Under the Forest Canopy, Above the Forest Floor by Michiel Schepers

under the forest canopy observations by Michiel Schepers

above the forest floor

Artist in Residence at Refugio Amazonas, Tambopata Research Centre and Posada Amazonas Peru, December 2014 - Janurary 2015

Text and images copyright Michiel Schepers, Leiden 2015

To those who love the forest, to promote that love, without which the preservation of the dwindling forests is impossible.

inside Simply to stay in the interior of the rainforest, surrounded by leaves, in the heat and the rain, sheltered by the canopy â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that was my sole wish. To stroll from tree to tree, just glancing up at birds and monkeys, musing. No more. To sketch the leaves and the trees, of course. But above all, to bask in the shade.

the fullness No place is as full as the interior of the rainforest. It is deserted but filled with growth and decay of every description. Nobody lives there. Where nobody lives nothing happens and nothing changes. It has long ago achieved this final state. Before man inhabited the continent the interior of the Amazon forest must have looked just as it looks today. There may be several forest types here, different weather conditions and countless life cycles, but little progress or change. I call that perfection. It is physically hard to look at the vegetation. It is hard for the eye to settle on anything. The vegetation is dense and intricate, without the guiding geometry of human constructions. At first, my gaze gets caught in the vegetation. It breaks loose and hurries on. Yet there is room enough for my bodily passage. The tropical forest baffles the eye because there is so much so close together and so finely shaped. Every shape is intersected by others. Tree trunks and leafy branches cross in front of each other, crossing each other out, as it were, leaving mere texture. Through the trees I see more distant, more fragmented trees and foliage. In the distance they are even harder to keep apart. All is dipped in shade, sprinkled with shards of sun. Otherwise, a walk through the primeval forest is just like a walk in the woods at home. But here in the Amazon it is a walk outside civilization! Who would have thought that the world outside civilization is so peaceful, so untroubled! Here, in the uneventful fullness of the rainforest the green earth culminates. Nowhere is the earth more richly adorned. When I behold its winding corridors from within, walled in by trees and layer upon layer of leaves, frequented by wild creatures, I realize I cannot go any further. There is no more.

outside civilization For five weeks I strolled twice daily straight out of a tiny outpost of humanity into a primeval state of nature. A most extraordinary privilege! The trails that led out into the wilderness were manmade, but a few steps off the trail there was nothing to remind me of this century or of any century. Off the trail there was no trace of man. I came upon game tracks that led into the vast trailless tracts of forest that I had seen from the air. I followed those tracks a little way into that vastness. But I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to go far. A few steps outside the clearing the forest already displayed its fullest profusion. Outside human development there is no further development. It is a rare joy to see that the world happily continues where civilization ends, a rare chance to see what the earth is like before people clear the primordial forest. What a contrast with the settled land around Puerto Maldonado a few hours downriver! Instead of straight lines and distant prospects the forest interior offers a close fabric of organic shapes. Thin stems wriggle up from the leaf litter, hesitant like slow pencil lines. Flat leaves spiral up the stems, to end in a rosette or star of leaves, here and there topped with flowers. Further up, the foliage fans out like the spray of breaking waves. Tree trunks undulate out of sight above me, and vanish in the canopy.

the stillness Nothing stirred, most of the time. Once a big branch came crashing down in a squall, just before the rain came. Once a piece of riverbank collapsed in the eddies of the swollen river. That was all. Nothing else happened. Happenings are human. The uninhabited wilderness is uneventful. Every so often a rustling noise would draw my attention to a leaf tumbling down from the canopy. There was an event! Would it make it all the way down or get caught in a spiky palm frond? The fall of that leaf made me think of one tiny pinnacle of poetry: No stir of air was there, Not so much air as on a summerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s day Robs not one light seed from the feathered grass But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest. With that last line Keats catches the stillness of the forest. That comma indicates a long pause, a pause in which nothing changes in the position of the landed leaf. Even the populous highways of the leafcutter ants did not move, unlike the ants themselves. In one lane all the ants carried nail-sized fragments of leaf to their nest. Those green flags swayed but did not move out of line. In the other lanes the unburdened ants returned empty-handed to their worksites. Every day my path rejoined theirs. My path was deserted; their highways were full, though never congested. The forest doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to exert itself to achieve its quiet splendour. There seems to be a lesson in its stillness, but that lesson doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t apply to human affairs.

