10. Anchors

A peaceful sunset near Nswatugi Cave.

Please visit the The Arts in Focus to obtain information about our 2014 Matopos Calendar - 

an initiative supporting rhino conservation in Zimbabwe.

While in the Seychelles, I spent some time aboard an assortment of seafaring vessels studying their anchors. Like the rudder of a boat, the anchor is but a fraction of the boat’s entire make-up, but it serves an immense role! While the rudder is also a relatively small component it is almost in constant use while the ship is moving. The anchor on the other side (also literally!!) is only needed from time to time. So most of the time the anchor is an unused component, stashed away… But when needed, it is critical beyond any doubt. Without it, or when it fails, there is normally a major catastrophe as ships may run ashore, either beached, stuck in sand or smashed to timber on the rocks…

A see of rocks.

Many words in current daily use are based on their original and practical form, but now used in a figurative sense to convey the importance of its practical and often crucial meaning. So today we use the word anchor in various contexts, all based on the notion that the anchor ties, moor or tethers the vessel to the sea bottom in order to prevent the boat from drifting or running ashore. So today, journalists anchor television programs; maintaining stability and purpose, and centering discussions around the focal point, or we say that many practical applications are anchored in sound theory! These phrases have absolutely nothing to do with ships and chains and anchors, but we immediately understand the meaning and the value of the word in the specific context.

I love the way the clouds and the granite play
their own little games.

So Matobo is my anchor. Its my symbolic link not only to the physical place where I live, but also to the space in my mind within which I live and where I am happy. When I am near it, as when I sit in my office and I can look out over the hills, I am content and know that I will not run onto some emotional rocky shore… Matobo is a good place to use as an internal anchor. He is a sound being, generous as I have described before (Geo- Anthropomorphism), strong and sensible, a creature able to guide the inner being onto reliable roads culminating into incredible journeys. Its a good place to be, anchored in such wisdom and magnificence.

Massive!

The other side of it however bothers me from time to time. Will this place ever let go of me? See, the functioning of an anchor is based largely on trust. We constantly drop anchors into deep and dark waters. Upon mooring your ship in an unknown place, the captain has none or very little knowledge of the structure or make-up of the ocean floor! You drop the anchor and you may struggle to find a good stronghold, so you keep testing it until you are sure and secure. At times the sea may refuse to release your anchor. It may get stuck and sailors may be unable to weigh the anchor. So you need to trust that the anchor will do its job, but also need to trust that it will be released when required.  There is a part of me that fears this, that Matobo may not release its hold on me again. That it will involuntarily keep me tethered to this place in my mind. I may not be able to rid myself from his influence. Matobo may be my eternal anchorage. But for now, I trust. I am here and I am anchored in good faith.

While its nice to meander along, there are great rewards
when climbing a large dwala... the scenes are magnificent!

A "dwala" or massive monolith in the shape of an amphitheater.

The scale at which things happened here defies logic.

Matobo harbored many people, these bushman or San paintings illustrate
their incredible artistic flair and intimate knowledge of the area.

These are my favorites, gentle graceful giraffe. I can imagine this artist
observing his subjects from the same ghommos/hills
where I now photograph from.

Many a photographic text suggests to keep things simple,
well in Matopos its almost impossible!

Petrified guards still watch over the vast expanse of this wonderland.

As I have indicated before - I am fascinated and often surprised
to see where some of these tree established themselves.

You just have to love these little guys, extravagant and determined -
taking full advantage of the options evolution granted them! 

9. The way we look and the way we see

Not so long ago I watched an old lady reading her book in the sunny part of the departure lounge. She was reading, then stopped, took her glasses off, reflected - a faint smile occurred in her eyes - she paged back and re-read a passage, took the water bottle from her lap, opened it, held it up to her face, just to put it down and close it without drinking… She was engaged in her book. The following weekend, I saw a man sitting on a rock in Matobo going through the same motions - yet he had no book in his hands.. He was staring over Matobo, reading and thinking and reflecting… drinking it in like the old lady in the sunny corner of the departure lounge.

Sometimes bad weather makes good photos...

Look, and thou shall see… Its a basic principle of observation, yet so few of us actually practice this level of observation. A man whom I trusted and respected once said to me, “Stopping at what you see at first will leave your eyes unsatisfied and your mind a dull place filled with the mundane. Always look for more - go beyond the obvious - train your eyes and your mind never to be satisfied with what you see the first or second times.” Like the athlete becoming more efficient and elegant at his or her game, the eye can reach the same level of efficiency, and as it is for the athlete, it can be extremely rewarding. Seeing more will make your life that much more full and satisfying.

