an undeniable love

Anna reading at Payne Hollow

An undeniable love for the river drew us away from town and down to the shore; the boat we built there was to carry us into a new existence. This regeneration gave a direction to our lives that Anna had never before contemplated; for me it was the fulfillment of old longings; yet we were both led on by a common desire to get down to earth and to express ourselves by creating a setting for our life together which would be in harmony with the landscape.

We catch fish for our own eating, get all our living as direct means as possible, that we may be self-sufficient and avoid contributing to the ruthless mechanical system that is destroying the earth. 

In this endeavor, no sacrifice is called for, no struggle or effort of will. Such a way is natural. Rather than hardship, it brings peace and inner rewards beyond measure.

Thus shantyboating has become, for us, a point of view, a way of looking at the world and at life. You take neither of them too seriously, nor do you try to understand their complexities. Who can? It is an obviously illogical philosophy, in which the individual is supreme. The claims made on him by his inner beliefs are above the demands of society. He is not without compassion, but his love is expended on those of his fellow men he is in contact with. With no schemes for universal betterment, he tends his own garden.

Is this selfish? No. The selfish man wants more than his share, a higher seat at the table than he is entitled to. One strong enough to stand by himself is not attracted by the prizes which the world offers. He has his own values, receives other rewards, for which there is no competition.

Instead of trying to make everyone alike, the state and society should encourage individualism. Individuals will never be too numerous; in fact, they are becoming harder to find. The river shantyboater has passed away, along with the old river; yet a few renegades will always be found, out in the brush somewhere, or on a forgotten bit of river shore, content with an environment the proud would scorn. The shantyboat strain is not likely to be cultivated out of existence, any more than the earth will ever be completely subdued.

~ Harlan Hubbard

excerpts from Payne Hollow: Life on the Fringe of Society

a shantyboat in winter - by Harlan Hubbard

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between human beings

Harlan disliked handling money because of its abstractness and impersonality; for he did not enjoy either paying it or receiving it in payment. He felt a social embarrassment in monetary transactions that country people still feel, as if money is simply too crude a means of exchange between human beings.

~ Wendell Berry

from Harlan Hubbard: Life and Work

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a river tugs

A river tugs at whatever is within reach, trying to set it afloat and carry it downstream.  Living trees are undermined and washed away.  No piece of driftwood is safe, though stranded high up the bank; the river will rise to it, and away it will go.

The river extends this power of drawing all things with it even to the imagination of those who live on its banks.  Who can long watch the ceaseless lapsing of a river's current without conceiving a desire to set himself adrift, and, like the driftwood which glides past, float with the stream clear to the final ocean?

~ Harlan Hubbard

from Shantyboat - A River Way of Life

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sawing firewood

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Probably no moon has furnished me with as much light as this one,  in this clear weather.  Now it is past full, and I can arise before daybreak and see my way about, sawing firewood.  One feels alone on the earth, no sounds, no lights, anywhere, unless a boat passes.  In a light fog, as this morning, the isolation is even more strongly felt.  It brings peace, contentment and a sure faith that all is well.

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~ Harlan Hubbard

from his journal, Dec. 28th, 1958

woodcut by the author

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wonderment and a delicious trouble

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This is the spirit that Beauty must ever induce, wonderment and a delicious trouble, longing and love and a trembling that is all delight.  For the unseen all this may be felt as for the seen;  and this is the Soul's feel for it, every Soul in some degree, but those the more deeply that are the more truly apt to this higher love - just as all take delight in the beauty of the body but all are not stung as sharply , and those only that feel the keener wound are known as Lovers.  These Lovers, then, lovers of the beauty outside of sense, must be made to declare themselves.

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~ Plotinus

from the Enneads 

woodcut by Harlan Hubbard

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life partakes of the freshness

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Our zest for the river did not wane...

We went on in much the same way, in surroundings which had become familiar, 

with not even a flood to make the year memorable.

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Ruts, however, are worn only in traveled ways on land: 

a river life partakes of the freshness of the river itself.  

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Each rise and fall affords a new outlook 

and gives to a well-known shore the feel of one 

at which you have just landed for the first time...

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~ Harlan Hubbard

from Shantyboat Journal

edited by Don Wallis

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I am fishing with the one who made the river

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When I go out on the water at night, and as I bait hooks, watch Cassiopeia, rising in the eastern sky, draw up her fishingline, Perseus with the misty Pleiads as bait and bright Venus caught, and then all grow dim in the faint beginning light of dawn, then I feel that I am fishing with the one who made the river and set her flowing.  I feel its length and sinuous flowing, fed by swift streams in the wooded eastern mountains; and somewhere, through a country unknown to me except by hearsay, past the mouths of new rivers and towns known only by name, it will at last enter an ocean and lose its identity, as I will too, at the end of my devious flowing.