wildlife observation No wonder ecotourism revolves around wildlife viewing! Looking for birds and monkeys and spiders offers much-needed suspense. Without wildlife the visitor might get bored â&#x20AC;&#x201C; or oppressed by the silent forestâ&#x20AC;Ś Suspense draws excitement from what is not yet there. It confines the trees and the leaves to the background. The baffling texture of the vegetation becomes a modest background for blue-and-yellow macaws, red howler monkeys and other spectacular creatures. The forest is a difficult thing to admire in itself. But just that I have long ago decided to do: to discover what is already there and not to wait for hidden creatures, which show up in their own time. The forest is not an aviary, nor primarily an animal sanctuary, though famously rich in birds, insects and mammals, most of them hard to see. The forest is first of all the home of trees and plants. The animals demonstrate the hospitality of that home. Flowers and butterflies do the same. For me spotting wildlife is essential for getting a lively sense of our shared habitat. If the rainforest were not inhabited by animals and insects it might appear mournful, like the temperate Chilean forests I visited a few years ago. The creatures commend the place, just as the flowers do. The ant birds for instance can be counted on in their different habitats, in specific forest chambers where they belong and where I am their guest. These birds differentiate the endless domain, as their plumage and song grace their own specific kind of terrain â&#x20AC;&#x201C; bamboo thickets, palm groves, dry higher ground or damp flood plain. Thus all the denizens of the forest adorn their specific territory with their presence.

drawing When the cultivated art of drawing is taken outside civilization, who knows what it will draw out of the wilderness? I bring the art of drawing to the forest to see what close observation reveals. The forest is more perplexing, more challenging, and perhaps more rewarding than any other motif. Drawing shows that rooted vegetation is at least as wonderful as the winged, furry and scaly creatures that enliven the scene. The habitat is no less worthy of attention than its inhabitants. It is after all also my present habitat. The rainforest is much more than a painting motif. It is a boundless domain, unoccupied by mankind, but welcoming to anyone who cares to go and enjoy it. The painting motif swallows the painter. Art becomes a subordinate instrument. It is useful to make me stop and slow down my wandering eye. Compared to sketching birdwatching is a hectic pastime. The result of drawing is intimacy. Close attention creates a strong bond with the inanimate motif. Drawing is animation; it animates shapes and shades that otherwise remain dull and negligible.

the welcoming forest The rainforest may look untidy, but is in fact clean. The trails may be muddy, but the water standing on the mud is clear. Primary forest is not like the impenetrable jungle that fills the clearing with thorny vines. Old-growth forest is semi-transparent. I wander off, and without much difficulty pick my way through the undergrowth, stepping carefully around the barbed bamboo shoots, skirting islands of thick vegetation on the otherwise open forest floor. As I wade through puddles and inundations my feet stay dry and cool in my rubber boots. As I have no other destination than the forest itself, it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter very much where I go. There are mosquitoes, heat, rain and the fear of getting lost. But thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all. The forest welcomes me with a thousand beckoning leaves, and dozens of tantalizing calls from as yet invisible creatures. How clear it all appears when I get used to the confusion! How sober, what at first appears so exotic! The iconic palm tree is here as ordinary as willows and poplars along Dutch canals. I learn to distinguish the whistles of the frogs from those of the birds, and to identify some of the most strident calls, locating their source in the tiny birds of the undergrowth. When I follow the beckoning leaves and get deeper into the bush, the forest turns into an extension of myself. The vegetation stretches from my feet and fingertips and eyebeams outward, while remaining closely wrapped around me. Just ahead of me it dissolves into a shimmering green veil, in which I vanish. As I move on, the forest moves along with me. The dark sandy soil or clay underfoot, thinly covered with black decaying leaves, littered with flowers from invisible trees, is my small but sufficient stage. If the towering trees find a solid foothold there, how then should it not support me? What I leave behind me along the trail I lose sight and sense of. The memory cannot retain it. The present spot is my entire outlook and fulfilment. It is all there is to me. 11