The places where trees root themselves to the rock
 defies not only gravity but also logic.

Previously I wrote about the components of the system, the transitions and understanding the larger whole. To really see, you need to consider these factors, look again at what you are looking at, break it down into its components, the individual legos of the world, then see how they constitute a larger whole, see how they transition from the one to the other… in both space and time. Then when you are adept at doing this, look for the interactions and dynamics. One simple method to start is to look at the way water flows through the system.

The first major rains for the year trapped us in a cave today,
the wait for better light was worth it.

In this complex world - you will every now and again find a gem, something really worth exploring further. That is a good time to focus, and isolate – to explore the detail. Break the world down in the sub-systems, components, compounds and aggregations. Contemplate the scales, the circles within the circles until you get to the basis of it all. Then think about how it all works together. Like the way a Commiphora or some other hardy tree finds a way to grow in the crevices between rocks, high above the ground. Or the way a rock has been balancing on another for millennia! Or, go deeper, simply look at a tree, in its surroundings, then isolate the tree, break it down into the different structures that makes a tree a tree, the trunk, branches, bark, the way the branches divide into a larger picture and not just the middle eye-level mundane world we normally stare at through the car window… See the larger picture, then from this select the elements worthy of closer inspection, but again look beyond the obvious. Keep searching even when what you see is pleasing. Read your world like you read a good book.

Long exposure using a big stopper... need to work on this....

Amazing colors on the granite rocks...

Some rocks remain exactly where they were formed...

Every crack and crevice is a micro-habitat,
to be used by plants or lizards....

Steady as a rock!

After fire and rain...  green green grass.

Trapped in our shelter... the bush is beautiful.

8. Fire

Although there are a whole bunch of glossy magazines out there suggesting we eat our vegetables raw, the mere fact the we, or our ancestors rather, were able to cook their food, changed the course of human evolution and we were well on our way to yuppies driving four wheel drive SUVs clutching cellular phones!

Huge plumes of smoke, painted with light
from the fire and the setting sun!

The ability to hold a root over the fire, provided Zog and family with an opportunity to detoxify the tubers and other plant materials, increased their palatability, so the toddlers would also eat roots and tubers otherwise filled with vile tannins, increasing its digestibility. To cook meat so it would last a little longer also contributed significantly to improve diets and reduce the body's strain against toxins and other strange chemicals… Cooking increased our culinary diversity and many great thinkers suggest therefore that fire lit up human evolution and put it into overdrive… some even suggest that the use of fire lead to the rapid increase in human brain size! So its clear that since our days as cave-dwellers, fire has played a clear and directing role in the evolution of humankind.

However, this is not a lesson in anthropology! And I am seriously digressing!! I am simply trying to justify my innate attraction to fire… I love fire, and as a scientist I need to have an hypothesis as to why it is such a demanding factor in my make-up as a modern man writing blogs!

Systematically consuming all dry vegetation
converting biomass into heat, ash and carbon dioxide  

My theory is that fire had such a profound impact on the collective human construct that our fascination and attraction to it remains to this day. Not only did it cook and preserve our food but it prevented us from freezing to death in our wintery caves, and crucially it kept the predators at bay. Fire therefore contributed in various ways to reduce mortality in the human line able to control it. That is not trivial and we will not forget that! Reinforcing the role of fire, it gave us the opportunity to invent graffiti, and the written language was born as our ancestral toddlers started playing noughts-and-crosses on the cave walls using charcoal left over from last night’s tuber and ostrich BBQ!

The other side of fire, the uncontrolled wild fire, is incredibly devastating! It destroys, it requires oxygen and fuel and creates heat and if that fuel is your grassland or house or car, then fire is an immense enemy! That side of me also hates fire. As a biologist I understand the role of fire, positive and negative on the environment. It can transform a golden waving grassland into ash and black soot in minutes and hours… an entire season’s growth can be destroyed in a single fire lasting no longer than a few hours. A year's rainfall can go up in smoke and leave us with nothing but bare soil and starving herbivores. The reality is that Africa still burns probably much like in the days when Zog and his clan discussed ways in which to control this new innovation! Its been part of this (and other) continents for a very very long time. It shaped the vegetation and everything else with it. No part of this world is untouched by it (apart from the poles, to some extent!). In short, fire shaped the way this continent and its inhabitants evolved and it will continue to do so in many ways.

