A few days ago,I had a conversation about hiking and exercising in (Germantown)Philadelphia,PA,USA with a neighbor.We talked about short cuts in reaching the picturesque areas in the park. I had one trail to enter the Wissahickon Valley Park area and he had several.The talk led to his mention of a group of Hermits who settled into the caves in the area in the late 1600s. I thought of the area and the cave in which I filmed the short film,Flash Mc Cool:Imagination.I had never researched the history of the area before I filmed the short film there but when near the film location I saw a small plaque about a hermit cave near the film location area.The hermit area with the sign was gated and locked. One eighth of a mile away was our film location, with a cave set on a hill.This was the site of the opening and closing scenes for my short film.
Today, I recalled the conversation with my neighbor and looked up some information about the hermits in the Wissahickon Valley Park area.The site was
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissahickon_Creek
The irony of what I learned is eerie.Not only was I filming in a spiritual
area for the historical hermitage but also in a spiritual area for the Lenape
(i.e. "the people" ) Delaware Indians.The famous historical area was also
cited by Edgar Allen Poe, John Greenleaf Whittier and even Mark Twain.The entire
matter becomes stranger when, after the 2004 debut of my short film from September
2004 to December 2004 at The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia,PA,
the Bryn Mawr Film Institute in January 2006 and the Ohio Sandy Valley Short film festival in March,2007, I learned that M. Night Shyamalan also recently shot some scenes for The Last Airbender in the same Wissahickon Valley Park.
Curiously, I had also designed this blogsite with meditative and mystical references.
Was this a mere coincidence? Or were the forces of Nature truly operative in the
design of this blog ? I invite you to read about the park in the above wikipedia link and tell me!
Somehow my closing scene in my short film is more magical than I thought.
_________
The above was blogged in 2010 . Now, in 2018 I learned of an area of houses that were built atop an
ash-filled waterfall. Yup, just at the top of Washington Lane near Wayne Ave bridge, there was a waterfall
and stream where Native Americans watered their horses back in the day.I understand that the
PA Historical Museum has old photographs of the area with the Indians on horseback.
I will take the time to research the legend and give some feedback later. In the meantime,
check out the following link,
http://www.lucinedistribution.com/Flash%20McCool.html
to see what happened to the legend of
Flash Mc Cool .
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