the forest mood Because the forest completely surrounds me it generates a pervasive though delicate mood. Butterflies and birds merely contribute to this mood with a flash of colour or a strain of song. The bugs add and subtract their part. The rain contributes. The independent-minded monkeys hardly affect it. The countless shades of shade that survive only in these forests make up a large part of it. I bring my own temper. The forest mood hangs there, in the air, under the trees, in me. It is not a romantic or exotic mood so much as a non-nonsense or plain state, in a world where plain states of being are rare. Though the air is very hot and makes me sweat, the mood in the forest is cool. The mood of the forest, or the sense of being there is delicate, easily dispelled by practical concerns. Those practical cares must be left aside to make room in the mind for the soft voices and soundless sights of this quietest place on earth, perfumed by delicate and sometimes indelicate odours. When I ignore the sweat running in my eyes, and the mosquitoes ready to land when I stop moving, I sense the mood. I meet the scent of sweetly blossoming vines mixed with that of putrid figs, a whiff of musk from a passing mammal, and the rank odour of mushrooms. As long as I am alert, and do not barge on through the undergrowth, I hear the faint calls of distant birds, which greatly expand my horizon. And as long as I keep observing the pretty leaves in their natural postures just above the ground, the lichened bark of tree trunks rising up on all sides, I see the forest crisp and glowing. The mood of it hovers in the air, in the shade, in the dim light. It is tied up in the tangle. It may be elusive but I cannot miss it. It is everywhere.

the great ceiba tree I allowed one mammoth tree to focus and absorb my attention and become the centrepiece of a studio composition. That composition had to be big to fit even part of the visible parts of that tree. This great ceiba tree stood and still stands a forty-five-minute walk from the Posada Amazonas lodge. I am glad that most of it remained obscured by the surrounding vegetation and undergrowth, to deter photographers. Photographers think they express visions when they merely record sights. This mostly invisible tree was exceptional in sheltering a darker mood in its own shade. There I felt particularly at home. When you are looking for the utmost density of earthly matter this was clearly a great landmark. To depict the forest interior under this great ceiba tree has become my ambition. I am working on the integration of my sketches in one vision, a summary of what I have seen. I am eager to see whether patient work, patiently performed, will not yield the impossible: the forest on paper, its sense intact. The work progresses slowly: the windows in the canopy, through which the treetops are visible, and the leafy interior, closed off from the sky.

the open forest roof The weak spot in the forest interior is the roof. There it invariably leaks. The roof leaks when it rains, but even more so, in the other direction, when the sun shines. The forest mood escapes into the light and the open sky. In the rainforest you are never far from a skylight. Even in the tallest groves the sky invades the forest from above. The invasions of distance and light in clearings where trees have fallen are often welcome, a relief, accompanied by sightings of birds that come down from the canopy where the canopy caves in. But these openings also disturb the shade. The so-called emergent trees provide an extra screen between the heavens and me. The ancient ceiba rose above the canopy like a fortress against the inroads of the sky. Above the immense bulk of its leaning trunk long branches zigzagged like dark lightning across the luminous heaven. The branches were mostly obscured by tall trees underneath. As I stood drawing there, I studied the branches in sections, peering through the gaps, shifting my position in order to follow them. Their dark masses were almost obliterated by the tropical sun. The bromeliads and the orchids that flourish up there remained mostly out of sight. Most difficult to distinguish from below was the ceibaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foliage. It is the finest lacework on the planet, consisting of innumerable hand-shaped composite twirling stars.

animals Among the black spider monkeys I see racing through the crown of a lofty tree, there is one that doesn’t budge, crouching in the fork of a branch, his head in his hands, while the youngsters trip and swing across his back. He doesn’t look up, he doesn’t look at me, he looks depressed. There is emotional life in the treetops, for sure! Vitally, most of that life goes on over my head, unbeknownst to me. It adds to the forest’s independence from us people, with our presumed monopoly on awareness. At dawn or dusk I come upon the source of the most extravagant roar, which always makes me think of lions. It is the howler monkey, a hairy red accent in the green leafage above me. From between his pouting lips the extraordinary low resonance rolls. The birds are an incomparable joy to spot. As the eyes get used to the crowded perspectives of the underwood, all of a sudden a motmot, a trogon or jacamar is sitting there, halfway up, observing me with one eye, a large insect or small serpent with the other. My favourites are the trumpeters, almost flightless fowls of the forest floor, dark with a bright white backside, beacons in the gloom at dusk. At night, walking with tourists behind one of their guides with a powerful flashlight, the invisible whistles I hear in the daytime, which I might have mistaken for birds, turn out to be prettily patterned tree frogs. The fearful wandering spider crouches on its leaf as we pass. The great cat wanders the forest, leaving its prints on trails near the lodge. With my friend Richard at the Research Centre I follow the prints down a dry creek. Two weeks later he spots the spotted beast itself, basking in the sun, yawning, rolling over, and getting up to go.