Captivating the human mind and soul.

So as I leave the office and drive home at night in the winter, and I turn onto Matopos road my eyes start looking for the tell tale glow on the horizon. I am looking for it cause I don’t want to see it! I love watching the savanna grow and ripen into a rich honey colored mass of waving grass in the late summer. To see it destroyed with all its inhabitants is soul destroying. Then when you see it, that red and orange smokey glow in the distance your heart pounce in your throat, just like in my younger days on the farm, where fire was enemy number one and everyone in one’s household was ready to assist if a neighbor would call and say the dreaded word “FIRE”.

But when you see it and when you are over the initial shock of it, and like the rest of Africa, who has accepted death and destruction to a large extent - when you get to that point, then the ancient role of fire takes its effect on me. I cannot drive past it, I can not ignore it though other cars speed by. I, however, have to stop and look, get out the car and walk to it, as I am drawn to it. You often hear the anger in it - its amazing how much noise it makes, an angry beast consuming everything in its way. An incredible number of minute explosions, as oils and resins and gasses ignite with audible cracks and sizzling sounds are emitted as gasses are extruded from confined spaces in dead and live wood and dense grass stands.

The contrasts are amazing - dry grass, bright fire, dull smoke
and an amazing array of smells and sounds

When you stop and watch, it is mesmerizing… it consumes your mind like it consumes the dry vegetation. Sometimes rapidly it will lunge itself forward into large clumps of dense fuel, other times it will gently find its way through the short grass, bridging itself to the next large accumulation of dry matter… almost like an athlete pacing himself, for the final assault on the finish line. Sometimes during these the gentle periods, there are patches which are rejected, or forgotten by the fire or simply not worthy of being devoured, either the biomass is too sparse or the fire out-burned itself and then cant get to it… I love looking at these patches of unburnt vegetation amongst a sea of black, after the fire. They remind me of last standing pieces on a chessboard, the last remaining subjects of a game between masters… the last men standing in a war.

While fires are attractive - be sure not to ge trapped!

While devastating, and highly destructive, fire is also amazingly life-giving. How contradictory can this be? Like the rest of this continent, there are paradoxes and ironies and sometimes just plain illogical phenomena. Yet, soon in contrast to the otherwise black world a new sword of green grass will emerge, bright green, greener than where the veld did not burn - or perhaps it is a cynical play of color in your eyes and in your mind! The reality is that this world sometimes needs it - where we live and work in rural Africa, the grass are habitually burned every year, which is not good. But in places with “sound” management - there is often the need to burn.. To remove the dead wood, the moribund grass and reset the system. Some plants only germinate after smoky fires stimulate their seeds from dormancy… So its not all completely negative! It facilitates and initiates the next cycle, its just that sometimes these cycles follow too rapidly after each other.

Fires at night are simply amazing. Captivating, Awesome!

Whichever the case may be, in the day that may follow such fires, I always look for the new grass, those green little guys bravely pushing their heads into this great new world, unaware of what may follow. Not knowing whether they fill the simple stomach of a locust, the complex series of fermentation chambers of a ruminant like the impala or the sheep and goats, whether it will be a stately sable antelope or if they would survive the cycle and be consumed by Africa’s ultimate herbivore, fire.

Turing reality into a temporary fairy land of color and a
hypnotic theatre of which the aftermath is a cruel black world. 

So, I stop and look, perhaps allow the fire to play with my eyes and my mind a little… allow myself the luxury to travel back to the cave days where our ancestors may have scavenged the after effects of these fires, just like modern raptors swoop down and catch insects fleeing in the face of the fire or other scavengers searching the barren landscape for half cooked victims of the fire…. I may take a few photographs… smell the smoke, wonder about the puff-adders and squirrels again… and when I have had my fix I drive home. There, I greet my family, eat a well cooked meal, pour something smooth and settle in front of my fireplace, and contemplate my day and the ones to follow.

Read some more!

