Barren area
Billowing sand dune
Processes of denudation
Inhospitable places provide a sense of something intimate in the unsympathetic. Feeling intimacy augments meaning attributed to existence.
“The immense desert, empty as a bird’s wing, inspired him with promise.” – Mike Bond
During peak
Afternoon heat
Surface intensified
Sand is composed of tiny rock fragments, including quartz, feldspar, gypsum, basalt, and calcite, with a scattering of shell shards sometimes included. As the summer day progresses, sand receives solar energy via the process of radiation. Temperatures as high as 150°F can be attained, sufficient to inflict third-degree burns.
“People have blistered up and had to go to the hospital because of the burns on their feet.” – Gary Felsh
Narrative imagination
Hermeneutic circle
World of action
In general, understanding of each individual part is established by reference to the whole, while understanding as a whole is established by reference to individual parts.
“What is decisive is not to get out of the circle but to come into it the right way.” – Martin Heidegger
Involving extent
Process changes
Static description
Dynamic forces progress at various rates. The underlying drivers of existence are the same in every instance.
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” – Albert Einstein
Dune field
Ascending interval
Equilibrium height
An extensive, asymmetrical, fluctuating hill lacking vegetation, Jockey’s Ridge is the largest active sand dune in the eastern United States. The desert-like conditions can be quite severe.
“The winds blow from the northeast during the winter and from the southwest during the summer, so the sand is constantly blown back and forth, preventing it from blowing away entirely.” – Robin Hallac
Time passes
As it happens
Transfiguration
Sand drift variation emphasizes that somethings change rapidly. Associated unpredictably makes planning difficult even when accounting for instability. The way things are is not the way things will be.
“Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not.” – Stephen King
Secluded beach
Gentle currents
Saltwater lagoon
Many miles of open water stretch between the Outer Banks barrier islands and the mainland, causing the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano on his 1524 voyage to mistake the Sound for the Pacific Ocean.
“A soundside experience differs from the ocean in wave action, water depths and currents.” – Molly Harrison
All the swells
Uniquely identified
Summer brilliance
The essential nature of sand indicates the dynamic nature of change. Present moments are single stationary frames of a continuous shift from one state to another another. Transformation defines existence.
“Sand not only flows, but this very flow is the sand.” – Kobo Abe
Maritime forest
Integrated native
Plant landscape
The Outer Banks shoreline estuary forest community supports a great diversity of native vegetation that is salt, sand and wind tolerant. Just like the dynamic barrier island itself, maritime forests are constantly on the move and evolving.
“But there is another side to this strip of sand, another world of beauty and wonder waiting for the slightly adventurous.” – Danielle Fenyak
Idaho winter
Across the valley
Suspended animation
There is something emotionally compelling felt during periods of temporary metabolic inactivity.
“In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” – Albert Camus