The Leaf Litter: fallen leaves, 30 x 20 cm

The Leaf Litter: the forest floor, 25 x 60 cm 17

Forest Trees: three studies, 20 x 50, 30 x 80, 35 x 75 cm

Forest Trees: three studies, 20 x 30 cm

The Forest Floor: three studies, 20 x 30 cm

The Forest Floor: study, 20 x 30 cm

Windows in the Canopy: two sketches, 20 x30 cm

Windows in the Canopy: two sketches, 30 x 20, 20 x30 cm

Great Ceiba tree, Posada Amazonas, two studies, pencil and chalk, 20 x 30

Great Ceiba tree, Posada Amazonas, 1st and 2nd stages, 105 x 140

Great Ceiba, Posada Amazonas, final stage, 105 x 140 cm

Tambopata River, from Posada Amazonas observation tower, 60 x 20 cm

Tambopata River at TRC, the Andes in the distance, 80 x 20 cm

communications I I wake up to the sounds of frogs and crickets in the vegetation, rattling of cutlery in the kitchen, the breath of sleepers behind the partitions – no, today no stifled gasps of passion – screeching of macaws, the distant dawn roar of the monkeys. It is very quiet and the silence is full of sound. I am struck by this transparent ether, in which the slightest noises leave their mark. What stirs is registered. With the eyes closed, my ears enjoy complete visibility. Everything communicates with everything else. The guests share their breathing, their conversations, their steps on the boards. The bats rustling between the bamboo partitions share a sense of their cramped quarters with us, more lavishly accommodated. In the dark at night the flutter of their wings shares with us their invisible presence. The monkeys travel in groups, but only one leaps with outstretched limbs between two trees at a time – then another. They cross the chasms and connect the trees on either side. The capuchin monkeys communicate up and down through the trees, cautiously coming down to pick up fallen fruits, fleeing up when I raise my binoculars, waiting a few feet above the ground for the motionless state of the forest to return. When I freeze they start moving again.

communications II I do not notice more than one thing at a time. A so-called â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;mixed feeding flockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of ant birds, tanagers, warblers, tree creepers and woodpeckers all of a sudden surrounds me. I can only pick out one or two species before they all move on. My eye eagerly fastens on one great forest tree, then another. My awareness communicates through this vast domain, that consists of countless discrete things. At night on the trail somewhere overhead the moonlight trickles through the black canopy. The rays find holes in the clouds of foliage above me, and glow in the dry leaves at my feet. I shift until all the intervening foliage moves out of the way and the moon and I can see each other. I greet my friends elsewhere on earth through this great communicator. The river has been high and the levels are now falling as quickly as they rose. Water fallen in the highlands communicates through the vast Amazon basin. In a few days it has run through these lower reaches of the Tambopata to join the waters of the Madre Dios. How long does it take to run into the sweetwater ocean at the mouth of the Amazon? Better not to know; better to know that it is always there, running or crawling between the paramo of the Andean uplands and the Amazon plains. A big hole in the ground, excavated by the armadillo, and tiny clay chimneys built by the cicada connect the surface of the earth with its subterranean parts.

communications III The food chain of the forest is in one spot tied in the tightest knot. The harpy eagle has built his huge nest in the crotch of a tall iron tree high above a mud lick, where peccaries and other mammals gather to supplement their diet with minerals. In a primitive hide we, too, gather and wait patiently until they show themselves. One day I see a family of careless howler monkeys roosting in the trees there. The next day one of their lot is carried straight up to the nest by the harpy. The incident is registered by a visiting film crew, who promptly launch the image on internet, which communicates the spectacle world-wide. But the kill in no way disturbs the peaceful mood of the spot. Stillness and serenity rule as before. The harpy patiently incubates his or her eggs, feeding from time to time like all creatures that get hungry. The peccaries and monkeys, so alert to everything around them remain blissfully unaware of what perches above them. At the dock waiting for a short river run, I watch the departure of a little girl on her way back to town after a holiday. She minds only her mother seeing her off, and the schoolbook in her lap, unaware of the great forest that brings her mother to this lodge to look after us. She appears burdened by the awareness of development, of streets and houses, cars and schoolrooms, which she has brought into this illiterate domain of blank leaves. The long launch with the 75 pk outboardmotor carries the awareness back to where it belongs.