Please look at Gary Larson’s cartoon

On the earliest evidence for habitual use of fire in Europe.  Wil Roebroeksand Paola Villa 

The New York Times; Of Tubers, Fire and Human Evolution, By MARK DERR, Published: January 16, 2001 

7. Components

It not just Matopos, its a characteristic of all places. In fact it is not only a characteristic of ecosystems, its there in many things we deal with… the basic components or parts of the larger whole. The elements that constitutes the whole. When reading a little more about the word component - the dictionary suggested to also look at the word compound, and that brought me to the word aggregation… which is very different from compounds, but each describes in its own way how these systems are constructed. So this is how I look at my world, and therefore how I see Matopos, the larger whole made up of many different building blocks, some in compounds others mere aggregations of elements - which ever way it comes together - there are numerous elements which ultimately constitutes what we know as Matopos.

There is a lot which is of importance here - its not only what the specific components or “ingredients” are, but more importantly how they all are assembled, how they fit together and in some cases how they merge or fuse into something else or change in character. At another level, the overall whole is affected by the way in which these components, aggregations and compounds interact - how they integrate to create a larger whole. Their specific dynamics create the whole which we often refer to as the ecosystem, or should we want to be smart and include the human component, which we should, then we refer to it as the socio-ecological system. This system is then controlled or its interactions determined, or driven by outside factors such as sunlight and rainfall, and economies at various levels. So while the system is composed of specific components the way in which they are assembled, aggregated and fused, determines their interactions and dynamics - and ultimately the behavior of the system.

The individual components my be inert - sterile, but the way in which they act and react upon one another, how they interact and these smaller interactions merging and fusing into larger dynamics - this is what makes it special, functional and worthy of further consideration!

Most probably because of this, I often get the feeling this place is alive… yes its alive with animal and plant life, but more than that, when you pause to look and feel, you often feel it breath… not hear, feel. There’s the presence of the place that gets to you. Like a ridiculously large behemoth. In places the ancient exoskeleton is exposed and the granite is pealing off like old dry skin… with a mosaic of lichen dandruff and warts and large grassy hairs remaining in the creases and crevices. New growth is evident in the soft areas between the hard exterior and the softer belly. Where the hard exterior gives way to the softness of dark rich soil. Covered with vegetation, drying in the winter sun like a huge butterfly waiting for its wings to harden against the forces brought upon it by the next part of its continuous life-cycles. In a not too dissimilar fashion this place reveals all the possibilities of evolutionary life seen in times gone by and present. 

When I stand at the edge of numerous wetlands or vleis in summer and the ducks arrive from no-one really knows where, and the frogs and other amphibians emerge from their clay tombs, I think of it as the gills of an exceptionally large salamander, most sensitive and vulnerable to the outside world if not treated with care. I think of pollutants burning into those sensitive breathing apparatus and wish for a major storm to flush it clean of chemicals, to leave it clean and pristine so the heron can stare at it own reflection for days on end…. So other critters can complete life-cycles of their own and birds can hang their nests out of harms way… so life can play its role in the lives of the different layers of life represented in this place.

Further afield the rocks and boulders build up in massive aggregations or monstrous monoliths, like the one near Mbalabala, a huge wart on our critters back, together they all form when you fly over Matopos the wrinkled back of our friend. Trusting the world, its exposed capillaries merge into small veins and arteries joining in where valleys merge into larger rivers channeling life giving water to man and beast. It amazes me how hard the skeleton can be and how trusting it exposes the softest parts of its existence to the world, to use and abuse.  Not questioning our intentions - jut giving and trusting.  

The outer layer is in most places, hard crusty rock - like the exoskeleton of an old insect of ancient crocodilian, in places it gives way to softer skin, rich soils from which grass and trees emerge making then best of the opportunity provided to them. When you scratch too hard here, you will expose the soft inner being, and if you dont care for it, it will become infected and erode away into large gullies, which like the wounds of an old person, it never really heals. So be careful where you place your roads and stalls and gates. Just like the human hand is composed of delicate bones and tendons and muscles and skin, perfected with nails and pores and hair in the masculine version or simply soft and smooth…. Such are the places in Matobos when you look for it, or if you are prepared to see it…  delicately put together with the minimal use of components, unlike the the extravagant rain forests of Costa Rica or elsewhere, Matobo is a place of modest minimalism. How contradictory can that be? Let em explain - the individual components are minimal, simple without ostentatious flair, just there - but when you look at the whole, you allow the human eye and mind to comprise the symphony of place and spirit to come together, then it the simplicity merges into the greater whole… the basic components aggregates and compounds into what we realized in our simplicity as a place worthy of international conservation status…