Is your Club or Group looking for an inspiring guest speaker or do you want to host a book signing? . . . Contact Woody today!
* * *
For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” mail a check for $25 to:
Woody Woodburn
400 Roosevelt Court
Ventura, CA 93003
* * *
Darkness as Source of Illumination
The stories stay with me, unforgettable in their clarity, haunting as tales told around a campfire often are.
I speak not of ghost stories, however. And instead of being told to a gathering of youths by an adult, it was the children themselves orating to a camp counselor.
The stories, plural, were really one singular story told time and again to my daughter when she was in college and serving as a counselor/educator at a weeklong summer camp.
Held in the San Bernardino Mountains for 200 disadvantaged fourth- and fifth-graders from the inner city, the retreat offered typical camp activities like arts and crafts and games, horseback riding, singing and dancing.
Also, naturally, there were gatherings around a campfire each night. It was here that one youngster after another said, in different ways but with a shared tone of awe: “Wow! I’ve never seen the stars before!”
Can you even imagine that? Being 10 or 11 years old and, because of light pollution and because you have never before traveled outside the city limits, never having seen stars except on a movie screen or TV or in a book?
Not being able to pick out The Big Dipper or Orion or Cassiopeia is one thing, but to be blind to the twinkling night sky is quite another. This all comes to mind now because of the ninth annual “2018 Wild and Scenic Film Festival” to be held Aug. 18 on the Ventura County Credit Union’s campus on Vista Del Mar Drive in Ventura. (Ticket information: venturalandtrust.org/2018_wsff )
Specifically, “Lost in Light” – one of the festival’s 11 short films – has me thinking of those wide-eyed summer camp kids. Shot mostly in California, the 3-minute film shows how light pollution affects our night skies. Opening with a skyline view of San Jose with the stars completely erased from visibility by Light Pollution Level 8, the time-elapsed scene shifts to Level 7 in Mountain View with a few scattered celestial pinpricks discernible.
The night skies slowly come alive as the film moves through Light Pollution Levels 6, 5, 4 and 3. Reaching Level 2, at Mt. Shasta, the heavens sparkle in breathtaking fashion and in Death Valley, Level 1, the firmament seems like a luminous blizzard where each snowflake is a star.
Other short films (all range from 3 to 17 minutes) at the festival include “Water Take One: Ventura Land Trust” showcasing VLT’s work to protect and preserve Ventura County’s open space and natural resources; “Brothers of Climbing” highlighting diversity in the rock climbing community; “Dragging 235 lbs. Uphill Both Ways” about a mother’s effort to help her four children unplug from electronics and embrace the outdoors; and “Grandad” about a man rising at dawn for a daily meditative journey rowing around a lake.
Back to “Lost in Light.” Filmmaker Sriram Murali writes of his visual creation: “The night skies remind us of our place in the Universe. Imagine if we lived under skies full of stars. That reminder that we are a tiny part of this cosmos, the awe and a special connection with this remarkable world, would make us much better beings – more thoughtful, inquisitive, empathetic, kind and caring.
“Imagine kids growing up passionate about astronomy looking for answers and how advanced humankind would be, how connected and caring we’d feel with one another, how noble and adventurous we’d be. How compassionate with fellow species on Earth and how one with Nature we’d feel.”
Masterful as it is, I wish Murali’s film was one minute longer – with the illuminated faces of children seeing the stars for the very first time.
* * *
Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.
Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …
- Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
- Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon