For a brief while, this Substack consisted of the semi-fictional journal notes of Archibald Campbell, wild artist. This evolved into its current form — Journal Meditations of a Working Artist in January 2025.
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Long time Heron Dance readers may remember Archibald Campbell, wild artist and paddler of wild rivers. Back in the waning days of Heron Dance as a print publication, I introduced his fictional private journal. It received the strongest positive response of any of my work over the last thirty years. Other subscribers really disliked it. In fact, more than a few really, really disliked it. I got hate mail. Archibald resulted in many cancelled subscriptions. He was, you see, prone to erotic misadventures with adventurous women, including with his nude models. Perhaps the most controversial of the Heron Dance issues that drew from his journals was The Song I Came To Sing. If I can find the time later this year, I’ll offer it as a Kindle and as a PDF along with other Heron Dance back issues.
After decades of life as an artist in the big city, interspersed by occasional wilderness canoe trips in the Canadian north, and after decades of learning, reading, of success and failure, Archibald Campbell returns to the woods of his youth and lives a quiet existence among the huge white pines and remote lakes of Algonquin Park in Ontario, Canada. He spent summers there in his youth, paddling lakes, running wild rivers and sleeping under the stars, the only human for miles. Now he lives in a small cabin, reads and thinks, paints and wanders around in the woods. At night, he can sometimes hear wolves howl. In the fall, the woods reverberate with bellowing moose. Archibald meditates and records in his journal the thoughts that bubble up.
Archibald is now eighty years old. Wild women and chaos are more or less distant memories. What remains is his deep affinity for wild nature, for bird song. In his journal, he explores new creative avenues including abstract painting. He studies the work of other artists and reads a lot — novels, memoirs, biographies and the journals of people who have tried to get a lot out of life, who have lived on some edge or other. He’s particularly taken by the poetry of the ancient Taoist hermit monks of the south China mountains. In his journals, he copies down excerpts from books that capture his imagination. He reflects on the long wilderness canoe trips in northern Canada of his younger years. He has a few close friends. They light up his life. Mostly though, he avoids human interaction. He might be described as part Thoreau, part Jayber Crow, part Harlan Hubbard, part Edmund Hillary, part Sigurd Olson. And part me — how I envision my life might be at the age of eighty — not that many years from now.
Archibald allows me the creative freedom to make up stories, and in the process explore deeper truths. I can imagine how my life might evolve. I can explore difficult questions at the center of a human life — questions that journaling can help us come to terms with — including difficult questions we’d each rather avoid. Those questions ultimately help determine what we get out of life.
An examined life is worth living.
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The online Journals of Archibald Campbell, Wild Artist are published three or four times a week. Each post contains at least one painting, some realistic, some abstract. Some reach into dreamworlds — vague semi-abstract images from the imagination of artist Roderick MacIver, the founder and creator of Heron Dance.
In his journal, Archibald poses questions helpful in his efforts to live a creative life, a big life, a life of adventure and curiosity. A quality life. The questions explored are sometimes uncomfortable; the quality of our lives is impacted by the questions we’re willing to consider in an openminded, wholehearted way.
For an exploration of the profound insights the combination of journaling and meditation can offer, read a draft of the introduction to an upcoming book here.
The free version of The Journals of Archibald Campbell, Wild Artist is published twice a month. Visit here to receive.
Members receive the posts 2-4 times a week. For a description of what else Members receive, visit here.
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A historical note — in the mid-1600s, Archibald Campbell was the MacIver clan’s nemesis in Scotland. As a result, there are many more Campbells in the world today than MacIvers. I remember, as a child of seven, telling my grandfather that my closest friend’s name was Duncan Campbell. “Aye,” he responded, “a black Campbell. Never trust a Campbell.” He then spit into the ground at our feet.
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Spring Song
I walk these woods full of joy,
Thinking back to my youth
Of tadpoles and redwing blackbirds
Of rubber boots half full of water
And marshes full of song.New life fills these woods today
Even the wind feels fresh and new.
Somehow, in these woods,
I too am full of new life
Leaning back against
A great old white pine.
- Archibald Campbell, in his journal
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To view a larger version of the art and words in this post, go here.
Best 80th birthday well wishes to ya! Enjoy the flowering of your 80th decade on this still beautiful planet!