communications IV Some of the tourists are full of the unfinished business they left at home, enterprises whose profits pay for this expensive holiday in the heart of the wilderness. They discuss their affairs with a pisco sour at the bar, thus bringing the global market upriver. Once on the way to the clay lick I asked my favourite of the local guides whether she remembered her dreams. I couldn’t think of anything else to ask. She was a sturdy young local woman who knew her birds, effortlessly handled the party of tourists older than she, and was otherwise candid as a child. Yes, she did remember her dream. When prodded to tell me she said I didn’t want to know. Her dream, that and many nights, had been full of horrors. ‘A cat at my home turned into a bruja, a witch. The witch tried to hurt me. Later she returns again as a cat. I kill the cat.’ This was the only sinister particle I encountered in the rainforest. It had its source elsewhere, back home, and made its way all the way into the forest.

uninhabited lands Unfortunately, the tourist, the researcher and the artist in the vast Tambopata reserve cannot look forward to a glimpse of wild indian tribes. There are none left. Here there is only forest. If there were any non-contactados, roaming with bow and arrow or blow tube through the bush, it would still be impracticable for outsiders to meet them. But they have long since vanished. Their habitat was destroyed, or the forces and temptations of modern life have lured them into the clearing. Some of them find jobs in the timber industry. In season they return to their ancient hunting grounds to gather Brazil nuts. The main reason why the last remaining forests are also the most peaceful places on earth is a sad one: the forest has become incompatible with human settlement. Motorized tools are too powerful, too mobile, too cheap. Man cannot live in the forest without removing it. Primitive tribes cannot remain primitive. These forests are only allowed to remain by enforced protective measures like the control posts along the river. Small farms along the riverbanks are here and there tolerated. There the forest no longer reaches the riverbanks. Temporary visitors like tourists and researchers, birdwatchers and the occasional painter can be accommodated in small though permanent clearings under the large thatched roofs of so-called eco-lodges. Indigenous hunters and local nut gatherers roam more discretely â&#x20AC;&#x201C; furnished with their own privileges. So much the forest can stand, though the outboard engine noises reach a long way from the river into the woods.

myths of danger The forest is not full of danger and ferocious life. Only people pose a hazard for other people, creatures, plants and precious things. Without people the rainforest is safe, even for people. Though a haven for animals, these are ferocious only to their specific prey, defenceless against men with guns, arrows or spears, and notoriously shy. What jungle tales like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Hertzog’s Fitzcarraldo or Aguirre, the unspeakable Cannibal Holocaust, or even Matthiessen’s At Play in the Field of the Lord have in common is an urge to mystify or demonize this tranquil environment. They focus on human conquest, conflict and exploitation, hidden treasure, and encounters with primitive tribes, preferably absorbed in gruesome rituals. They are all quests for something hidden. The trees and the leaves hardly come into view! Even nature documentaries focus incorrigibly on the so-called ‘struggle for life’, gathering as much footage of feeding and being fed on as fits in an hour. The business of feeding and being fed on hardly deserves so much attention. (If it did, we would watch more footage of chicken farms, slaughterhouses and meat factories.) In the field, there are only modest traces of the struggle for life. Nothing happens in the forest; much occurs. Nothing changes except the shapes of things, which curve and zigzag, spread and narrow, grow thick and dark or thin and transparent. Nothing moves except hummingbirds and dragonflies. The vegetation is the main spectacle. I try to paint the timeless, unpeopled, quotidian state of the forest. It may disappoint all those hungry for human interest. But human interest is found outside the forest.

losing the way The trails are barely visible – hardly paths. They are ribbons of trodden leaves or littered clay that differ only from the rest of the forest floor by continuing more or less unobstructed in a given direction. Off the trails the forest floor is also open enough to allow passage, but a course there must of necessity be more winding. As I seek my way around dense stands of bamboo, thorny vines, and trees close together like the bars of a cage I lose all sense of direction. Because points of orientation are absent, and the way off the trails is so roundabout, it is easy, if not inevitable, without the help of a compass, to get lost. The tropical sun is less helpful for orientation than the temperate sun. Our northern sun travels through the south. The tropical sun travels overhead, and remains mostly obscured behind clouds of foliage. I thought I might circle the great ceiba tree I was sketching, to get a back view of its overarching canopy – a view from behind a low but impenetrable area of tree fall, overgrown with vines like scar tissue. I dipped into the tall open forest on the side, went around, ducking under fallen branches, diving through low vegetation, to surface in a tiny clearing with a fragmented view of the sky in what I imagined the right direction. But no trace of the mammoth tree or its wheeling branches. I gave up and went back, through dense and open, dark and light stands of trees. But when I expected to reach the broad towering trunk where I left my backpack, I did not see the great shade looming up, though the forest seemed transparent in all directions. How was that possible; trees don’t just disappear. In all directions except one I could wander for days, for weeks. That was the right moment for a sharp jolt of fear. My greatest aspiration is to lose myself in the forest; my greatest fear to lose my way there.

