Earth Whispering is an in process collaboration between Victoria Zolnoski, Darryl Rogers, http://darrylrogers.com and Diana Gonsalves Hansen, https://mountainhollowmedicinals.com. Connecting through Instagram Rogers has been editing Zolnoski’s footage of Medicine Woman Hansen interacting with the Vermont landscape throughout the seasons. While the term “whisperer” has come to mean someone who has perfected a magical skill the use of the verb is deliberate. It is not the label or end product, but the actual entering and participating with nature that is important to these three. Please see the Collaboration section for the videos.
Zolnoski Artist statement:
The quest for beauty has haunted me since I was a little girl. For me it has always been found in nature, which is the source and foundation of oneness on Earth. Beauty is the interconnectedness of all creation; it cannot be defined by value, worth, even goodness or veritas. Those are human labels that remove us, smack of judgment, and perhaps thoughts of superiority. We allow the rest of nature to retain oneness, but separate ourselves from the equation. This is a human problem. When we sense beauty we recognize our real relationship to the rest of the world, that we are not removed, isolated or alone (only by our minds and making). Beauty is the recognition of our unity with the greater universe; it opens all senses, creates belonging and purpose: to care for each other, the earth and all of her inhabitants.
I believe in a new Environmental Romanticism, artists capturing the earthly sublime to the full pendulum swing of environmental horror we are currently witnessing on earth. The past misconception that Romanticism is naïve can be proactively replaced with art and education that supports species survival/restoration and human rights.
"What will chiefly be remembered about the scientific revolution will be the way in which it scoured the appearances clean of the last traces of spirit, freeing us from original, and for final, participation .... The other name for original participation, in all its long-hidden, in all its diluted forms, in science, in art and in religion, is, after all — paganism." (Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances)