A lot of water has passed under the bridge, figuratively speaking, since our last issue of Talking Leaves. (Literally speaking, however, we've had a drought, and the rains are only just starting again as of late October.) Since Lost Valley's human residents have been too busy to keep track of it all and report it with some sense of perspective, I have been drafted to try to provide an update and overview.
While our Fall issue was at the printer, Laura Kemp presented her "Songwriting in the Garden" workshop and concert at Lost Valley on August 17. From my vantage point high in a Douglas fir tree, it looked like a smashing success. The ten or so people in the workshop each had a chance to share their experiences and ideas, and learned from Laura that it may take years of playing other people's music before one discovers one's own songwriting voice. I know this is true in the bird world: many Lazuli buntings shamelessly plagiarize their neighbors' songs before finally settling on their own. And most starlings are outright copycats. The humans in the workshop all seemed to finish it feeling more empowered to make music, or to pursue whatever form of creative expression shakes their tree. In the evening, Laura performed a beautiful solo concert of her own intimate, personal, multidimensional folk music on the lawn outside the main lodge. Community members and attendees of Lisle's Pacific Northwest Sustainable Future program soaked it in, and one woman even tried to convince Laura to fly to Germany to do a concert. That's a little far to fly, in my opinion, especially carrying a guitar. (Plus, Laura has a garden to tend to, not to mention two cats to keep in check.)