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~ Harlan Hubbard

from Shantyboat Journal

edited by Don Wallis

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Time became as smooth and even as the current

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I worked too hard and furiously about the boat last week, trying to get the interior more or less complete, so as to get at the construction of a johnboat.  But I suddenly came to myself, realizing that none of it mattered a great deal, and I was losing much by my absorption in it.  We are really comfortable here, with the chores inside and out easy enough to do.  All that we plan to do will make for added comfort, convenience and neatness, but will come in time, and leisure must be had for other activities and for just living, or we will miss our way.

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Time became as smooth and even as the current outside our windows, and we began to realize our true aims in coming to the river... 
I had no theories to prove.

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~ Harlan Hubbard 

bookcover art by the author

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The earth is hushed

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The bright moon lights the path

through the gray woods

From the unlit depths of the hollow comes

the soft sound of broken water

A faint brightness, or is it a low cloud

within the eastern sky

The earth is hushed

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~ Harlan Hubbard

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I see through my pictures

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Harlan's studio at Payne Hollow

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When I am painting, or have painting in my mind, 

I see more, observe more carefully, am more sensitive... 

I see through my pictures.

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I see everything as a painting. I see so much more.

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Seeing things as a painter, seeing pictures.  

This is a great happiness.

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It brings everything into balance and harmony.

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Painting can only be done in some state of exaltation.  

It is a force that breaks through the routine of life, 

that transcends life itself.

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It is exciting with boundless possibilities.

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I am always painting in my mind.

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Just a little solid, creative painting and the day is good.  

It brings us closer to the earth, 

makes the present moment exhilarating, 

the future hopeful.

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It is a strange life when I consider it, 

how I endeavor to attain strength and clarity, 

to mold these base materials into forms which will express me, 

and my attitude, my joy and thankfulness.  

I work alone, 

who cares whether I produce anything or not, 

or who appreciates it?  

Yet I believe a good thing will not perish.

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~ Harlan Hubbard

from "Harlan Hubbard and the River - A Visionary Life"

by Don Wallis

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their graciousness is an invitation

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 a bell is placed across the river for visitors to ring, 

their graciousness is an invitation

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"There is a fascination about the distant tones of the bell sounding across the river.  

Who is there, with what news?  

Is it a dear friend long unseen, 

or a stranger whose coming will change the course of our lives?"

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~ Harlan Hubbard

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I will be watered to my roots

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A pale sun burning through the mist, 

the soft clouds barely visible in the gray, blue sky... 

Looking up the river I saw a bolt of lightning, 

an arrow from the sky that pierced the earth.

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A soft rain comes down from the gray sky, 

and sullen thunder rolls into the distance.  

My spirit drinks in the rain like the plants do.  

I will be watered to my roots.

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It is suddenly full summer.  

We look out from leafy trees.

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The fragrance of wild grape and honeysuckle 

flowers drifts through the air.  

You enter and leave currents of it as you go along the paths.

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In the leafy woods there is such contrast to the sunlight

 that the shade is like twilight, 

like going down into a deep ravine.  

The pale green of the jewel weed is ghostly... 

Then to hear the thrush singing on the hill above...

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I think I saw the first green heron.  

Yes.

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~ Harlan Hubbard 

from his journals, taken here from

"Harlan Hubbard and the River - A Visionary Life"

by Don Wallis

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choosing drifting

a shantyboat community by the river's edge.  

After building their "shantyboat," out of mostly salvaged materials, 

Harlan and Anna set out on the river, 

drifting.

I had no theories to prove. 

I merely wanted to try living by my own hands, 

independent as far as possible from a system of division of labor 

in which the participant loses most of the pleasure 

of making and growing things for himself.  

I wanted to bring in my own fuel and smell its sweet smoke 

as it burned on the hearth I had made.  

I wanted to grow my own food, 

catch it in the river, or forage after it.  

In short, I wanted to do as much as I could for myself, 

because I had already realized from partial experience 

the inexpressible joy of so doing.

This is a windy day with a secret exhilaration about it. 

When I look at the rough water patched with cloud shadows, 

the boat pitching slightly in the wind waves -

 all this from a higher plane somewhere above these little affairs.  