philosophical objections When we say that is in our interest to save the planet, to protect the forests and waters, to save our resources and spare the environment, or that it is in our interest to stay on good terms with other civilizations than our own, we appeal to the same motive that drives us in the first place to endanger the environment and provoke our fellow-men. We know very well that self-interest serves ourselves at the expense of what surrounds us, and at the expense of who surround us. To appeal to a greater self-interest is monstrous. We should appeal directly to other interests than our own; the interest of our lovely planet and the interest of our distant neighbours. We are proud of growth, personal or economic, without realizing that growth implies immaturity. Mature forest maintains itself without growth, in the sense of increased quantity, and without development, in the sense of increased quality. As mankind evolved outside the forest, flourished, exploded and now knows not where to turn to expand further, the forest stood there, fully grown. We still, childishly, glorify growth. We are good at constructing buildings or rooms that in order to be useful must be rectangular and empty. The forest is good at filling the halls and corridors under the canopy with curved and undulating leafy structures. The rainforest is full but uncrowded. Every branch or leaf has its own discrete living space, is confidently poised, rarely touches its neighbour, enjoys its own dim lighting or translucent shade, open to the air but more or less closed to the great void of the sky. When the light is taken by the foliage above it, it simply withers and drops off. Human construction prepares the ground for habitation and further work. Natural growth prepares nothing but completes itself. This natural completion or perfection makes it worthy of pictorial representation. As for buildings erected for office work or domestic use, they somehow do not need a picture â&#x20AC;&#x201C; their uses are not visual.

the painted forest How could I prefer my modest expressions to the things expressed? How could I prefer my words or images to the real thing? How could the art of painting possibly take precedence over a walk in the woods? Drawing is merely ‘manually supported observation’, as well as an excuse to stop and stay a moment longer among the trees and the leaves on the forest floor. Paintings, executed in the studio, are slightly more. They somehow compete wih the original as the camera records it. My paintings are faithful to my sketches done from nature. Still, they are complex ‘artistic’ summaries of what out there baffles and defeats the eye. I avoid mannerisms and formulaic textures as much as I can. My style is dedicated to the unstyled world around me. The medium is not the message; the message is what transpires from within the interior of the forest. What is that message? No profound mystery, to be sure. No secret truth. Mostly blank leaves, straight, curved and shrivelled.

conclusion The primeval wilderness is a mythical place that really exists, but without mythical dimensions. It doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need them. Its glories are entirely real. Those mysteries are imaginary. The tropical rainforest is not a hostile but a hospitable environment. It is not the scene of savagery but almost entirely deserted and so almost entirely peaceful. Tropical discomforts are a given; tropical comforts and rewards require an effort. To enjoy virgin forest you need to get used to its quiet charms, and develop a keen interest in things not human. Perhaps most precious is the sense of self-sufficiency in which the forest allows us to share. Everything merely is, but visibly so, at least in the eye of the privileged visitor. Without development and without dramatic events, the densely decorated groves, frequented by all kinds of creatures, possess a fullness that precludes further growth. In the clearing outside the forest we find much wanting, necessitating work. In the forest, everything is already there.

acknowledgement

I owe this opportunity to explore the Tambopata forests as artist in residence in three locations to Trelex Art Residencies and Rainforest Expeditions. I am especially grateful to Nina Rodin for the way she organized the residency and for her personal engagement. I thank Kurt Holle and the staff of Rainforest Expeditions, the lodge managers and guest-managers for their helpfulness, knowledge and company. The guides deserve special mention. They helped me to find my way and to distinguish the monkeys and the birds on the trails. They even helped me to realize an old dream: to climb a towering Brazil nut tree by way of a rope. I thank Richard Thompson for his encouragement to go and his company at the TRC, and Mirjam van der Ende for material and emotional support before, during and after the expedition.

For further information, facts and photographs I refer the reader to the relevant websites: Rainforest expeditions: www.perunature.com Trelex art residencies: www.trelexresidency.com Michiel Schepers: www.michielschepers.edicypages.com

e-mail: michielschepers@yahoo.com

May the affection for what lies beyond human civilization prove contagious.