A Dream in the Driftless
Notes from the Chop Wood Carry Water residency.
☷ nance, mid story ☷
T he golden portal approaches. We sense it in the long yawns of prairie grass, in the sky's cerulean sprawl deep into the evening. Across the hemisphere, a sea of disparate cultures will all funnel into the still-point of the summer solstice. Some will celebrate, others will be unaware. But all of us, along with the discordant mash of our meanings, will pass through the shining sublime.
☷ view from the prairie overlook ☷
I am sure there is no better place to be than here, at Pachamanka. Among a handful of artists I meander, wayward and by impulse, across the prairie. Pachamanka is a fertile farm and sanctuary stewarded by artist-ecologist Nance Klehm. Twice a year, Nance hosts Chop Wood Carry Water, a residency program for contemplatives and creatives named after the old Zen proverb:
Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.The transcendence of spiritual attainment is not from the burden of labor, but somehow, from the burden of the burden.
☷ serena, before or after enlightenment ☷
T he labor of artists is difficult to quantify. Its visible dimension is a fraction of the whole. For most of us, the work requires that we unspool in dreaming, play, or rest. Often, we simply need to let something settle within, for an impulse to ferment into a process. The sculptor Charles Ray, in explaining the long duration preceding the creation of a particular work, said it well:
Time is also a material.
To the chronically productive we can appear undisciplined, distracted, lazy, erratic. It’s natural, particularly during times of self-doubt, to absorb these ambient judgments, and in doing so, to interrupt the subtle signal. If you know an artist well, you know the residue of this tidal conflict between conviction and disorientation, and the frequency with which the loam of self-loathing must be mopped away.
☷ the curved trunk stool, my favorite seat in Earthstar ☷
A n artist’s retreat, ideally, serves as a precious reprieve from cultural pressure, a chance to restore self-regard through the abiding in one’s nature, rather than anxiously seeking it through achievement. For a spell, we are not juggling gigs and straining to make the math work.
Intuition leads to deep channels of process, but eventually strategies calcify and there is a need to get lost, again. The surrender of the habitual is an opening to possibility, and Chop Wood Carry Water is an invitation to this opening. Nance offers the land itself, teeming with the mysteries of nonhuman animacy, as a field upon which our stories of ourselves can unspool, soak into the soil, and regenerate.
☷ red finds the path ☷
Nance knows all of us, but none of us know each other. I learn names: Liv, Red, Layne, Serena. We each build our relationship with Pachamanka in solitude. Outside of sparse group commitments, we allow our paths to entangle organically. Sometimes we share notes. Often, just a smile and a nod of acknowledgement. We are all courting the quiet focus that lures the mind into its natural expanse. There is no interest in social convention, the empty ritual of locating each other within the map of the banal. We are each rewilding, and these surface constructs impede new growth.
☷ layne mulls ☷
I t is Wednesday afternoon: “give back” time. All the residents gather to help Nance tend the land. She spoils us with work most would pay to do: carving dripping honeycomb off of hive frames — work quickly, before the bugs find this pile of sweetness — and sifting biochar through a wire screen, separating it into different grades for future use.
☷ char hands ☷
Biochar looks just like charcoal, and it is charcoal, but with specific qualities that enrich soil and aid in plant growth. Nance’s batch is soaked with rainwater, glistening like fish scales as we sift. I feel a strong pull toward this material, using my hands in lieu of a shovel, enjoying the drying sensation of the charcoal on my skin. I start to rub it on my forearms. Soon, the craving body speaks to me: cover me in this.
I share the desire with Nance, and her eyes sparkle. Go for it, she says. I slosh some char into a bucket, and after we finish I head down to the platform overlooking the prairie grass, disrobe, and revel in the solitary ceremony.
☷ body char ☷
T here is to be a firing. I’m in the forest, absorbed in a lunatic reverie, when they call for me to join the preparations. Liv is assembling found twigs and branches into a conical pyre. The rest of us are strewn on the grass, preparing objects for the burn. The clay forms are covered in fruit skins, grasses, and other materials for the flames to translate into stains and textures. The delight of the fire is the uncertainty, the not quite knowing what the heat will forge for us.
☷ liv builds the pyre ☷
☷ fire offerings ☷
☷ nance ☷
☷ red ☷
☷ liv's vessel ☷
O nce the fire subsides, we sift through the ash and unearth treasures. Among the vessels, sculptures, and talismans I find a carbonized blade of grass, transformed by fire into a wisp of charcoal. It retains the elegant arc of the original blade, but the flexible plant matter is now delicate dust. I am mesmerized.
Nance observes that, over my time at Pachamanka, I’ve been forming a relationship with “Big C” — the element Carbon, in its various manifestations.
☷ a wisp of big c ☷
I prod Nance to elaborate, and she opens up one of the many tendrils of her earthen library. She speaks of the nature of carbon, the elemental basis of life in this realm. The radical flexibility at its foundation. Carbon’s power is defined by its openness — its ability to interface with a great variety of other elements. Many believe that the nature of life is competition, but Big C is teaching me about the embodied generosity at the root of nature itself.
S erena proposes that we have a Solstice Snack. On the longest day we convene on the prairie platform. I lay out my sacred periwinkle blanket, a souvenir from a psychiatric hospitalization. Serena treats us to a dessert she's made using foraged raspberries and mint.
We give each other space to share the contours of our concerns and the shimmers of our visions, reflecting on who we are as we approach the portal, and what we hope to burn off in the ecstasy of light.
Nance speaks to the long view, placing the contraction of cultural liberation we face now in the context of prior histories. She speaks of loss, of courage, of brutality, of resilience. The lessons are in the land, and the land is in us.
Dream in the Driftless © 2025 by Adam Grossi is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
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I was honored to design the poster for the 2025 Chop Wood Carry Water Residency. Learn more about the residency by clicking on the poster below.