Yet they are a part and lead into it. 

The pure delight of drifting.  

Each time, it was a thrill to shove out into the current, 

to feel the life and power of the river, 

whose beginning and end were so remote.  

We became a part of it, like the driftwood... 

The tension and excitement, the near ecstasy of drifting.  

We had to stop often and take it in small doses.

~ Harlan Hubbard

from Harlan Hubbard and the River - A Visionary Life

by Don Wallis

block prints by Harlan Hubbard

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snug harbor

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To achieve more perfect

harmony with the river

and at the same time 

live close to the earth

... I became a shantyboater

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~ Harlan Hubbard

from Harlan Hubbard and the River - A Visionary Life

by Don Wallis

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a man and a horse

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There is a story in Zen circles about a man and a horse. 
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The horse is galloping quickly, and it appears that the man on the horse is going somewhere important. Another man, standing alongside the road, shouts, 'Where are you going?" and the first man replies, I don't know! Ask the horse!" This is also our story. We are riding a horse, we don't know where we are going, and we can't stop. The horse is our habit energy pulling us along, and we are powerless. 
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We are always running, and it has become a habit. 
We struggle all the time, even during our sleep. 
We are at war within ourselves, and we can easily start a war with others.

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~ Thich Nhat Hanh

from "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching"

art: "Summer" by Harlan Hubbard 

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longing for your giant self

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In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: 

and that longing is in all of you.

But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea, 

carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest.

And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends 

and lingers before it reaches the shore.

But let not him who longs much say to him who longs little, 

"Wherefore are you slow and halting?"

For the truly good ask not the naked, 

"Where is your garment?" 

nor the houseless, 

"What has befallen your house?" 

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~ Kahlil Gibran

from "The Prophet"

art: "Shantyboats at Sunrise"

by Harlan Hubbard

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the art

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When I paint a landscape,

I try to paint heaven,

and my joy at being there.

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There is no artist,

living or dead,

whose work would satisfy me

as an expression of my life.

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Nothing was ever painted 

that I would like to have done.

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No one ever expressed me.

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My painting could not have been done by anyone else,

nor in the past.

It is growing more and more unique and personal.

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The beauty of the snow, 

the pleasure of seeing it

and being out in it.

To express that is the end of art.

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I would like my paintings to be as real as the rain and stones,

yet transcend reality into sublimity.

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My pictures follow their own course.

I draw the geographic form, but as the painting goes on,

there springs up a design which is unpredictable,

unconscious, and as perfect as my sense of harmony makes it.

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~ Harlan Hubbard

from his journals, taken here from

"Harlan Hubbard and the River - A Visionary Life"

by Don Wallis
art: "Crossing the River"
 by Harland Hubbard
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a more direct revelation

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Much as I admire the Christian principles and teaching, 
and the people ... who follow them,

...for myself I require a more direct revelation, 

not one that must come through so many minds before it reaches mine.  

I must have a faith that I can see and hear, 

one that I can feel without thinking or even trying to put it into words.  

It is not for anyone else, it is a personal faith.

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~ Harlan Hubbard

.from his journal, 1959


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I must break forth from my old self

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Now I must break forth from my old self,

cast away old traditions,

unbind my eyes,

so that I may have a broader vision of truth;

so that I may come to this river, as I do today,

and not find it cluttered with emotions and thoughts of former days;

or its shore lined with drift of cities.

I must see the elements as they are...

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~ Harlan Hubbard

from his journal, quoted here from

"Harlan Hubbard and the River - A Visionary Life"

by Don Wallis

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After Anna's death

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He was not lonely because he had no desire to return to the past: 

"I am not one of those who enjoy thinking of their past life.  

For me, it is gone, and I have no desire to resurrect it even in thought."  

He saw the pain and imperfection of the past, and he did not want it back. 

The present was enough; it was all he asked.  

And the present provided him sufficient company.  

He was newly and generously mindful of the creatures who lived with him in Payne Hollow:  

"This hillside is common ground for me and the little wild animals who live here."  

He was attentive as perhaps never before to the presence of possum and chipmunk, 

cricket and katydid, bullfrog and dove.  

When he woke long before dawn, the night song of the katydids 

would be dwindling toward silence: 

"Each squawk you think is the last; but no, some diehard starts afresh.  

Sometimes I lie awake listening.  

Surely now the night is over, but no, not yet.

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~ Wendell Berry

quoting Harlan Hubbard in

Harlan Hubbard - Life and Work

art by Harlan Hubbard

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