivity for the agency of the more-than-human world.

The environmental philosopher Val Plumwood outlines a corresponding notion of Interactive Landscape.[16] This conceptual framework for ecological ethics embraces gradations between self and other, and between humanity and nature. Plumwood demarcates the boundaries of interactive landscape by indicating what the concept rejects:

• hyperseperation – into a nature/culture binary;
• cultural reductionism – nature scepticism that discounts the agency of the non-  human sphere; and
• implosion – nature and culture as indistinguishable categories.

Plumwood argues that hyperseperation, cultural reductionism, and implosion are poor ways to deal with issues of gradation. She states that “the dialogue on the self/other boundary will hardly be facilitated if it must start by imploding nature/culture discourses and refusing conceptual expression to difference," and also “cultural reduction, which is often associated with certain forms of postmodernism, would abolish conceptual conditions for sensitivity to nature’s limits, and to the variations and interweavings of the human and non-human narratives an ecological consciousness aims to foster." Interactive Landscape grounds eco-ethical responsibility in an awareness of the continuities and divisions between subject and object, and between people and the environment. Within my practice the notion of interactive landscape underpins my multi-perspective approach to the land. 
​

The ecological self

To avoid assimilating the land to preconceived categories of thought I have identified methods that allow for a reciprocity between self and environment to emerge out of my practice in a non pre-emptive way. One of these methods involves being present in the west coast environment with no fixed goals, open and receptive, and with the intention of spending time. In this enterprise the camera has operated as an appendage, facilitating a deepening of my sensory acuity. This acuity is not limited to the visual, but tacitly engages all my senses. When using this method in the field I focus on my felt bodily sensations in response to elemental forces. Drifting passively with rips and currents while recording moving image, I surrender myself to the whims of the sea. Periodically submerged beneath breaking waves and buffeted by the elements, I enter into a state of heightened awareness.

This attention draws me into a meditative reciprocity with the wider environment. I have begun to employ this way of knowing in all my photography field trips. My body enters into a dialogue with the elements as I walk the coastline, sit gazing indolently out to sea, drift with ocean currents, or tumble in shoreline breaking surf. I feel the warm sun on my face, or the wet rain on my skin. I respond with my body and through the lens. Jane Bennett has described the kind of enchantment I feel in these moments in comparable terms. “Enchantment involves an experiential encounter in which one’s critical faculties are momentarily disrupted, and a sense of fullness and enjoyment ensues”.[17]
Employing this method of mindfulness, I walk the shoreline allowing myself to be drawn into an awareness of the dynamic life of the coast. When my attention is engaged by phenomena, I stop and shoot. My attention has varied across seasons, focusing on various elemental subjects: of rippling patterns in streams brushed by the disturbing flurries of gale force wind, swirling eddies scattering sand across the beach in constantly shifting deposits; of clouds sweeping the coastline broken by glancing beams of sunlight and sheets of squalling rain; of rhythmic immersions in shoreline breaking surf, drifting listlessly with rolling ocean currents that submerge into the green ocean depths.

I regard the inter-tidal area as both a literal and metaphoric threshold, registering converging movements as they unfold between the wind, the sun, the sea, and the land beneath my feet. The shoreline is in a constant state of transformation swept rhythmically by surging surf that advances and retreats leaving constantly shifting patterns in the sand. As clouds drift through reflective pools of light, I walk the beach advancing and retreating with the sweeping surf. I respond to changing light as it glances off surface and illuminates patterns in the sand and rippling water. I regard this rhythmic movement as a dialectic between self and environment. My photography unfolds over many hours in which I become immersed in a meditative state of interactive fascination. My attention is absorbed in such a way that I experience myself as participant in an enchanted dance. The environmental psychologist David Kidner notes that “Difference and relation … together make up a sort of dance that is part of the vitality of the natural world."[18] While photographing, I am not engaged in critical thought but rather relaxing into a concentrated state, responsive to the myriad interacting phenomena in the surroundings.

It would be disingenuous of me to suggest that my photography field trips always unfold as enchanted encounters with the more-than-human world. Invariably I am attended by conflicting currents of thought ready to punctuate my contemplative methods. Often-times thought arises unbidden, pulling me this way and that in streams of conjecture. I stand on the beach surveying the surroundings and I feel oppressed by the dullness of a grey cloudy day, or I resent the lashing assaults of squalling rain showers. I might question my methods and ask myself: Where is the photograph here? Why photograph at all?

In such moments I sit in the sand dunes, or alongside streams that empty into the sea. Relaxing into an awareness of the moment, I become a conduit for interacting aspects of mind and matter, I become porous. The rhythmic sweep of the waves draws me into their presence, the eddying gusts of wind converge with the transmuting environments of my heart and mind. This is how an ecological ethic unfolds in my practice. It is an ethic of spending time, of dropping beneath projections and opening to a receptive awareness of the environment.

During this process of thinking, photographing, spending time and reflecting, the lens has served as an appendage to my self, bringing me into a deeper and closer relationship with what I observe. In the process my point of view has become less separated from the object of attention so that I find myself intimately involved as an inherent part of the ecology, and in this sense, the ecology that I have set out to explore is opening as a plain of immanent potential. In rare moments I find myself close to being 'at one' with the more-than-human world.

Endnotes:

1 Bennett, J. (2001). The enchantment of modern life: Attachments, crossings, and ethics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. P.175
2 Abram, D. (1996). The spell of the sensuous: Perception and language in a more-than-human world. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.Pp.ix
3 Berry, T. (2006). Evening thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as sacred community (M. E. Tucker, Ed.). San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books. P.17
4 Abram, D. (1996). The spell of the sensuous: Perception and language in a more-than-human world. New York, NY: Pantheon Books. P.ix
5 Macfarlane, R. (2012). The old ways: A journey on foot. London, England: Penguin Books. P.26
6 Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans.). London, England: Routledge & Kegan Paul.​ P. 214
7 Abram, D. (1996). The spell of the sensuous: Perception and language in a more-than-human world. New York, NY: Pantheon Books. P.ix
8 Schama, S. (1995). Landscape and memory. London, England: HarperCollins. P.61
9 Kidner, D. W. (2001). Nature and psyche: Radical environmentalism and the politics of subjectivity. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press
10 Eder, K. (1996). The social construction of nature: A sociology of ecological enlightenment. London, England: Sage. P.31 
11 Bennett, J. & Chaloupka, W. (Eds.). (1993). In the nature of things: Language, politics, and the environment. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 
12 Vakoch, D. A., & Castrillón, F. (2014). Ecopsychology, phenomenology, and the environment: The experience of nature. New York, NY: Springer. P.vii
13 Schama, S. (1995). Landscape and memory. London, England: HarperCollins. P.6
14 Burke, E. (2008). A philosophical enquiry into the sublime and beautiful (J. T. Boulton, Ed.) (2nd ed.). London, England: Routledge. (Original work published 1757)
15 Næss, A. (1989). Ecology, community, and lifestyle: outline of an ecosophy (D. Rothenberg, Trans.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. P.165
16 Plumwood, V. (2006). The concept of a cultural landscape. Ethics & the Environment, 11(2), 115–150. 
17 Bennett, J. (2001). The enchantment of modern life: Attachments, crossings, and ethics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. P.10
18 Kidner, D. W. (2001). Nature and psyche: Radical environmentalism and the politics of subjectivity. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. P.252